Policy Prompt

• In Our Computational World, What Do We Know? (seeing the many worlds with Michael Richardson)

  Show Description:Join hosts Vass and Paul for their fascinating conversation with Michael Richardson, associate professor of media and culture at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, about the ideas in his book Nonhuman Witnessing: War, Data, and Ecology after the End of the World (Duke University Press, 2024). Michael explores the ethical and political implications of witnessing in an age of profound instability, and how our ways of making knowledge and experiencing the world are being mediated in fundamental ways by nonhuman systems — from the embodiment of history, trauma and change in animals and natural landscapes, to the “immediately computational” witnessing by technologies such as surveillance cameras and artificial intelligence.Mentioned:Potawatomi scholar Kyle Whyte: https://seas.umich.edu/research/faculty/kyle-whyteMario Blaser and Marisol de la Cadena, editors, A World of Many Worlds (Duke University Press, 2018)Future of Life Institute: “Slaughterbots are here” (https://autonomousweapons.org/)“The infamous COMPAS [Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions] sentencing software”: see “Code is law: how COMPAS affects the way the judiciary handles the risk of recidivism,” by Christoph Engel, Lorenz Linhardt and Marcel Schubert, Artificial Intelligence and Law, February 2004, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10506-024-09389-8Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence on Automated Decision-Making and Society: www.admscentre.org.au/In-Show Clips:7:17: NDPVIDEO: “Jack Layton on reckless economic policies” (YouTube, December 3, 2009)14:57: Center for Puerto Rican Studies: “Bridging the Divides: Apocalypse and Indigenizing Futures” featuring Yomaira Figueroa-Vásquez and Kyle Powys Whyte (YouTube, February 1, 2024)18:48: ABC News In-depth: “One year on, ABC News looks back at how Australia’s Black Summer bushfire crisis unfolded” (YouTube, January 1, 2021)21:58: Overthink Podcast, “Thinking with the pluriverse: a conversation with Mario Blaser” (YouTube, October 24, 2023)49:22: The Wall Street Journal: “Valkyrie: This Autonomous AI Drone Could Be the Military’s Next Weapon” (YouTube, October 7, 2023)51:12: Future of Life Institute: “Slaughterbots — if human: kill()” (YouTube, November 30, 2021)1:02:20: Testimony of witness Rebecca Wexler, Assistant Professor of Law, UC Berkeley School of Law, US Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Criminal Justice and Counterterorism hearing “AI in Criminal Investigations and Prosecutions” (January 24, 2024)1:03:14: WITNESS: “WITNESS’ Sam Gregory testifies in US House hearing on how we can inclusively prepare for deepfakes” (YouTube, November 8, 2023)Further Reading: Michael Richardson, Nonhuman Witnessing: War, Data, and Ecology after the End of the World (Duke University Press, 2024)Michael Richardson, Gestures of Testimony: Torture, Trauma, and Affect in Literature (Bloomsbury, 2016)Michael Richardson, “Algorithmic Trauma,” in The Affect Theory Reader 2: Worldings, Tensions, Futures, edited by Gregory J. Seigworth, Michael Richardson and Carolyn Pedwell (Duke University Press, 2023)Credits:Policy Prompt is produced by Vass Bednar and Paul Samson. Our technical producers are Tim Lewis and Melanie DeBonte. Fact-checking and background research provided by Reanne Cayenne. Marketing by Kahlan Thomson. Brand design by Abhilasha Dewan and creative direction by Som Tsoi.Original music by Joshua Snethlage.Sound mix and mastering by François Goudreault.Special thanks to creative consultant Ken Ogasawara.Be sure to follow us on social media.X: @_policypromptIG: @_policypromptListen to new episodes of Policy Prompt biweekly on major podcast platforms. Questions, comments or suggestions? Reach out to CIGI’s Policy Prompt team at [email protected].

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• “The Empire of IP”: How Did We Get Here? (talking history of copyright with David Bellos and Alexandre Montagu)

  Copyright has become a tool for privatizing everything — the opposite of what it was designed to do when it was invented in the eighteenth century to protect published works. In their book Who Owns This Sentence? A History of Copyrights and Wrongs (Penguin Random House, 2024), Princeton professors David Bellos and Alexandre Montagu provide a lively account of that turnaround, to the point where “the bulk of American culture is in copyright prison,” the world’s largest companies earn their revenue from intellectual property, and creative rights to everything from wallpaper, computer code, choreography, a “vibe” or a banana costume can be disputed, claimed and monetized. Join Vass and Paul for this engaging tag team with David and Alexandre as they discuss both historical and contemporary examples of the power of copyright and where we might be headed with new technologies such as generative artificial intelligence.Mentioned:Statute of Anne of 1710: www.copyrighthistory.com/anne.htmlLandmark copyright case, Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co. 499 US 340 (1991)Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17): www.copyright.gov/title17/“Fair use in America simply means the right to hire a lawyer to defend your right to create”: Lawrence Lessig in Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity (Penguin Random House, 2005, chapter 12)TRIPS Agreement: www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/intel2_e.htmBerne Convention of 1886: www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/Copyright Act (RSC 1985, c C-42): https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-42/Index.htmlFurther Reading: David Bellos and Alexandre Montagu, Who Owns This Sentence? A History of Copyrights and Wrongs (Penguin Random House, 2024)Lawrence Lessig, Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity (Penguin Random House, 2005)Katy Waldman, “Did a Best-Selling Romantasy Novelist Steal Another Writer’s Story?” (The New Yorker, January 6, 2025)CBC Arts, “Court tosses out another Da Vinci Code plagiarism case” (CBC, November 13, 2006)Associated Press: “Media Talk; Dustin Hoffman Loses Appeals Court Case” (The New York Times, July 9, 2001)Racheal Muldoon and Mark Bailey: “Getty v Stability AI: A ‘tantalising glance’ of what’s to come for AI firms and creators” (Charles Russell Speechlys, January 16, 2025)Kari Paul, “Court of a-peel: nasty split over banana costume leads to legal monkey business” (The Guardian, August 1, 2019)Show Notes:More on copyright history, current questions around legislation, and rights of publicity: BBC Arts & Ideas podcast, “Dickens, Disney and copyright” (with guests David Bellos, Katie McGettigan and Hayleigh Bosher; December 21, 2023)On Creative Commons movement and Wikipedia: Creative Commons, “Celebrating 20 Years of CC Licenses — Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig” (YouTube, April 6, 2022)Credits:Policy Prompt is produced by Vass Bednar and Paul Samson. Our technical producers are Tim Lewis and Melanie DeBonte. Fact-checking and background research provided by Reanne Cayenne. Marketing by Kahlan Thomson. Brand design by Abhilasha Dewan and creative direction by Som Tsoi.Original music by Joshua Snethlage.Sound mix and mastering by François Goudreault.Special thanks to creative consultant Ken Ogasawara.Be sure to follow us on social media.X: @_policypromptIG: @_policypromptListen to new episodes of Policy Prompt biweekly on major podcast platforms. Questions, comments or suggestions? Reach out to CIGI’s Policy Prompt team at [email protected].

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• The Competition Cage Match (Vass Bednar and Denise Hearn weigh in)

  Join the Policy Prompt crew for a different kind of episode: recorded with a live audience at Perfect Books in Ottawa, host Paul Samson interviews Denise Hearn (resident senior fellow at the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, author, applied researcher and adviser) and Vass Bednar (CIGI senior fellow, Public Policy Forum fellow and executive director of the Master of Public Policy in Digital Society program at McMaster University) to discuss “kayfabe capitalism,” and why our nation’s competition policy leaves much to be desired. Listen to learn how Canada can promote competition, encourage citizen engagement and create a more level playing field. Denise and Vass’s book, The Big Fix: How Companies Capture Markets and Harm Canadians, is available now from Sutherland House Press.Mentioned:Denise Hearn and Vass Bednar, The Big Fix: How Companies Capture Markets and Harm Canadians (Sutherland House Press, 2024)Competition Act RSC 1985, c C-34Perfect Books, 258A Elgin St., OttawaFurther Reading: Denise Hearn and Vass Bednar, “We live in the age of kayfabe capitalism” (The Globe and Mail, October 13, 2024)Vass Bednar, “In Canada, we bank where we buy” (The Globe and Mail, May 5, 2024)Jonathan Tepper and Denise Hearn, The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition (Wiley, 2018)Show notes: Vass Bednar’s Lately podcast with The Globe and Mail, centring on trends and key actors in business and techVass Bednar’s Substack, Regs to riches, a newsletter about start-ups and public policyDenise Hearn’s newsletter, Embodied Economics, focuses on today’s economic frameworks and financial structures through a nuanced lensCredits:Policy Prompt is produced by Vass Bednar and Paul Samson. Our technical producers are Tim Lewis and Melanie DeBonte. Fact-checking and background research provided by Reanne Cayenne. Marketing by Kahlan Thomson. Brand design by Abhilasha Dewan and creative direction by Som Tsoi.Original music by Joshua Snethlage.Sound mix and mastering by François Goudreault.Special thanks to creative consultant Ken Ogasawara.Be sure to follow us on social media.X: @_policypromptIG: @_policypromptListen to new episodes of Policy Prompt biweekly on major podcast platforms. Questions, comments or suggestions? Reach out to CIGI’s Policy Prompt team at [email protected].

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  1:16:44
• How Refrigeration Changed Our Palates, Our Plates and Our Planet (a taste of history with Nicola Twilley)

  Is refrigeration really that revolutionary? In this episode of Policy Prompt, the hosts are joined by Nicola Twilley, author of Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves (Penguin Press, 2024) and co-host of the award-winning Gastropod podcast. They explore the “modern marvel” of enjoying fresh foods from around the globe year-round, and the science that makes it all possible.Mentioned:Nicola Twilley, Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves (Penguin Press, 2024)“Gastropod. Food with a side of science and history”Further Reading: Nicola Twilley’s official websiteNicola Twilley, “How to Get Rich From Peeping Inside People’s Fridges” (Wired, July 1, 2024)Nicola Twilley, “How the Fridge Changed Flavor” (The New Yorker, June 8, 2024)Show notes: The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, located in Norway, is home to gene banks that are preserving more than one million seeds from around the world.A remedy for rampant food waste? Nicola Twilley and co-host Cynthia Graber explore “surprise bags” in an episode of Gastropod.Credits:Policy Prompt is produced by Vass Bednar and Paul Samson. Our technical producers are Tim Lewis and Melanie DeBonte. Fact-checking and background research provided by Reanne Cayenne. Marketing by Kahlan Thomson. Brand design by Abhilasha Dewan and creative direction by Som Tsoi.Original music by Joshua Snethlage.Sound mix and mastering by François Goudreault.Special thanks to creative consultant Ken Ogasawara.Be sure to follow us on social media.X: @_policypromptIG: @_policypromptListen to new episodes of Policy Prompt biweekly on major podcast platforms. Questions, comments or suggestions? Reach out to CIGI’s Policy Prompt team at [email protected].

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  1:07:42
• A look at News, Memes, and Wireless Tech from More than 100 Years Ago (Heidi Tworek calls from Germany)

  Before Google and Meta dominated the digital landscape, the news agencies and technologies of the early twentieth century captured unprecedented influence. Join hosts Vass Bednar and Paul Samson in conversation with Heidi Tworek, a leading expert in international history and public policy from the University of British Columbia, as she explains the historic prevalence, power and manipulation of media and wireless technology. Her latest book, News from Germany: The Competition to Control World Communications, 1900–1945, is available from Harvard University Press.Mentioned:Heidi J.S. Tworek, News from Germany: The Competition to Control World Communications, 1900–1945 (Harvard University Press, 2019)Matthew Goldstein, “What to Know About Trump Media Now That the Election Is Over” (The New York Times, November 13, 2024)Caitlyn Becker, “These are the major newspapers that have and haven’t endorsed Trump and Harris” (The Hill, October 26, 2024)Further Reading: Heidi Tworek’s official websiteRobert Diab, “Google’s AI Podcasts Signal a New Era in Media” (CIGI, November 14, 2024)Devin Coldewey, “Generative disinfo is real — you’re just not the target, warns deepfake tracking nonprofit” (TechCrunch, November 12, 2024)In-Show Clips:PeriscopeFilm: “LAYING OF WESTERN UNION TRANS-ATLANTIC CABLE 1928 TELEGRAPH”KTLA 5: “U.S. House passes TikTok ban”PeriscopeFilm: “‘HOW TO READ A NEWSPAPER’ 1950s EDUCATIONAL FILM”BlueLotusFilms: “1950’s Vintage Pharmaceutical Commercials”BBC News: “US journalist Evan Gershkovich jailed in Russia”Credits:Policy Prompt is produced by Vass Bednar and Paul Samson. Our technical producers are Tim Lewis and Melanie DeBonte. Fact-checking and background research provided by Reanne Cayenne. Marketing by Kahlan Thomson. Brand design by Abhilasha Dewan and creative direction by Som Tsoi.Original music by Joshua Snethlage.Sound mix and mastering by François Goudreault.Special thanks to creative consultant Ken Ogasawara.Be sure to follow us on social media.X: @_policypromptIG: @_policypromptListen to new episodes of Policy Prompt biweekly on major podcast platforms. Questions, comments or suggestions? Reach out to CIGI’s Policy Prompt team at [email protected].  

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