Welcome to the Human Dignity by Design podcast where we explore tech law in context and discuss how law and technology can – and should – be designed to respect human dignity. My name is Jan Trzaskowski and I am here to share research, thoughts and ideas on tech law and policy, including the role of fundamental human rights as guiding principles in business and beyond.

In this episode you will hear my talk on ‘Human Dignity in AI and Tech Policy’ given at DEF CON 32 in August 2024. The talk is largely based on my book Your Privacy Is Important to Us! (www.ypii.eu) and is about hacking human behaviour and how tech law and policy can be informed by human dignity.

I also introduce the concept ‘Big Tech Arrogance’, which covers situations where businesses [1] design their business models, including user experiences, in (very profitable) ways that go against their users’ interests and cost society dearly (leading to what Cory Doctorow calls ‘enshitification’), [2] use frames and storytelling to convince everyone that such a design is in their best interest and even inevitable, and [3] buy and gaslight regulators to avoid regulation (and taxation).

Exposing Big Tech Arrogance is not an argument against making profits by using digital business models, but a matter of embracing competition, transparency and user empowerment, which ought to be basic and uncontroversial values in a market economy.

Music for this podcast is composed and performed by Tomas Raae (www.tomasraae.dk). Thank you for listening!