Pell Center

The Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy at Salve Regina is a multidisciplinary research center focused at the intersection of politics, policies and ideas.

Exploring a Future Tech Dystopia with Kashmir Hill

Air Dates: February 1-7, 2021

We live in an age increasingly defined by the intrusion of technology in our lives. Kashmir Hill is a technology journalist whose work explores the looming tech-dystopia—and how we can avoid it.

Kashmir Hill is a New York-based technology reporter who writes about the unexpected and sometimes ominous ways technology is changing our lives, particularly when it comes to our privacy.  She joined The New York Times in 2019 after working as an investigative reporter at Gizmodo Media Group and as a writer and editor at Fusion, Forbes Magazine, and Above the Law.  Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker and The Washington Post.  In 2018, she gave the TED talk, “What your smart devices know—and share—about you,” in which she described what happened when she transformed her apartment into a smart home and monitored the data being sent out of it.  She hold degrees from Duke University and New York University, where she studied journalism.

On this episode of “Story in the Public Square,” Hill discusses federal regulation on tech companies and the data they can collect from users in the United States.  She says, “…tech companies have trying to prevent regulation of [data collection] and the analysis of data.”  She adds, “…I think it is a hard issue to legislate or regulate [because] there are so many gray zones…and the technology to analyze information we’ve put out there is getting better and better, so the way it can be used can be more harmful.

“Story in the Public Square” broadcasts each week on public television stations across the United States. A full listing of the national television distribution is available at this link. In Rhode Island and southeastern New England, the show is broadcast on Rhode Island PBS on Sundays at 11 a.m. and is rebroadcast Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. An audio version of the program airs Saturdays at 8:30 a.m. & 6:30 p.m. ET, Sundays at 3:30 a.m. & 11:30 p.m. ET on SiriusXM’s popular P.O.T.U.S. (Politics of the United States), channel 124. “Story in the Public Square” is a partnership between the Pell Center and The Providence Journal. The initiative aims to study, celebrate and tell stories that matter.

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