Who Governs Big Tech? Hannah Bloch-Wehba on AI Regulation, Police Surveillance, and Public Accountability

<p>It turns out that tech companies don’t sit outside of government as just ordinary vendors. This week on <em>The Geek in Review</em> podcast, we welcome back Texas A&amp;M University School of Law professor <a href="https://www.hannahbw.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Hannah Bloch-Wehba</a> to talk about accountability of Big Tech, AI regulations, government surveillance, and the intertwining of public authority and private tech infrastructure. Bloch-Wehba traced the dependency between the two powers all the way back to the 1930s in her article “<a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6378220" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">How Tech Took Over</a>,” in how the tech sector became a foundation for national security and economic growth.</p><p>Today’s hybrid form of governance, where Bloch-Wehba explains how a handful of private companies supply data and cloud systems, along with decision-making infrastructures across multiple governmental agencies. It is a struggle for traditional constitutional doctrines to adjust to the modern technology and the operations provided by contractors that are providing their core foundational operations. </p><p>The issues also enter into the criminal law enforcement areas and Bloch-Wehba’s “<a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6473939" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Rights, Knowledge, and Capture in the Datafied State</a>,” discusses how trade-secret claims are throwing a barrier between proprietary data systems and criminal defendant’s ability to examine the systems that are being used to convict them in the courts. There is a strangeness in the judicial systems where corporate choices are shaping the legal process being followed, rather than corporate governance following established legal norms. </p><p>Bloch-Wehba’s “<a href="https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ilj/vol101/iss3/1/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Information Law Pluralism</a>” covers how privacy rules, audits, impact assessments, disclosure duties, researcher access, and independent review as parts of a broader system governing exactly how knowledge is shared, validated, and even produced. There seems to be no single device that transparently provides accountability. In addition, she lists how a political campaign program against states attempting to regulate AI companies and products is weakening state transparency even further