April 2, 2024 // Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up to receive your own copy here.

How philanthropy can change tech

Raffi Krikorian believes that philanthropy needs to go on the offensive to tackle the biggest and most complex problems in tech. 

Instead of just reacting to today’s problems, he sees a more ambitious and risk-taking role for philanthropy to "make a dent now so that these technologies don’t further divide society.”

Krikorian, the Chief Technology Officer of Emerson Collective, is joining the advisory board of Amplica Labs, a tech company under Project Liberty’s umbrella that built the Decentralized Social Networking Protocol (DSNP).

Project Liberty spoke to Krikorian about why it’s important not just to fix the internet of today, but build an engine for innovation, research, and regulation that will drive the internet of the future.

// Bad incentives, not bad tech

Krikorian doesn’t believe that technology is inherently harmful. “I have an optimistic lens about tech. It’s actually the incentive mechanisms that drive certain behaviors” he said. “Social media has an incentive mechanism that drives engagement, which can lead to harmful content.”

His background testifies to leveraging tech for good by shaping its incentive mechanisms.

• Before he joined Emerson Collective, a philanthropic initiative launched by Laurene Powell Jobs, Krikorian held leadership roles at Twitter, where he led the global engineering team, and Uber, where he launched the company’s self-driving efforts. 
• In 2016, he transitioned to the Democratic National Committee as its first-ever Chief Technology Officer where he revamped the party’s tech infrastructure.

In addition to his work leading the tech team at Emerson Collective, Krikorian hosts the Technically Optimistic podcast and newsletter, which explore technology's role in society.

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"Philanthropy should not be stuck in the solutions of today. It should be funding the moonshots that look at what’s next over the horizon."

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// Balance of power

If tech companies, the government, and civil society make up three legs of a stool, Krikorian sees tech companies and platforms developing technology as the most powerful leg, creating a sense of imbalance in power. But philanthropy can strengthen the other two legs too.

• Government: Philanthropy can help bolster government to create and enforce the frameworks, establish guardrails, pass legislation, and enable responsible innovation to build a better tech ecosystem. For example, philanthropically-supported Issue One, a nonprofit and inclusive democracy organization (and member of the Project Liberty Alliance), is applying pressure on Congress through its Council for Responsible Social Media to shape policy around social media reform.
• Civil Society: Philanthropy can fund researchers, back activists, financially support nonprofits, and build a strong and independent press that holds tech to account. Bellingcat, an independent investigative collective focused on open-source research, is funded through a wide range of philanthropic initiatives that power its work to improve accountability online.

// Public-philanthropic partnerships

One of the areas that Krikorian is most excited about is scaling government initiatives that support civil society organizations and researchers. “There is no shortage of opportunities for philanthropy and government to join forces,” he said. 

• One bright spot is the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR), a government initiative building a shared national research infrastructure for responsible discovery and innovation in AI. NAIRR comprises ten federal agencies and 25 non-governmental partners that provide funding to support the nation's research and education community. 

// Enabling legislation

Krikorian believes it’s a mistake to interpret government regulation solely as “don’t do X.” Effective government regulations enable as much as they restrict. “We could have moonshot prizes for responsible social media or AI development that could drive innovation. It’s hard for government to create something new, but can philanthropy create proof-of-concepts and pilots that the government can pour a large amount of money into?”

• One example is the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, which is designed to drive more domestic semiconductor manufacturing. We could apply similar enabling regulations and laws in the responsible tech space.
• The XPRIZE Foundation is one such moonshot challenge that directs philanthropic funding to support breakthrough research and innovation.

// Strengthening the research that drives accountability

In citing how research can drive government action, Krikorian mentioned the example of the fight against big tobacco in the US. There wasn’t meaningful progress until there was sound research about the health outcomes of smoking, and he believes the same could be true with the harms caused by social media and AI. As the research becomes less driven by the tech companies themselves and more independent, governments at all levels will be compelled to pass legislation.

“We need better transparency about what’s going on in platforms, and philanthropy could fund researchers and set up legal defense funds for those who are doing this work,” he said.

• For example, Krikorian highlighted Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR), an organization founded by Timnit Gebru who led Google’s Ethical AI research team before she was fired in 2020. DAIR is pioneering a new approach to AI innovation and research.
• RadicalxChange, another nonprofit relying on philanthropic support and a member of the Project Liberty Alliance, tests and pilots new research models for digital governance and online movement building.

// Protocols & digital infrastructure

As a new advisory board member of Amplica Labs, Krikorian will support innovations at the protocol level, like DSNP. He sees initiatives like DSNP as foundational technology that allows people to innovate and build a more distributed and democratized web.

But he conceded that it’s hard to get people excited about digital infrastructure like new protocols—even if they reimagine digital rights and ownership. 

His experience working for the Democratic National Committee taught him that to inspire people to fund the foundational building blocks of a movement, you need to paint a picture of what that infrastructure enables—to show the human-centered outcomes and benefits that happen when you invest at levels and layers that can feel abstract or hidden.

But this is the core of what philanthropy should be doing, Krikorian emphasized: investing in new ideas, unproven concepts, critical digital infrastructure, and alternatives to the status quo that can feel abstract or non-obvious, but will transform the web.

“Philanthropy should not be stuck in the solutions of today. It should be funding the moonshots that look at what’s next over the horizon.”

Other notable headlines

// 💵 Congress has approved more funding to study technology’s impact on children’s development and mental health, according to an article in The Washington Post.

// 🖥 An article in The Atlantic argued that it wasn’t social media that killed the web, but browsers.

// 👩‍⚖️ The AI industry is heading towards a legal iceberg. An article in The Wall Street Journal suggested that tech companies will be liable for the things their AIs say and do.

// 🚺 A podcast on Tech Policy Press interviewed Lucy Purdon, the author of a new report about the tech backlash against women’s rights.

// 🇨🇦 Four Canadian school boards are suing TikTok, Meta, and Snapchat for disrupting the learning process and harming the education system, according to an article in Axios.

// 🤔 Tech companies are enlisting you to be unpaid lobbyists. An article in the Washington Post wondered if that’s ethical.

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