Our last podcast episode of 2021 features Shazeda Ahmed on Chinese cybersecurity, technology, and internet policy. Shazeda is a PhD candidate at UC Berkeley’s School of Information and is joined by guest host (and DC board member) Rui Zhong, who is program associate at the Wilson Center. How are Chinese courtrooms utilizing AI? What is algorithmic discrimination and how are Chinese companies reacting? Rui also asks Shazeda her perspective on the big question: is the U.S. in a Tech Cold War with China? All of this and more in this season finale of the NüVoices Podcast.
About Shazeda:
Shazeda is a doctoral candidate at the University of California Berkeley School of Information and a visiting scholar at the AI Now Institute.
She is a current fellow in the Transatlantic Digital Debates at the Global Public Policy Institute, and a former fellow at two Stanford University research centers, the Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) and the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). Shazeda has worked as a researcher for Upturn, the Mercator Institute for China Studies, Ranking Digital Rights, and the Citizen Lab.
Shazeda’s research on the social inequalities that arise from state-firm tech partnerships in China has been featured in outlets including the Financial Times, WIRED, the South China Morning Post, Logic magazine, TechNode, The Verge, CNBC, and Tech in Asia.
About Rui:
Rui Zhong is the Program Associate for the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Wilson Center. She holds an MA from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a BA in International Studies from Emory University. She has completed coursework at Peking University and earned a graduate certificate at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center in China. At the Kissinger Institute, she manages Mapping China’s Cultural Genome, a curated project that collects top-level speeches and commentary on China’s global cultural ambitions. Her research interests include China’s role in the East Asian Political Economy and how nationalist interests can impact business, technology and cultural policies.
Recommendations:
Shazeda recommends the writings of Natalia Ginzburg, an Italian writer known for her books about post-WWII Italy.
Rui recommends the non-fiction/memoir/travelogue Two Trees Make a Forest by Canadian-British-Taiwanese author Jessica J Lee.
Self-care tips: Shazeda recommends hiking and Rui gives a shout out to her cat Yue Bing (who makes a cameo in this podcast).