The discovery of neuroplasticity is one of neuroscience’s most important recent advances. Dr. Norman Doidge reflects on how technology is rewiring the brain and shares his views on the societal implications of these changes.

Hélène Landemore thinks that for a government to be truly democratic, it needs to involve citizen deliberation. She calls this radical proposal “open democracy.”

We take you back, to when fake news actually meant fake news, with Craig Silverman, the journalist who popularized the term long before Donald Trump. How did those early years of fake and lucrative viral stories made to look like real news get us to a US insurrection?

Nation-states are building arsenals of zero-day exploits and other cyber weapons to stage surveillance, intelligence gathering and military strikes in cyberspace.

It is important to keep that which makes us human at the centre, both when building and using new technology.

Internet trolls dubbed Catherine McKenna “Climate Barbie.” Over her term as environment minister, that online harassment escalated, making meaningful dialogue on what to do about climate change and tech governance almost impossible.

Most people say they care about their digital privacy. And yet we continue to use products and platforms that extract, and then sell, our personal data. Carissa Véliz argues that needs to change.

Much is made of Peter Thiel’s libertarian provocations. But Thiel biographer Max Chafkin says this framing belies the real scope of Thiel’s technological, and political, influence.

Afrofuturism is an aesthetic that centres the Black diaspora in imaginings of the future. What can Silicon Valley learn from Afrofuturists’ concerns with questions of power and about how tech is never neutral?

Since concluding the last season this past August, a lot has happened in the big tech governance and regulation space. Whistle-blower Frances Haugen and the Facebook Papers shone light on social media’s harmful impacts on our society and reignited the debate over how we regulate platforms. There have been employee-led labour movements at Amazon, Uber and Netflix. And Mark Zuckerberg unveiled his vision for a Metaverse and a new company name, Meta. Join host Taylor Owen in conversation with leading experts as they make sense of how technology is transforming our world.

Big Tech returns on Thursday, November 25, 2021. New episodes will be released weekly, every Thursday morning. Subscribe now on your favourite podcasting application.