The Aspen Institute

The Tech Accountability Coalition, part of Aspen Digital, hosted a virtual session on Wednesday, May 1, about the potential impacts of AI on our democracy.

Moderator Josh Lawson, Director of AI & Democracy at Aspen Digital, led experts at the intersection of tech and government through a discussion of the challenges and opportunities AI presents for maintaining the integrity and fairness of elections in the digital age. We were joined by panelists Miranda Bogen, the AI Governance Lab Director at the Center for Democracy & Technology; Sam Gregory, the Executive Director at WITNESS; and Eli William Szenes, the Political Director at Public Wise.

Speakers

Miranda Bogen (she/her)
Director, AI Governance Lab
Center for Democracy & Technology

Miranda Bogen is the founding Director of CDT’s AI Governance Lab, where she works to develop and promote adoption of robust, technically-informed solutions for the effective regulation and governance of AI systems. An AI policy expert and responsible AI practitioner, Miranda has led advocacy and applied work around AI accountability across both industry and civil society. She most recently guided strategy and implementation of responsible AI practices at Meta, including driving large-scale efforts to measure and mitigate bias in AI-powered products and building out company-wide governance practices.

Eli Williams-Szenes (he/him)
Political Strategist
Public Wise

Eli is a queer political strategist with over 10 years of experience in state legislative leadership, campaign management and political landscape analysis. For the past several years, he has focused on running statewide and national issue advocacy campaigns on behalf of reproductive freedom and voting rights organizations. Eli has a particular interest in the ways using a racial justice lens impacts how we plan campaigns, from research to messaging and voter contact, and is always looking for new research on activating infrequent voters and expanding the electorate to better reflect the nation.

Sam Gregory (he/him)
Executive Director
WITNESS

Sam Gregory is an internationally recognized human rights advocate and technologist, and an expert on innovations in preserving trust, authenticity and evidence in an era of increasingly complex audiovisual communication and deception. As Executive Director of WITNESS, he leads their strategic plan to “Fortify the Truth,” and champions their global team who support millions of people using video and technology for human rights and civic journalism. He has testified in both the US House and Senate on AI and synthetic media and is a TED speaker on how to prepare better for the threat of deepfakes and deceptive AI.