News in the Category "Written Interviews"
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AI Is a Power Amplifier. The Future Depends on Who Turns the Dials.
In “Rewiring Democracy,” Bruce Schneier and Nathan Sanders explore how AI could strengthen democracy or undermine it.
Key Takeaways
- AI’s impact on democracy depends less on the technology itself and more on how people choose to apply it.
- Schneier and Sanders argue that governments and citizens must demand responsible uses of AI that enhance speed, fairness, and accessibility in public systems.
- Without strong, activity-based regulation and public alternatives, AI risks concentrating political power and accelerating authoritarian tendencies.
You’d be forgiven for thinking AI represents a classic Faustian bargain, as every reported blessing seems tied to a sinister curse…
SRI Appoints Bruce Schneier as Visiting Senior Policy Fellow
Global security expert Bruce Schneier joins University of Toronto’s Munk School and the Schwartz Reisman Institute as a visiting fellow to tackle one of today’s defining questions: how can we build AI systems—and societies—that people can truly trust?
Few thinkers have done more to reframe how we understand security in a networked world than Bruce Schneier. To him, security isn’t just about cryptography or code—it’s about trust, power, and the human choices embedded in every system we build.
For three decades, Schneier has asked what it really means to be secure, and who gets to decide. From designing cryptographic algorithms to writing bestselling books that redefined public conversations on privacy and power, the Harvard-based security expert has become one of the world’s most trusted interpreters of how technology shapes society…
Rewiring Democracy: Bruce Schneier and Nathan E. Sanders on AI, Power, and the Future of Governance
How will AI reshape democratic institutions and policymaking in the 21st century?
Rewiring Democracy: How AI Will Transform Our Politics, Government, and Citizenship is Bruce Schneier and Nathan E. Sanders’ field guide to governing in the algorithmic age. Drawing on real projects and policy debates, it maps how AI is already reshaping lawmaking, regulation, courts, and civic participation—and shows how to bend the tech toward equity, transparency, and public accountability. Rather than dystopian panic or hype, the authors offer a pragmatic roadmap: reform and regulate AI, resist harmful deployments, responsibly use AI to improve services, and renovate democratic institutions so power is distributed, not concentrated. Publication: MIT Press, October 21, 2025, globally…
Schneier Tries to Rip the Rose-Colored AI Glasses from the Eyes of Congress
Security guru Bruce Schneier played the skunk at the garden party in a Thursday federal hearing on AI’s use in the government, focusing on the risks many are ignoring.
“The other speakers mostly talked about how cool AI was—and sometimes about how cool their own company was—but I was asked by the Democrats to specifically talk about DOGE and the risks of exfiltrating our data from government agencies and feeding it into AIs,” Schneier explained in a blog post.
DOGE stands for the Department of Government Efficiency. It’s a White House initiative, run until recently by centi-billionaire Elon Musk, that has been rifling through government databases and ordering layoffs at various government agencies in the name of cost savings and efficiency. Its staff cuts have been so extensive that the Trump administration reportedly …
DOGE Is Putting the Country’s Data and Computing Infrastructure at Risk, HKS Expert Argues
Cyber security expert Bruce Schneier worries that DOGE’s access to highly sensitive information is giving bad actors a chance to take advantage.
Before the Trump administration took office, what has become known as DOGE, or the Department of Government Efficiency, was touted as a tool for injecting private sector efficiencies into the federal workforce. Under the leadership of Elon Musk, DOGE has taken an unexpectedly radical tack—it has initiated mass layoffs and the wholesale shuttering of federal offices and agencies, such as the U.S. Agency for International Development. Perhaps less visible are the effects of DOGE’s unprecedent access to many highly sensitive federal databases and payment tools. Bruce Schneier, a security technologist and lecturer at the Kennedy School, wrote about this for The Atlantic and Foreign Policy. We spoke with him to learn more about the risks to federal data…
Nearly 10 Years After Data and Goliath, Bruce Schneier Says: Privacy’s Still Screwed
“In 50 years, I think we'll view these business practices like we view sweatshops today”
It has been nearly a decade since famed cryptographer and privacy expert Bruce Schneier released the book Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World—an examination of how government agencies and tech giants exploit personal data. Today, his predictions feel eerily accurate.
At stake, he argued then, was a possibly irreversible loss of privacy, and the archiving of everything. As he wrote, science fiction author Charlie Stross described the situation as the “end of prehistory,” in that every facet of our lives would be on a computer somewhere and available to anyone who knew how to find them…
Bruce Schneier on AI Security (Interview)
In this interview, Bruce Schneier reflects on the security challenges of artificial intelligence.
View or Download in PDF Format
Bruce Schneier is without question one of the leading computer security professionals alive today. A true renaissance man when it comes to cybersecurity, he has been involved in the creation of a host of cryptographic algorithms (most notably, Blowfish and Twofish) and has written more than a dozen books, including Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World and Click Here to Kill Everybody: Security and Survival in a Hyper-Connected World. Schneier is a lecturer in public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, a fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, and a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and AccessNow. This interview resulted from our e-mail exchanges during June and July 2024…
Audio: Technology Regulation is Outdated with Bruce Schneier
Listen to the Audio on EasyPrey.com
Today’s guest is Bruce Schneier. Bruce is an internationally renowned security technologist called The Security Guru by The Economist. He is the author of over a dozen books including his latest, A Hacker’s Mind. He has testified before Congress, is a frequent guest on television and radio, has served on several government committees, and is regularly quoted in the press. He is a fellow at the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, a lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and AccessNow, and an advisory board member of EPIC and VerifiedVoting.org…
Audio: How Will AI Affect Democracy
Two AI experts join Governors Bredesen and Haslam to discuss the potential impact of AI on democracy
Listen to the Audio on Baker.UTK.edu
Policymakers are increasingly focused on how to regulate AI, but what impact might AI have on democracy itself? The risks of AI technology for the democratic system, including misinformed voters and manipulated election processes are becoming more evident by the day, but is it all bad news? Dr. Sarah Kreps, a political scientist and director of the Cornell Tech Policy Institute, and Bruce Schneier, a technologist and Harvard Kennedy School lecturer, join Governors Bredesen and Haslam to dig into the good, the bad, and the unknown about how AI will impact democracy…
Bruce Schneier on His New Book, a Hacker’s Mind
GrowthPolicy: I’d like to talk about your brilliant, and timely, new book, A Hacker’s Mind. In the book’s introduction, you write: “Security technologists look at the world differently than most people. When most people look at a system, they focus on how it works. When security technologists look at the same system, they focus on how it can be made to fail.” Tell our readers what first made you interested in the psychology of security technologists and hackers? In other words, what is the origin story of this book?
Bruce Schneier: These threads have been percolating in my head for a while now. I started writing about the psychology of security around 2008. That quote is something I have been saying for decades. The notions of socio-technical systems and how they can be attacked are just as old…
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.