TED Talks Daily
Can big tech and privacy coexist? | Carole Cadwalladr and Chris Anderson
13 Apr 2025
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas and conversations to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. Earlier this week, we shared an explosive talk from investigative journalist Carol Cadwalader about a fast-moving technological coup threatening democracies around the world. Make sure to check that out in your feeds.
Today, we're bringing you an extended conversation between Carol and Chris Anderson, the head of TED. Chris and Carol sat down to dig into the rise of techno-oligarchies and the vast implications of living in an era of data surveillance.
They reflect on whether progress and privacy can coexist and why Silicon Valley's favorite mantra, move fast and break things, could be more dangerous than we think. That conversation is coming up. Carol Cadwallader, it's so nice to get to sit down with you. A few days ago, you opened the TED conference with an absolute blockbuster of a talk, got a huge reaction from people.
In a one-sentence summary, and I'd like you to expand on this, What you argued was that we're in the middle of what looks like a digital coup, that the combination of Trump and a collection of big tech leaders is in danger of creating a new kind of autocracy in America. Is that about the core of it? Yes, yes, that's right. Well, I mean, you know, I put up the photo from the inauguration.
And one of the things that I found really resonated with people, which is so it's the photo of the tech leaders behind Trump. And, you know, I called it tech bros in hostage situations. And it's this idea that Silicon Valley has been captured by the administration. And the administration is acting in all sorts of unlawful ways. And Silicon Valley is now part of that.
And the main way in which Silicon Valley is helping advance this is what? Well, you know, I talked about, for example, for me, the big danger, danger moment was when, you know, the first weekend that the administration took office, Elon Musk sent his, I call them cyber troops, into the US Treasury, where they gained unlawful access. They got access to the nation's data, its financial data. And
He now has that. And, you know, for me, as you know, as I know, I call it the crack cocaine of Silicon Valley is always data. You need data to feed the AI. And you can never put it back. I mean, that's one of the whole things. Once you've got the data, when you've got the entire nation's data, you can't just put that genie back in the bottle. And that to me is that this is a power grab.
which goes beyond any of the guardrails of democracy. And that's not just about now. Silicon Valley, as we know, does not think in four-year cycles.
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Chapter 2: How do big tech companies contribute to surveillance fascism?
This is absolutely about a land grab for the future. That's what I was trying to say, really. It goes beyond politics. So I think probably the purpose of this conversation now is for me to gently try and play devil's advocate. Ted is obviously, we're trying to be open-tent. We want people of all political views and so forth to, we want to listen and treat with curiosity and respect and so forth.
So I'm going to frame what a different view of what's happening might be and see what you make of it. One thing to say, first of all, is that Silicon Valley is not a thing.
Chapter 3: Can progress and privacy coexist in the digital age?
From inside Silicon Valley, they would probably all say, no, these are our competitors. Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg were both there, but they are competitive enemies, to say the least. And so I think it was you who coined this powerful term, broligarchy. Yeah. I believe so. I started using it a year ago because it was like, oh, hold on a minute.
What we're seeing here is this elite, this business elite, like oligarchy, but it's tech bros. And I was like, of course, it's broligarchy. Right. So the way I think of an oligarchy is a group of powerful people kind of acting in unison. And I think they would say that they are not acting in unison. Largely, they are competitive with each other.
And maybe there are some aligned interests, like having legislation that makes it easier for companies to expand dynamically and so forth. But that's one piece. If it was the case that they generally are competitors with each other, what's the sense in which you feel that they're acting as a group?
I don't think there's any conspiracy here and I don't necessarily think they're acting as a group at all. And this is where I think it's really helpful. to look at America now from the frame of understanding what has happened in other countries. I'm really sorry I've got such a sore throat from talking so much, Chris. I apologise to everybody.
So, you know, I think Russia is a template here for what is happening. which is the breed of, we call them oligarchs, right? They didn't agree with each other. They were suing each other. They were sometimes murdering each other. But it was they needed a relationship with Putin, with power. And in some cases... It was about enriching themselves, about creating opportunities.
But a lot of the time it was also just survival, which is – and that's what I mean about them looking like hostages. There wasn't a choice, it feels to me, in terms of who was up there on the inauguration. Trump knew that he needs Silicon Valley because in a standard coup, when the military takes over, the junta takes over, the first thing you do is take over the radio station, right? Yes.
you need to have the means of communication. And in this case, the means of communication are these big Silicon Valley companies. It's such a colossal thing that is happening right now. It's not just America. Of course, we can see that in many ways.
But, you know, the fact is these are global communication platforms and they are now in an alignment, captured, whatever you want to talk about it, with what is a coming autocratic regime. Right. So they, even though they're in competition with each other, you're saying that they share a need to have the president's approval.
So they're doing things to win that approval and thereby they're helping to construct and empower the creation of a kind of autocracy. I mean, Trump was explicit in his threats, right? I think he sort of threatened Zuckerberg with jail. You know, it's partly carrot, but it is partly stick, you know, and that is understood.
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Chapter 4: What role does data play in the power dynamics of Silicon Valley?
And that was what I was trying to communicate in my talk, really, as somebody who has experienced powerlessness. And I think, you know, as I said, it was only coming to Ted that I had this revelation about actually when you're at your most powerless, it's often because you are powerful. That's why you have to be stopped. And the people of America are more powerful than these guys, right?
There's more of you and you have values and morals on your ethics, you know, a belief in the law on your side. So that's the thing that I was trying to communicate. Well, you really touched a nerve in the most powerful way by being eloquent, as we just heard, and by being vulnerable and coming at it from a very personal space.
And when it comes to the demolition of USAID, I personally know organizations of people who were wrecked by that. And I think history will show that that was a pretty brutal and reckless approach. So can I turn the tables, Chris, and ask you about that?
Because Ted has done this amazing thing of bringing together innovators, plus also people who think about the really hard problems that the world faces. And it's always been about a sort of synthesis between those and finding new ways. And this spirit of optimism has always run through the place. And for me personally, it's been a big thing. I first came to Ted in 2005.
But this is something really different, isn't it? And Do you find it hard to retain your optimistic frame? I've always described myself as a determined optimist, which means that no matter how dark things are, you look for a pathway forward that has some hope and you try and shine a light on it. And hopefully, you know, you can find your way there.
I've always believed that the worlds of ideas, innovation, technology are actually ultimately more powerful than politics. And I'm dismayed at the world of politics right now, dismayed at it, because it seems pretty helpless. There seems to be an impossible divide between two tribes. I actually think that over the next...
three or four years, the even bigger story will be how technology plays out. Because I think AI is growing in power at such a speed that it will be more important than the political decisions are made. So for me, my focus is, can we think of a way of ensuring that we get the best of AI and not the worst?
And that takes us, I think, into one of the key conversations I want to have with you is around data. In your talk, you so powerfully talked about how these companies are extracting our data. It's surveillance capitalism, surveillance fascism, I think you called it. You know, can I just say that I was really sad when I woke up the next morning.
I was really sad because I had that line in there of like, this is no longer surveillance capitalism. We're on our pathway to surveillance fascism. But because I was like mindful that everybody was like, you've got to cut it down a bit. So I lost that and it was one of my, it was like, you know, you said... Well, there we go. We've got it back. We've got it back now. Thank you.
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Chapter 5: How does the concept of 'broligarchy' relate to current tech leaders?
They've already scraped the entirety of the Guardian's Web site. So I understand the logic. It's like, well, you might as well try and make some money out of it. But of course, that's not respecting of the IP and of individual contributors there.
And individual contributors are not going to be in a position to do these deals with the platforms because they've got no, there's no collective ability to force a proper negotiation. So in a theoretical world with an ethical AI company, which asked your permission before it scraped your data, and then paid you whenever it used that in some ways. But as we know, it's like...
it's so hard to make that assessment, right? Because it's taken in such vast amounts of data and then it's mixed it all up into some weird sausage, which it's now putting back out there.
I mean, they would argue, and I'm not saying I agree with this, but they would argue that every time technology changes, that the rules need to be worked out again, that you've got a situation where, you know, your words were published, put out freely for anyone on the internet to read. No matter how many more people read your past words, you don't get any more payment.
And so the data is out there. They would argue that it's out there as a sort of public resource for fair use. And I think it's right that people are challenging that because the fact is that, say, a given artist could easily be displaced by AI able to do much more. It's actually much, much deeper than that, right? Which is that every nation state in the world has some form of property. Right.
Which is you can't walk into somebody's house and just steal the silver. That's what are fundamentally like is the basis of law and order in our country. But when it's intellectual. And this is, no, it's just, it's property. These are property laws. You know, in Britain, we've had this law since 1783. Right.
And if you can't respect the basic fundamental underlying principles with which we order society, which is do not steal, then what are you left with? It's like, it's fine. Right. We're going to take your silver and then if we sell it on eBay, we might give you like 5% of it. Yeah, so I get the anger.
There is a difference between a physical object where if you steal it, that person doesn't have it versus a digital property where if you, quote, steal it, you still have access to it. There's no difference. Well... You know, I think there's traditionally a difference in like when an idea is out there, it can be built on an amplified.
And like, for example, in the music business, there's constant building on one person's work by the next artist. The kindest way of viewing what they're doing is for them is to say, we're not stealing, we're amplifying. I think we are absolutely lost if we do not respect the law. And that's what we're seeing. This is what is happening. But the law isn't defined yet properly. It's property.
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