Microsoft's President on Privacy, Artificial Intelligence, and Human Rights

Before a rapt, standing-room-only audience of more than 300 students, faculty, and other members of the Law School community, Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith '84 returned to campus on October 1 to discuss his new book, Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age (cowritten with Carol Ann Browne). The event with Gillian Lester, Dean and the Lucy G. Moses Professor of Law of Columbia Law School, and Professor Tim Wu, a leading authority on antitrust law who advocates for breaking up Big Tech companies, was the season's first installment of the Dean's Distinguished Speaker Series. "Brad may be the only tech executive who would willingly share the stage with Professor Wu, given Tim's strong and well-articulated position on the perils associated with the bigness of today's technology companies," said Dean Lester in her introduction. The conversation touched on a number of pressing concerns, including cybersecurity, government regulation, ethics, and human rights. Smith's book addresses the untold ramifications of digital technology's ubiquity in our personal lives, our societies, and our economies.