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Video: Is AI a Threat to Democracy? Bruce Schneier Explains What Comes Next
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Is artificial intelligence strengthening democracy or quietly reshaping power in ways we’re not prepared for?
On this episode of Digital Disruption, we’re joined by world-renowned security technologist and author Bruce Schneier.
Bruce joins Geoff to explore one of the most important questions: Will AI strengthen democracy or quietly undermine it? From government services and public policy to cybersecurity, labor, and the justice system, Bruce breaks down how artificial intelligence acts as a power-magnifying technology, amplifying both the best and worst intentions of those who use it. Drawing from real-world examples in Germany, Brazil, Japan, France, Canada, and the United States, this conversation examines where AI is already reshaping democratic institutions. He also outlines four concrete strategies for steering AI toward democratic outcomes: resisting harmful uses, reforming the AI ecosystem, responsibly deploying AI where it helps, and fixing the underlying societal problems AI tends to amplify…
AI Book Review: Rewiring Democracy
A clear-eyed look at how AI is already reshaping the machinery of democracy – and what it will take to keep power in public hands.
I spend a great deal of my time reading books on technology and artificial intelligence, not just as research for my work, but because I am genuinely curious about how power and responsibility are shifting in this new era. Some books focus on business efficiency, others on looming catastrophe.
Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship is interested in something more specific and, in many ways, more urgent: how AI is being woven into the everyday workings of democracy. Schneier and Sanders are not writing science fiction; they are mapping changes already underway, and asking whether citizens will shape these systems – or merely be shaped by them…
Audio: When AI Systems Meet Democratic Governance
Listen to the Audio on SocialMediaAndPolitics.org
Bruce Schneier and Dr. Nathan E. Sanders discuss Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship (MIT Press).
Bruce and Nathan share how AI becomes viable for governments when the speed, scale, scope, and sophistication of computational systems surpasses human capacity. We also discuss the relationship between AI and the Internet of Things, how AI interacts with lobbying and legislation, and how values can be construed in an automated context. Current examples of AI implementation are shared from political campaigning, public administration, and civil society…
Beyond AI in Medicine’s Chatbot Hype
This article draws from an email interview with Mr. Schneier and his remarks at the 2025 T-CAIREM Conference: The Evolution of Generative A.I.
This academic year, the University of Toronto has been fortunate to have Bruce Schneier as a visiting senior policy fellow with the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society (SRI). Schneier is internationally renowned for his work as a public-interest technologist, cybersecurity expert, and New York Times best-selling author. We recently caught up with him to learn how he sees AI evolving, and especially how it could impact medicine in the future…
Audio: Rethinking AI for the Public Good
Listen to the Audio on OverdueingIt.org
What even is AI anyway, and how do we harness it for the good of the people? Host Emily talks technology and public power in this episode with Bruce Schneier and Nathan Sanders, authors of Rewiring Democracy: How AI will Transform our Politics, Government, and Citizenship. Find the book at your local library!
Audio: How is AI Shaping Democracy?
Listen to the Audio or Read the Transcript on PracticalAI.fm
As AI increasingly shapes geopolitics, elections, and civic life, its impact on democracy is becoming impossible to ignore. In this episode, Daniel and Chris are joined by security expert Bruce Schneier to explore how AI and technology are transforming democracy, governance, and citizenship. Drawing from his book Rewiring Democracy, they explore real examples of AI in elections, legislation, courts, and public AI models, the risks of concentrated power, and how these tools can both strengthen and strain democratic systems worldwide…
Video: The Promise, and Limits, of AI in Medicine
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Artificial intelligence is already making medical decisions—often without patients realizing it. In this episode of TEDMED Conversations, Bruce Schneier and Dr. Leana Wen unpack where AI is quietly saving lives, where it falls short, and why it may be “better than no doctor at all” in many settings. They challenge the idea of AI as a replacement for clinicians, arguing instead that the real stakes lie in how power, trust, and accountability are built into these systems. The conversation cuts through the hype to ask a harder question: how do we use AI to expand care without losing the human judgment medicine depends on?…
Rewiring Democracy: “Citizen Acceptance and Trust in AI Matters as Much as AI Capabilities”
The core message of this book is succinctly captured in one sentence on page 100: “citizen acceptance and trust in AI matters as much as AI capabilities”. There is a lot more covered in Rewiring Democracy that sits behind this statement—the fact that much of our acceptance of artificial intelligence is unwilling or unwitting, and the universal truth that trust is hard won and easily lost.
There are widely opposing views of AI across the political spectrum, and how it will be applied in Irish society. While some see it as a boost for Ireland’s competitiveness, others have concerns about …
Video: AI and the Rise of Bulk Spying
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In the first episode of Not Dead Yet, Robert Baggs speaks with Bruce Schneier, a New York Times bestseller and security technologist.
00:00 Intro
02:43 The world since the Snowden leak
05:04 What’s worse for privacy, Big Tech or government agencies?
07:19 Surveillance capitalism and the horrors of AI
09:34 How powerful is data?
13:07 The tracking device in your pocket
15:34 The Le Monde investigation
17:10 The rise of bulk spying
19:03 The danger of AI in surveillance
21:52 Should personalized ads be illegal?
How Artificial Intelligence Is Rewiring Democracy
Excerpt
Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship by Bruce Schneier and Nathan E. Sanders (MIT Press, 2025)
Can an artificial intelligence model run for mayor? In 2024, a Cheyenne, Wyoming, mayoral candidate tried to make that case when he pledged that if he were elected, he’d outsource all decisions to an AI. He came in a distant fourth, earning only 3 percent of the vote.
But that (to my mind, rather dystopian) example explored in Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship…
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.