JONATHAN ZITTRAIN
Technology Guru & Digital Futurist; Renowned Cybersecurity Expert; Harvard Professor of International Law, Policy & Computer Science; Master Moderator
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PROFILE
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TOPICS
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VIDEOS
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Jonathan Zittrain Speaker Profile
One of the world’s leading scholars and voices on the impact of digital technology – from the Internet of Things to Big Data, to artificial intelligence, cyber threats and security – Jonathan Zittrain employs decades of experience interrogating and influencing the legal, technological and world-shaping aspects of virtual terrains.
A highly regarded teacher, speaker and master moderator, Zittrain provides diverse audiences with an inside look at the future of work, and what to expect from recent advances in AI and digital platforms. He is a founding director of Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, where he anchors various disciplines throughout Harvard as professor of international law and director of the Harvard Law School Library, the largest private law library in the world; professor of computer science at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and professor at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Prior to joining Harvard, he was Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at Oxford University.
Zittrain has advised the U.S. government and also is a member of the boards of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Intellectual Property Watch, with a unique perspective on how policymakers grapple with cutting-edge issues such as privacy and cybersecurity. His wide-ranging research projects at Harvard give him insight into a range of digital infrastructure issues, including censorship and filtering for content control, privacy and free speech. His book, “The Future of the Internet – And How to Stop It” (Yale University Press and Penguin UK, 2009), was, in the words of critics, an “essential” work, a “resounding wake-up call” to arms to protect the Internet’s openness by rescuing it from forces that wish to constrain or privatize it – forces gaining in momentum today.
Furthering this cause, Zittrain co-edited three ground-breaking studies that were the first to quantify Internet filtering by national governments, all published by MIT Press: “Access Denied” (2008), “Access Controlled” (2010), and “Access Contested” (2011). Among his other future-thinking digital initiatives are projects to produce simple, unobtrusive, and novel collaborative tools for university classrooms (H2O); to support open content by tracking legal threats to individual users (lumendatabase.org); to monitor Internet censorship in real time (thenetmonitor.org), and to combat extensive link rot throughout the Web (Perma.cc).
As a sought-after advisor to governments and organizations, Zittrain chaired the U.S. Federal Communication Commission’s Open Internet Advisory Committee. He has also served on the Board of Advisors for Scientific American and is a former Trustee of the Internet Society (ISOC). For more than 10 years, he has been a faculty fellow of the World Economic Forum, where he was named a Young Global Leader, chairing the Global Agenda Council on the future of the Internet. In 2017, Zittrain was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
A highly regarded teacher, speaker and master moderator, Zittrain provides diverse audiences with an inside look at the future of work, and what to expect from recent advances in AI and digital platforms. He is a founding director of Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, where he anchors various disciplines throughout Harvard as professor of international law and director of the Harvard Law School Library, the largest private law library in the world; professor of computer science at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and professor at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Prior to joining Harvard, he was Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at Oxford University.
Zittrain has advised the U.S. government and also is a member of the boards of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Intellectual Property Watch, with a unique perspective on how policymakers grapple with cutting-edge issues such as privacy and cybersecurity. His wide-ranging research projects at Harvard give him insight into a range of digital infrastructure issues, including censorship and filtering for content control, privacy and free speech. His book, “The Future of the Internet – And How to Stop It” (Yale University Press and Penguin UK, 2009), was, in the words of critics, an “essential” work, a “resounding wake-up call” to arms to protect the Internet’s openness by rescuing it from forces that wish to constrain or privatize it – forces gaining in momentum today.
Furthering this cause, Zittrain co-edited three ground-breaking studies that were the first to quantify Internet filtering by national governments, all published by MIT Press: “Access Denied” (2008), “Access Controlled” (2010), and “Access Contested” (2011). Among his other future-thinking digital initiatives are projects to produce simple, unobtrusive, and novel collaborative tools for university classrooms (H2O); to support open content by tracking legal threats to individual users (lumendatabase.org); to monitor Internet censorship in real time (thenetmonitor.org), and to combat extensive link rot throughout the Web (Perma.cc).
As a sought-after advisor to governments and organizations, Zittrain chaired the U.S. Federal Communication Commission’s Open Internet Advisory Committee. He has also served on the Board of Advisors for Scientific American and is a former Trustee of the Internet Society (ISOC). For more than 10 years, he has been a faculty fellow of the World Economic Forum, where he was named a Young Global Leader, chairing the Global Agenda Council on the future of the Internet. In 2017, Zittrain was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
Speech Topics
Automation and Algorithms in the Digital Age
As the use of sophisticated algorithms, machine learning, bots, and intelligent systems rise, so too do the strategic responsibilities of the leaders who manage them. CIOs have special insights - and corresponding responsibilities - around the application and development of these new technologies for business use. Smart algorithms running on large data sets may spur powerful, and at times unsettling, insights. If great knowledge represents great power, how should we think about AI’s wise use?
The Future of the Internet—And How To Stop It
Drawing from his recent book, Jonathan Zittrain examines the Internet of today, which has catapulted from backwater to ubiquity—and reveals that it is threatened precisely because of its runaway success. With the unwitting help of its users, the generative Internet is on a path to lockdown, ending its cycle of innovation and facilitating unsettling new kinds of control.
Zittrain believes we don’t see clearly what we risk losing. iPods, iPhones, Xboxes and TiVos represent the first wave of Internet-centered products that can’t be easily modified by anyone except their vendors or selected partners. These “tethered appliances” have already been used in remarkable but little-known ways: car GPS systems have been reconfigured at the demand of law enforcement to eavesdrop on occupants and digital video recorders have been ordered to self-destruct thanks to a lawsuit against the manufacturer thousands of miles away. New Web 2.0 platforms like Google mash-ups and Facebook are rightly touted—but their applications can be similarly monitored and eliminated from a central source. As tethered appliances and applications eclipse the PC, the very nature of the Internet—its “generativity,” or innovative character—is at risk.
The Big Questions About Big Data
The power of big data has been alternately overestimated and underappreciated. But its use is becoming routine, and patterns are being established now that may last years or decades. What are the most important long-term issues arising from the widespread accretion and use of big databases and powerful tools with which to analyze them, and how might they be addressed?
Cyber Threats and Terrorism: Are We Secure?
In the wake of WikiLeaks and China hacking American computer networks, cyber security continues to be a hot policy and legal issue. The challenges are real and plentiful: while the openness of PCs and the Internet has spawned an abundance of connectivity and creativity, it has also brought a growing scourge of spam, viruses, identity theft and cyber-terrorism. But in the face of such threats, the answer is not a move toward simpler, locked-down devices in exchange for security, Jonathan Zittrain argues. He discusses the false starts in understanding the simultaneously underappreciated and overhyped fields of cyber security and cyber warfare, and offers a view on where the deepest problems lie – and how to address them. Should we be afraid? Are we prepared?
Minds for Sale: The Rise of Distributed Labor
The cloud is not just for computing anymore; you can now find as much mindshare as you can afford there, too. A new range of projects is making the application of human brainpower as purchasable as additional server rackspace. What arises is ubiquitous human computing, enabling individuals and organizations to network and distribute mindpower as a global fungible resource. The result is brainpower applied to problems as varied as aerospace technology (X-Prize), chemistry (Innocentive), and micro labor (Amazon Mechanical Turk). What are some of the issues arising as armies of thinkers are recruited by the thousands and millions? How might this phenomenon do great good, but also potential harm? Jonathan Zittrain offers a provocative view of a future in which nearly any mental act can be bought and sold.
As the use of sophisticated algorithms, machine learning, bots, and intelligent systems rise, so too do the strategic responsibilities of the leaders who manage them. CIOs have special insights - and corresponding responsibilities - around the application and development of these new technologies for business use. Smart algorithms running on large data sets may spur powerful, and at times unsettling, insights. If great knowledge represents great power, how should we think about AI’s wise use?
The Future of the Internet—And How To Stop It
Drawing from his recent book, Jonathan Zittrain examines the Internet of today, which has catapulted from backwater to ubiquity—and reveals that it is threatened precisely because of its runaway success. With the unwitting help of its users, the generative Internet is on a path to lockdown, ending its cycle of innovation and facilitating unsettling new kinds of control.
Zittrain believes we don’t see clearly what we risk losing. iPods, iPhones, Xboxes and TiVos represent the first wave of Internet-centered products that can’t be easily modified by anyone except their vendors or selected partners. These “tethered appliances” have already been used in remarkable but little-known ways: car GPS systems have been reconfigured at the demand of law enforcement to eavesdrop on occupants and digital video recorders have been ordered to self-destruct thanks to a lawsuit against the manufacturer thousands of miles away. New Web 2.0 platforms like Google mash-ups and Facebook are rightly touted—but their applications can be similarly monitored and eliminated from a central source. As tethered appliances and applications eclipse the PC, the very nature of the Internet—its “generativity,” or innovative character—is at risk.
The Big Questions About Big Data
The power of big data has been alternately overestimated and underappreciated. But its use is becoming routine, and patterns are being established now that may last years or decades. What are the most important long-term issues arising from the widespread accretion and use of big databases and powerful tools with which to analyze them, and how might they be addressed?
Cyber Threats and Terrorism: Are We Secure?
In the wake of WikiLeaks and China hacking American computer networks, cyber security continues to be a hot policy and legal issue. The challenges are real and plentiful: while the openness of PCs and the Internet has spawned an abundance of connectivity and creativity, it has also brought a growing scourge of spam, viruses, identity theft and cyber-terrorism. But in the face of such threats, the answer is not a move toward simpler, locked-down devices in exchange for security, Jonathan Zittrain argues. He discusses the false starts in understanding the simultaneously underappreciated and overhyped fields of cyber security and cyber warfare, and offers a view on where the deepest problems lie – and how to address them. Should we be afraid? Are we prepared?
- Cyber Terrorism and Technology Infrastructure Protection: Why is the government so deeply concerned about it, while proposing only a “partnership” to deal with it?
- Civil Liberties: Zittrain paints a picture of the surveillance society to come and highlights the ethical implications.
- The Cantonized Internet: Get ready for filters left and right—ideological, mercenary, governmental, and ultimately our own, as the idea of a “generally accessible” web site available on “the” Internet recedes into the past.
Minds for Sale: The Rise of Distributed Labor
The cloud is not just for computing anymore; you can now find as much mindshare as you can afford there, too. A new range of projects is making the application of human brainpower as purchasable as additional server rackspace. What arises is ubiquitous human computing, enabling individuals and organizations to network and distribute mindpower as a global fungible resource. The result is brainpower applied to problems as varied as aerospace technology (X-Prize), chemistry (Innocentive), and micro labor (Amazon Mechanical Turk). What are some of the issues arising as armies of thinkers are recruited by the thousands and millions? How might this phenomenon do great good, but also potential harm? Jonathan Zittrain offers a provocative view of a future in which nearly any mental act can be bought and sold.
