The development and deployment of artificial intelligence has moved faster than our current legal system can adapt, exposing the general public to potentially harmful revenue and engagement strategies that disproportionately affect economically disenfranchised users. In a New York Times op-ed published earlier this year, former OpenAI employee and Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows Zoë Hitzig shared that she was leaving the company over its evolving advertising strategy, which she says could create an even wider gap in who can access these transformative tools safely.

“So the real question is not ads or no ads,” she writes. “It is whether we can design structures that avoid excluding people from these tools and potentially manipulating them as consumers. I think we can.”

The Berkman Klein Center is pleased to welcome Hitzig in conversation with Yochai Benkler, Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School, to discuss how AI company practices seem to concentrate power among businesses and economically advantaged users with minimal regulatory oversight, and argue for more inclusivity and agency for everyone who wants to use these tools.  

This is a hybrid event. Please be sure to RSVP to join us in-person (Harvard ID holders only), or register to join on Zoom. Light refreshments will be served after the event.