Public Interest Technology in the Age of AI
April 23, 2025
Technology Humanities Speaker Series
Start time: 4:00 p.m.
End time: 6:00 p.m
Location: Cabell Library, Room 303 (901 Park Ave, Richmond, VA)
Description
The joint public-private deployment of AI systems is unfolding almost invisibly. The philosophies and ambitions that guide these black box systems are also opaque. An emerging frictionless alignment between technology and AI corporations, operating almost as separate sovereigns, and the government is developing. This phenomenon demands a separation of the "AI State" that governs the corporate interests and the "State" that governs the public interests of the people. The separation of Church and State is mandated under the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution. The separation of the AI State and State is now urgently needed as well.
About the Speaker
Margaret Hu is the Taylor Reveley Research Professor and Professor of Law, and Director of the Digital Democracy Lab, at William & Mary (W&M) Law School. She is a Faculty Affiliate with the Global Research Institute and Data Science at W&M, and a Research Affiliate with Pennsylvania State University’s Institute for Computational and Data Sciences. Her research focuses on the intersection of civil rights, national security, cybersurveillance, and AI. She is author of several notable works, including Biometric Cyberintelligence and the Posse Comitatus Act, Algorithmic Jim Crow, and Biometrics and an AI Bill of Rights. She is editor of Pandemic Surveillance: Privacy, Security, and Ethics (Elgar Publishing 2022). She previously served as Special Policy Counsel in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. She holds degrees from the University of Kansas and Duke Law School.