Q2 - Power, Law, and Civic Life: When Algorithms Govern Your Life Miniseries Recap

AI, Power, and the Laws That Haven't Caught Up Yet: A Miniseries Recap Paths of Curiosity in an AI World A 17-year-old boy had never been arrested. Never charged with anything. Never convicted of anything. But he was in a secret intelligence file, flagged by an algorithm as likely to become a criminal — and officers were showing up at his door before he had done a single thing wrong. This is one story from one county. Seventeen thousand kids had their data in that system. In this recap episode, Alora and I revisit all six conversations from our AI, Power, Law, and Civic Life miniseries — and ask what they add up to. Together, we work through: Why winning a landmark Supreme Court case on digital privacy didn't actually close the door — and how law enforcement found a workaround before the ink was dry What algorithmic wage discrimination means for anyone who has ever picked up a gig shift, and why there is currently nothing stopping platforms from using a desperation score How a deepfake audio clip requiring minutes to generate and nothing to detect could already decide a custody case Whose values actually get encoded into the platforms billions of people use — and what happens to democracy when algorithms replace shared reality Why the kids being flagged by predictive policing were the same kids the system had already failed What it means that lawyers are only reaching ten percent of the Americans who need them — and whether AI finally changes that math We also trace the career paths of all six guests, because none of them were straight. A field organizer who became a Supreme Court advocate. A clinical psychologist who went back to law school in her thirties. An engineer who spent six months on the Silk Road with cassette tapes and came back asking different questions entirely. The combination that feels random right now might be exactly what makes you irreplaceable later. This conversation is for anyone who has spent this quarter wondering where they fit in a field being rewritten in real time. Because the legal frameworks for the AI era are being written right now. The tools that courts will use are being designed right now. The policy decisions are being made right now. By people — which means students who are curious have a place in this.