Stanford Radio

The Future of Everything with Russ Altman: "Jeremy Weinstein: Technology in the public interest " Political scientist Jeremy Weinstein has worked at both the White House and the United Nations. In both jobs, he encountered the ethical and policy concerns that new technologies can present to policymakers. As one example, he points to the fierce debate between Apple and national security experts over end-to-end encryption and the challenges investigators faced in accessing data on the iPhones of the perpetrators of a terrorist attack in San Bernardino in 2015. He wants universities, like Stanford, to educate a new breed of engineer that he refers to as a “civic-minded technologist.” These engineers would consider ways in which technological advances could serve the public good, while also thinking critically about the impacts of new technologies on society. In this spirit, Weinstein and two Stanford colleagues, Rob Reich and Mehran Sahami, have begun teaching a new course on the ethics and policy of technolo