NERMEEN SHAIKH: We begin today looking at the landmark Meta settlement. On Wednesday, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram agreed to pay up to $17 billion to settle a lawsuit brought by 29 states, led by California, that accused the company of designing its platforms to be addictive to children and harmful to their mental and physical health. The social media giant will initially pay about $12 billion, and an additional $5 billion if Snap, TikTok and YouTube reach similar agreements.

Meta also agreed to a number of restrictions for users under the age of 18, including limiting their access to Meta to two hours a day and silencing notifications during school hours. Meta will also block their access to its platforms from midnight to 6 a.m.

This is Victoria Hinks, mother of Alexandra Hinks, who died by suicide at the age of 16, reacting to the settlement.

VICTORIA HINKS: I think as long as they enforce it properly — and I’m glad that the judge asked, “How are you going to actually do this?” Because lots of times it’s just a lot of talk. And they need to actually have independent people come in. I think it’s great. I think this is three times now. With trial in L.A., they were found liable. In New Mexico, they were given a huge fine. And then, now this, they settled.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: A key witness in the landmark trial warned Meta’s safety changes fall short of protecting young users. Whistleblower and ex-Facebook employee Arturo Béjar said, quote, “The limitations that are in the agreement are the equivalent of saying: 'Well, you can smoke as many cigarettes as you can in two hours a day.' It doesn’t make the cigarettes any safer.”

The Meta case is being called a bellwether federal trial, potentially marking an inflection point for an industry that has largely escaped regulatory efforts. The Meta settlement also raises larger questions about the role of government in regulating powerful technology companies, especially in the age of rapidly expanding artificial intelligence, or AI.

Well, for more, we’re joined now by Amba Kak, co-executive director of AI Now Institute and former senior adviser on AI at the Federal Trade Commission.

Amba, welcome to Democracy Now! If you could just begin by responding to this settlement, its significance?

AMBA KAK: It’s significant, and it’s welcome, particularly for an industry that isn’t very used to being held to account for its impacts on the public. And $17 billion, roughly, across 10 years, you know, it’s a big number. It’s certainly a big number compared to the fact that the Trump DOJ was able to muster up a paltry $400 million from TikTok just about a week ago in a similar child privacy case, right?

But I think, you know, we’ve reached that point — and the mother’s testimony speaks to this — which is fines, no matter the value, particularly for companies for whom even $17 billion is, you know, a couple of days of what they’re spending, over 10 years, on AI infrastructure, right? So, for them, it’s a drop in the ocean.

But maybe more importantly, if we look at what, you know, Meta is agreeing to in this settlement, it’s design changes, it’s design fixes, but we’re not really getting at the root cause of why do we have infinite scroll or why are these platforms being architected in ways that are designed to addict teenagers. And the answer is the business model. It’s the business model of surveillance advertising, where it is optimization of engagement and attention at any cost. And I think if we don’t get at those root cause fixes, we’re going to be stuck, you know, playing whack-a-mole once the harms have already metastasized.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, just to go back to, you know, it is $17 billion, but, in fact, it’s at the moment $12 billion, and the remaining five is contingent on what Meta, YouTube and TikTok do. What do you think the chances are that they would also agree?

AMBA KAK: Look, I mean, firstly, this is $17 billion; it’s over 10 years. But to your point on whether industry will follow suit, I think at this point the evidence of the harm involved in this case of mental health impacts are unavoidable for the industry. We’ve reached the point where this is the least they can do to prevent harms that have metastasized and have already caused, you know, suicides. So, I think this isn’t — this doesn’t seem like a place that they’re going to negotiate. I think, for these firms, they’re always looking to the next frontier and where can they eke out the maximum sort of space. Their recklessness in this case, I think, they’ve already sort of been clamped down on.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And could you explain: What is the — what is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act? And how has it been used in these cases?

AMBA KAK: Right. So, you know, firms have a great deal of immunity for user-generated content, but what’s happened is that they often use this as a shield to say, “We’re just a neutral platform.” But I think what these cases really bring out, that there are these mechanisms of optimization, optimization of our attention, and, you know, these design features that are — that are very much transforming these platforms from much more than just a kind of neutral vessel for content, but certainly shaping our attention flows in ways that they get to architect. And, you know, whether that’s to buy things or for the kind of political opinions we shape, they’re playing a much more fulsome role in shaping information flows. And so they use — I think that is why, you know, Section 230 and the like have come back into focus, because people really are questioning the basis of these immunities in the first place.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, you talked about the root cause. I mean, it is true, this problem or this fact of this — the infinite scroll. What are the ways in which those are being, the fact of this, root cause of infinite scroll, among other things — how are those being addressed? And is there something — is there the role of government here? Who can regulate or, in any sense, alter what is now practically universal across social media?

AMBA KAK: Precisely. I think what this case tells us is that we cannot be relying on fines, or certainly even on litigation, after harms have already transpired. What we need are rules of the road. And we need rules that go to the root cause of the business model. Now, like I said, in the case of social media, that’s the surveillance advertising business model. How do we actually, you know, shut that engine down so that we’re not stuck dealing with the symptoms of that engine? And I think these are the lessons we need to be taking to AI right now, not in five years, not in 10 years. This is the moment to set the rules of the road and really protect and put public safety and public health first.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, just tell us — you know, you’ve been advising governments, including the U.S. government, on artificial intelligence. What are you telling them? And what kind of responses are you receiving?

AMBA KAK: So, honestly, Nermeen, it has been quite incredible to see how the landscape — even in my engagements with governments and regulators all over the world, it’s been a complete 180. I think even a year ago, the orientation was very much, you know, if you bring up regulation, you’re anti-innovation, you’re a Luddite, you’re seen as anti-AI. And, you know, politicians were sort of figuring their way around that and the landmines around being labeled as anti-progress or anti-innovation.

But cut to today. I think in prominent part because of data center activism across the country, but also a general feeling among the public that AI seems very anti-people, it seems like it might be coming for our jobs, it might be coming for our kids’ health, I think the fact that public opinion has sort of made itself heard and is very concerned about these technologies and their impacts has also meant that, I think, the public once again has the listening ear of the political class. And the question now is, you know: What do we do with it?

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, so, let’s talk about those data centers and, more broadly, the infrastructure that’s required for artificial intelligence. You co-authored a piece in The Wall Street Journal in November in which you talked about the cost of the infrastructure and what even these massive tech companies — Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. — that have powered AI, the amount that they would have to generate far exceeding what they actually have.

AMBA KAK: Right. So, the industry, the AI industry, at this point has chosen to go all-in on an extraordinarily capital-intensive trajectory, right? Bigger is better into infinity. And the question really is sort of: Who is going to foot the bill?

And what we argue, and have been arguing, is that, actually, the government in this case, and particularly the White House, the Trump White House, has taken an orientation that goes beyond just sort of reassuring industry that they will not come for them with regulation. It’s a step further. They’re acting not just as customer, but really as underwriter for this trajectory. They’re doing this through public procurement contracts of, you know, large numbers. They’re doing this through the commitment of federal lands for data centers, basically, you know, laying out public lands for the use of AI data centers. They’re actually doing the bidding of AI companies abroad to get contracts for these companies in different parts of the world.

So, I think there’s a way in which — and maybe most importantly, right? Every time there are jitters about “Is there a bubble? Is there not a bubble? Is any of this going to pan out?” you have the president himself standing alongside, you know, Sam Altman and Larry Ellison, just sort of reassuring everyone, but really reassuring the market, that this administration is going to stand behind these companies no matter what.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, I’d like to just turn to someone who’s warning about the potential dangers of artificial intelligence and its trajectory. Last night, during an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates warned about the many societal risks of unregulated artificial intelligence development. This is what he said.

BILL GATES: Over the last year, these AIs have gotten dramatically more powerful, even faster than I expected, and they’re now capable of causing cyberattack risk, bioterrorism risk, psychosocial risk. And I have to say, I’m kind of shocked that the exact criteria that we review these models with and the actions we take to minimize the harms are really completely missing, and the broad dialogue, where you get all of society talking about the trade-offs here, that’s just not taking place. And so, you know, we’ve got to minimize these harms through careful review and criteria, and we have to accelerate the good stuff, or else, you know, we could have a complete backlash that AI would suffer from.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Amba, if you could respond to Bill Gates and what he said? I mean, he was initially an AI enthusiast. And the importance of someone of his — in his position making this statement?

AMBA KAK: Look, I’m glad that Bill Gates is coming around to the fact that maybe AI is not such a great thing for the public, but I think there’s some amount of fatigue, you know — and I don’t think I’m speaking personally — even among the public with sort of looking to tech messiahs as potentially having the answers or being the experts on questions of whether technology is — or how to shape technology so that it is eventually socially beneficial for the public.

And I think that question of who is going to sit as experts in this question of AI harms and what to do about them, I think, is a really important political question in this moment. Because you asked me about what it’s like speaking to governments in this moment. I think the one thing that they do grapple with is a sense of insecurity and confusion about perhaps not knowing enough, and perhaps, you know — and this is manufactured, because you have an army of lobbyists that are continually reinforcing that they will sit expert in solving problems that they’ve created. So, this is no shade on Bill Gates, but I think the era of looking to, you know, tech CEOs or tech luminaries to give us answers for what are fundamentally social and political questions, I think, is gone.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: OK, so, before we conclude, Amba, I just want to ask you — earlier this year, India hosted, became the first developing country to host the AI Impact Summit.

AMBA KAK: Yes.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: You were there. If you could talk about the significance of India’s — India hosting this, and then how India is kind of positioning itself as a third alternative — not China, not the U.S., but India?

AMBA KAK: Look, I think the India question is, in some ways, much broader than just India. I think it’s the question of if we, sitting here in the United States, are worried about corporate consolidation in these few Big Tech firms, and our digital infrastructure is being controlled by the tech overlords, then that’s — that has reached the point of being an existential crisis for the rest of the world, that has seen over the last five years what that looks like when you have core digital infrastructure controlled by companies that are eventually beholden to erratic, you know, demands from the White House. And that is absolutely a crisis.

Now, what to do about it? I think where the India summit was interesting is that instead of submitting to the notion that we’re all in this race against China, and there’s just — you know, we all have to be all-in on this one race or else, I think there was an effort by India and many other countries, I think, to try to eke out the space to say, “Are there — are there other ways? Are there other ways to build these technologies, that not only have the kind of harmful environmental and other impacts that the scale paradigm does, but potentially can also eke out some space for, you know, alternative innovation ecosystems and strengthen local economies?” So, I think the headline was “look to your own population and see what they need,” rather than being sort of pulled by the — by the terms of this geopolitical great power race, which, frankly, is unwinnable on material terms anyway for most of the world.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Thank you so much, Amba Kak, co-executive director of the AI Now Institute and former senior adviser on AI at the Federal Trade Commission. She’s advising governments and government bodies on regulating AI.

Coming up, the hidden global data workforce. We’ll speak to professor Antonio Casilli, author of Waiting for Robots. Stay with us.

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NERMEEN SHAIKH: “Endless Alternate” by Dominique Gérard Bernard.