Carnegie Council Audio Podcast

Now is the moment to extend human rights to encompass cognitive rights proposes Duke Law School's Professor Nita A. Farahany in her just-published book The Battle for Your Brain: Defending the Right to Think Clearly in the Age of Neurotechnologies. She introduces the vast array of devices already deployed that can sample various forms of brain activity. In her book and in this far-reaching Artificial Intelligence & Equality podcast with Carnegie-Uehiro Fellow Wendell Wallach, Farahany outlines how even limited cognitive information collected by neurotechnologies can be combined with other data to enhance self-understanding or manipulate your attitudes or state of mind. For more, please go to carnegiecouncil.org. 

New thinking is needed to ensure high-quality nature-based carbon dioxide removal (CDR) offers genuine and long-lasting benefits to the climate and biodiversity, says Amy Luers, global director for sustainability science at Microsoft Corporation during a C2GTalk. Large-scale removal through CDR technologies lies further ahead, although most of the basic technologies already likely exist. While Luers is not in favor of pursuing solar radiation modification, she says "I am very much in favor of enhancing our understanding of the risks and opportunities it presents, the governance challenges, and how decisions are made around this." For more, please go to C2G's website.

At the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in December, President Joe Biden signaled that "Africa's success is the world's success" and promised visits by his senior leadership, including most recently First Lady Jill Biden, who traveled to Namibia and Kenya on a five-day trip. With 1.4 billion people, 43 percent living in urban centers, and a median age of 19, Africa is host to rising investment, growing private wealth and innovative tech and service sectors. The New School’s Sean Jacobs, founder and editor of Africa is a Country, joins Doorstep co-hosts Nick Gvosdev and Tatiana Serafin to break down what is happening on the ground and the importance of the U.S. re-engaging Africa as the role of BRICS is re-imagined over the next decade. For more, please go to carnegiecouncil.org. 

In the last few years, democracies around the world have experienced dangerous brushes with authoritarianism. Countries such as the U.S., Brazil, and Sri Lanka saw their institutions bend but not break under the weight of illiberal forces. This virtual panel builds upon a special roundtable of essays on healing and reimagining liberal constitutional democracy published in the most recent issue of Ethics & International Affairs, the quarterly journal of Carnegie Council. For more, please go to carnegiecouncil.org. 

Building on a recent article from Anja Kaspersen and Wendell Wallach, Chatham House's Kate Jones says in this Ethics Article that human rights need to be central to a reset of technology and artificial intelligence governance. To read this full article, please go to carnegiecouncil.org. 

Alex S. Vindman, former director for European affairs at the National Security Council, joins Doorstep co-hosts Nick Gvosdev and Tatiana Serafin to assess how the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war has affected U.S. global and domestic priorities. Will President Biden's historic visit to Ukraine's capital and meeting with President Zelenskyy further strengthen the Western alliance and consolidate U.S. policy towards Ukraine? What more can Ukraine expect from its allies? And in the end, what does victory for Ukraine—and the U.S.—look like? For more, please go to carnegiecouncil.org. 

With India now at helm of the G20 and a summit set for New Delhi in September, the South Asian nation is stepping up its star power on the international stage. Harvard Business School's Prof. Tarun Khanna, also director of Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, speaks with Doorstep co-hosts Nick Gvosdev and Tatiana Serafin about why the world needs to recognize this Indian moment—and how this time it will stick. Khanna also explores American's doorstep connection to India and why this will continue to be a source of strength in the U.S.-India relationship. For more, please go to carnegiecouncil.org. 

Now that HIMAR and Patriot missiles as well as Leopard and Abrams tanks are on the way to Ukraine, NATO unity is at a high point, says Carnegie Council President Joel Rosenthal in this Ethics Article. But amid this historic and heroic resolve, and Russia's catastrophic war of aggression, something is missing—a concurrent offensive of diplomacy. To read the article, please go to carnegiecouncil.org. 

In this AIEI podcast Carnegie-Uehiro Fellow Wendell Wallach and Senior Fellow Anja Kaspersen are joined by Ambassador Amandeep Singh Gill, UN Secretary-General Guterres' envoy on technology. During this engrossing conversation, they cover some of the most critical political, security, technical and ethical issues in the current, global discourse on technology governance and the need for new normative frameworks to mitigate against harmful technological applications and secure what the UN refers to as "Digital Commons." Gill also shares his unique insights from a long career as a multilateral diplomat and leader in digital governance and arms control. For more, please go to carnegiecouncil.org. 

Research on solar radiation modification is needed, especially in the Global South, to understand whether it could be an option for reducing climate risk, says University of São Paulo's Professor Paulo Artaxo during a C2GTalk. The planet is currently headed for 3°C global warming, yet the world is still not doing enough to phase out fossil fuels and net zero goals look extremely difficult to achieve. Paulo Artaxo is a professor at the Institute of Physics at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. He is a member of the IPCC, the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (ABC), the World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), and he is vice president of the Academy of Sciences of the State of São Paulo (ACIESP). For more, please go to C2G's website.

What does it mean precisely when German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock says that the Euro-Atlantic community finds itself at "war” with Russia in Ukraine. In this Ethics Article, Senior Fellow Nikolas Gvosdev discusses the technicalities of the West sending aid to Ukraine, the ever-growing risk of escalation, and the oddities of a conflict where all sides are economically connected. To read the article, go to carnegiecouncil.org. 

Leading up to the one-year anniversary of Russia's second invasion of Ukraine, Rachel Ziemba, head of Ziemba Insights and adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, returns to The Doorstep to discuss how the balance of power has shifted across the globe with co-hosts Nick Gvosdev and Tatiana Serafin. How has Russia managed to work sanctions to its advantage and grow its economy in 2022 according to the recent data from the IMF? Which countries are emerging as strategic partners with new supply routes? And if we can't we quit Russia, what does that mean for ending the war in Ukraine? For more, please go to carnegiecouncil.org. 

How can we ensure that the technologies currently being developed are used for the common good, rather than for the benefit of a select few? In this Ethics Article, Senior Fellows Anja Kaspersen and Wendell Wallach write that for effective technology governance to truly materialize, a systemic reset directed at improving the human condition is required. To read the article, please go to carnegiecouncil.org. 

C2G is pleased to announce the launch of its first youth C2GDiscuss, which explores youth perspectives on solar radiation modification (SRM) and its governance in the face of the increasing likelihood that global warming temporarily exceeds (overshoots) the 1.5-2C Paris Agreement limits. Moderated by C2G’s Executive Director Janos Pasztor, a diverse all-youth panel of speakers discuss their perspectives about the risk of overshooting 1.5-2C or even higher levels of global warming and whether they think young people are aware of SRM and the governance challenges it raises. Speakers included: Ineza Grace, global coordinator of the Loss and Damage Youth Coalition and CEO of The Green Protector; Lydia Dai, student in environmental sciences at University College London, Adaptation Working Group facilitator of YOUNGO and regional youth focal point of the United International Federation of Youth (UN1FY); and, John Ferguson, U.S. 2023 Schwarzman Scholar at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China For more, please go to

From racialized notions of subjecthood and civilization in the 18th century to the neoconservatism, neoliberalism, and unilateralism of the 21st century, ideology drives American foreign policy in ways seen and unseen. In Ideology in U.S. Foreign Relations, edited by Ohio State’s Professor Christopher McKnight Nichols, contributors trace the ongoing struggle over competing visions of American democracy. In this virtual event, Professor Nichols speaks with Doorstep co-hosts Tatiana Serafin and Nikolas Gvosdev for a about the ideological landscape of international relations in the United States, from the American Revolution to the war in Ukraine. For more, please go to carnegiecouncil.org. 

Judah Grunstein, editor-in-chief of World Politics Review, joins Doorstep co-hosts Nick Gvosdev and Tatiana Serafin for his annual review of global power shifts. The past 12 months saw economies rapidly pivoting to new markets and technologies as a result of the the Russia-Ukraine War, the protracted shutdown of China and its zero-COVID policy, and other supply chain disruptions. How will this trajectory re-balance power between the Global North and Global South in 2023? Will competition for governance models lead to new ways of managing societies? Can the U.S. effectively engage with the world or will it fall behind? For more, please go to carnegiecouncil.org. 

In this far-reaching Artificial Intelligence & Equality podcast, Weill Cornell's Dr. Joseph Fins discusses with Senior Fellow Wendell Wallach the hype and realities surrounding contemporary neuroscience and neuroethics. He shares insights from his own seminal research on patients who may be mistakenly presumed to be in a vegetative state when they are actually in a minimally conscious state. Indeed, technology may be used to provide these patients with a way to communicate and a modicum of agency. For more, plesae go to carnegiecouncil.org. 

Welcome to the first edition of Ethics Articles. Each week, listeners will have the opportunity to hear an audio version of selected articles from Carnegie Council's team of experts. Today, Carnegie Council President Joel Rosenthal shares his latest column in which he identifies five key trends that will impact ethics and international affairs in 2023. To access a free version of this article and more content from Carnegie Council, please visit carnegiecouncil.org. 

Although pundits and politicians pay close attention to measures like GDP or unemployment, almost no one tracks citizens' wellbeing. Gallup CEO Jon Clifton discusses this "blind spot" in his new book and in this virtual event with Doorstep co-hosts Tatiana Serafin and Nikolas Gvosdev. How did it lead to events like the Arab Spring uprisings or the election of Donald Trump? How can leaders close this important information gap and begin to incorporate wellbeing and happiness indicators? For more, please go to carnegiecouncil.org. 

All Things Have Standing is a course in human psychology and the ethics of artificial intelligence and environmental law inspired by a powerful idea from the audio drama Spark Hunter—that all things have ethical standing. All Things Have Standing is presented by Carnegie Council in collaboration with Fighter Steel Education. Inspired by a futuristic story of a highly advanced AI experiencing existential crisis, All Things Have Standing explores, with leading scholars, AI and environmental ethics, the psychology and philosophy which underlie them, and the extraordinary challenges they raise for the global community. The first three parts, entitled "Our Stories," "Others’ Stories," and "Earth's Stories," were published over the last few weeks. The final part, “Future Stories,” is all available today in seven sections on this podcast. After an introduction from Professor Sheldon Solomon, scholar Wendell Wallach and Professor Shannon Vallor lead an exploration of the ethics of creating, deploying, and living with