What if tech companies had more power over your life than your own government?
Big Tech isn’t just business anymore. Silicon Valley now runs its own foreign policy. Over 60 countries have opened diplomatic missions there to negotiate with tech companies as if they were nation-states. AI CEOs sit at the same tables as world leaders. And the revolving doors between government and Big Tech are spinning faster than ever.
This week on The Tea, former diplomat Dr Jennifer Cassidy, Lecturer in Diplomacy and Technology at the University of Oxford, joins us to break down how Big Tech quietly became more powerful than the states meant to govern it — and why almost no one is stopping it.
Also in the show:
⚡ Trump’s AI deepfakes: a tool of mass confusion
⚡ Big Tech: a techno-fascist takeover?
⚡ Digital sovereigns: how Big Tech became more powerful than governments
⚡ State embassies in Silicon Valley: the new corporate diplomacy
⚡ Government officials to Big Tech: revolving doors and the old boys’ club
⚡ Why regulation keeps falling short
As our guest argues, tech companies wield power that fundamentally compromises our national security and sovereignty. States should force these companies to be transparent. Right now, they’re not.
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AUDIO CREDITS
Presenter–Producer: Dr. Myriam François
Guest: Jennifer Cassidy
Senior Producer: Sara Farolfi
Producer: Nadege Bizimungu & Iman Saleh
Assistant Producer: Poppy Jacobs
Video Editor: Max Bubnov
An MPWR Productions show.
00:00:00 Introduction – Is AI Creating a New World Order?
00:02:53 How Technology Changed Diplomacy Forever
00:05:20 How Trump Has Rewritten the Rules of Diplomacy
00:10:15 What Happens When America Abandons the Global Order?
00:14:37 How America Is Exporting Its AI Empire
00:18:10 Why Europe Isn’t Standing Up to US Tech Power
00:20:43 AI, Deepfakes and the War on Reality
00:24:37 How AI Is Changing War and Diplomacy
00:27:18 Are Tech Billionaires More Powerful Than Governments?
00:30:05 The Rise of the “Digital Sovereign”
00:33:27 Why Countries Are Opening Embassies in Silicon Valley
00:39:01 What Is Silicon Valley’s Foreign Policy?
00:41:13 The Values Big Tech Is Exporting Around the World
00:44:11 The Revolving Door Between Government and Big Tech
00:50:01 Are Governments Losing Control of Their Own Data?
00:51:33 What Governments Know But Aren’t Telling the Public
00:55:40 Silicon Valley’s Plan to Build Its Own States
00:58:35 Peter Thiel, Tech Power and the Future of Democracy
01:02:21 Can Governments Still Regulate Big Tech?
01:06:23 Who Could Actually Enforce Global AI Rules?
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