Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

As the clock ticks down to the midterms, tech needs to ramp up

Ballot box on a keyboard, with a key labeled "vote"
abluecup/Getty Images
Solomon is the h ead of strategy and chief legal analyst for Esquire Digital. He has taught at McGill University and the University of Pennsylvania.

While political pundits are focusing on the massive amount of money that is going to be spent on the 2022 midterm elections, money in itself won't determine the fate of the election and, ultimately, control of both the House and Senate.

Election officials from states across the nation have begun to meet to address many of the challenges they foresee with the 2022 midterm election, with the idea that collaboration and sharing best practices may save the day.

But we need to keep a collective eye on the clock, with just over a year to go until the election. As we saw in the 2016 presidential election, when technology is used to disrupt an election, it takes longer than we expect to fix the issue.

Cybersecurity is one of the key issues that needs to be addressed for the upcoming elections. Political campaigns need to reach voters in safe ways and earn the trust of the voters. While technology has been a huge negative in recent years, one tech giant hopes to play a part in winning back this lost trust.

Google is offering cybersecurity training to state legislators and their teams for the 2022 midterms, a reflection of how far into the mainstream what used to be the stuff of science fiction has creeped. The goal of this training is to sensitize current and prospective lawmakers and their staff to the component parts of the nation's digital defense and to have voters trust the process more than they have in recent elections.

History tends to err on the side of a strong midterm election showing for the party that isn't in power. With a Democratic president and House, and a tie falling the Democrats' way in the Senate, it would not be a surprise to many experts if the Republicans had significant net gains in 2022. Between new voting restrictions and a general fear among some Democrats that it may not be as safe to vote in 2022 as it should be, what role can technology play in getting the kinds of big numbers that all democracies want in key elections, but also in safeguarding people who come out to vote?

Part of the discomfort many people have just over a year out from the 2022 midterms is questions about how safe it will be to vote in person and uncertainty about how widely available advance and mail-in voting will be in 2022. While it is too early to determine how valid these concerns in fact are, it's always perception that counts in determining whether people will actually cast their vote. Anytime people perceive physical threats of violence, it can be really beneficial to find creative uses of technology to help people understand the difference between what they see and hear in the media and actual reality.

Finally, we need to consider what role technology can play to expedite the coming legal challenges to the 2022 midterms. It is conceivable that courts may still be backed up across the nation by mid-2022, when the first legal challenges to election-related issues begin to be filed. If technology can help us quickly get through a lot of cases challenging aspects of the election, this will help prevent an election-related backlog that could slow down the legal process to the point that it essentially moots decisions. In other words, where the courts make a decision about the 2022 midterms with not enough time left to fully implement what the court says needs to be done, this hurts how the election is perceived.

Read More

Entertainment Can Improve How Democrats and Republicans See Each Other

Since the development of American mass media culture in the mid-20th century, numerous examples of entertainment media have tried to improve attitudes towards those who have traditionally held little power.

Getty Images, skynesher

Entertainment Can Improve How Democrats and Republicans See Each Other

Entertainment has been used for decades to improve attitudes toward other groups, both in the U.S. and abroad. One can think of movies like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, helping change attitudes toward Black Americans, or TV shows like Rosanne, helping humanize the White working class. Efforts internationally show that media can sometimes improve attitudes toward two groups concurrently.

Substantial research shows that Americans now hold overly negative views of those across the political spectrum. Let's now learn from decades of experience using entertainment to improve attitudes of those in other groups—but also from counter-examples that have reinforced stereotypes and whose techniques should generally be avoided—in order to improve attitudes toward fellow Americans across politics. This entertainment can allow Americans across the political spectrum to have more accurate views of each other while realizing that successful cross-ideological friendships and collaborations are possible.

Keep ReadingShow less
Congress Must Not Undermine State Efforts To Regulate AI Harms to Children
Congress Must Not Undermine State Efforts To Regulate AI Harms to Children
Getty Images, Dmytro Betsenko

Congress Must Not Undermine State Efforts To Regulate AI Harms to Children

A cornerstone of conservative philosophy is that policy decisions should generally be left to the states. Apparently, this does not apply when the topic is artificial intelligence (AI).

In the name of promoting innovation, and at the urging of the tech industry, Congress quietly included in a 1,000-page bill a single sentence that has the power to undermine efforts to protect against the dangers of unfettered AI development. The sentence imposes a ten-year ban on state regulation of AI, including prohibiting the enforcement of laws already on the books. This brazen approach crossed the line even for conservative U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who remarked, “We have no idea what AI will be capable of in the next 10 years, and giving it free rein and tying states' hands is potentially dangerous.” She’s right. And it is especially dangerous for children.

Keep ReadingShow less
Microphones, podcast set up, podcast studio.

Many people inside and outside of the podcasting world are working to use the medium as a way to promote democracy and civic engagement.

Getty Images, Sergey Mironov

Ben Rhodes on How Podcasts Can Strengthen Democracy

After the 2024 election was deemed the “podcast election,” many people inside and outside of the podcasting world were left wondering how to capitalize on the medium as a way to promote democracy and civic engagement to audiences who are either burned out by or distrustful of traditional or mainstream news sources.

The Democracy Group podcast network has been working through this question since its founding in 2020—long before presidential candidates appeared on some of the most popular podcasts to appeal to specific demographics. Our members recently met in Washington, D.C., for our first convening to learn from each other and from high-profile podcasters like Jessica Tarlov, host of Raging Moderates, and Ben Rhodes, host of Pod Save the World.

Keep ReadingShow less
True Confessions of an AI Flip Flopper
Ai technology, Artificial Intelligence. man using technology smart robot AI, artificial intelligence by enter command prompt for generates something, Futuristic technology transformation.
Getty Images - stock photo

True Confessions of an AI Flip Flopper

A few years ago, I would have agreed with the argument that the most important AI regulatory issue is mitigating the low probability of catastrophic risks. Today, I’d think nearly the opposite. My primary concern is that we will fail to realize the already feasible and significant benefits of AI. What changed and why do I think my own evolution matters?

Discussion of my personal path from a more “safety” oriented perspective to one that some would label as an “accelerationist” view isn’t important because I, Kevin Frazier, have altered my views. The point of walking through my pivot is instead valuable because it may help those unsure of how to think about these critical issues navigate a complex and, increasingly, heated debate. By sharing my own change in thought, I hope others will feel welcomed to do two things: first, reject unproductive, static labels that are misaligned with a dynamic technology; and, second, adjust their own views in light of the wide variety of shifting variables at play when it comes to AI regulation. More generally, I believe that calling myself out for a so-called “flip-flop” may give others more leeway to do so without feeling like they’ve committed some wrong.

Keep ReadingShow less