Sarah Rogers: Free Speech, AI Diplomacy, and What America Owes Its Allies
5/4/202624 min
Katherine Boyle speaks with Sarah Rogers, Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy, about the intersection of AI, free speech, and global information systems. They discuss how major technological shifts, from the printing press to the internet to AI, have reshaped communication and power, and why this moment may be even more consequential.
Recorded at the a16z American Dynamism Summit, the conversation explores the role of public diplomacy in the digital age, the risks of censorship and overregulation, and how governments are approaching AI as both a national security priority and a platform for global influence. Rogers also highlights the importance of maintaining “AI with a Western soul,” and why preserving open systems and freedom of expression will shape the future of innovation.
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSarah Rogers· Guest0:00
AI is gonna be more important, not less important, and so the proliferation of a Western AI stack should be a top priority for anyone who cares about freedom.
Katherine Boyle· Host0:09
The rules around AI are changing fast. There's a lot of regulation abroad around digital safety and misinformation that's in some ways becoming the Petri dish for lobbying groups and organizations in America to bring that here.
Sarah Rogers· Guest0:20
I think when we send signals into this policy domain, they should be signals that are consistent with free speech. The economist Tyler Cowen talks about AI with a Western soul, and I completely agree with him that that is the greatest soft power tool we can possess.
Katherine Boyle· Host0:33
How can the US government encourage private sector to encourage free speech at their companies, even if they don't have the ability to buy a company like Elon does and put his fingerprint on it?
Sarah Rogers· Guest0:42
I think we need to- Every major communications technology has produced the same instinct: control it before it controls you.
Speaker 20:51
The printing press brought fears of heresy. The internet gave rise to a disinformation apparatus funded in part by the US government itself. Sarah B. Rogers inherited that apparatus. As Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, she took over an office that had been submitting content removal requests to platforms like Twitter and Meta, and funding NGOs to determine what Americans were allowed to see online. She is now running the opposite operation. Her argument is also strategic. Economist Tyler Cowen has written about AI with a Western soul, AI that reasons individualistically,