A major gathering of “white hat” hackers will attack popular AI systems this weekend in an attempt to uncover security flaws. The so-called “red-teaming” exercise has attracted the support of the White House amid questions about the security of these powerful technologies. POLITICO tech reporter Mohar Chatterjee talks to one of the event’s organizers, SeedAI founder Austin Carson.

The 2024 campaign cycle is expected to unleash a torrent of AI-generated “deepfake” videos and images capable of deceiving voters. The Federal Election Commission is scheduled to vote today on a petition, initiated by advocacy group Public Citizen, that calls for banning political campaigns from distributing fake audio, video and images of their opponents. But the measure has failed before and early attempts to address the issue in Washington have hit political headwinds. On today's episode, Steven Overly talks with Public Citizen President Robert Weissman about the threats these forgeries present for politicians and voters alike.

Biden authorized $52 billion to rebuild the U.S. semiconductor industry one year ago today. Mike Schmidt is the guy charged with doling out the money. As director of the Commerce Department’s CHIPS Program Office, he manages the national security and finance experts picking the projects that will get a boost from taxpayers. On today’s episode, Schmidt lays out the agency’s vetting process — even as some questions remain unanswered, like how the U.S. and its allies will prevent a subsidies war.

Gerard de Graaf opened the European Union’s first San Francisco office nearly a year ago, making him the bloc’s de facto ambassador to the U.S. tech industry. His position is part cop, part counselor, part hype man. De Graaf speaks with Steven Overly about the EU’s ambitions in Silicon Valley and what has surprised him most about the place, including CEOs who are more comfortable with regulation than their lobbyists suggest.

First came Denmark. Then the U.K. and, more recently, the EU. A growing list of governments are setting up de facto embassies in Silicon Valley, largely to develop closer relationships with tech companies. POLITICO’s Steven Overly and Brendan Bordelon break down the purpose of these outposts, what they’re really like on the inside, and what they signal about the political and commercial pull of the U.S.’s largest tech hub.

On Friday, writers and studios are slated to hold the first talks they will have had in three months. Steven Overly talks with filmmaker Justine Bateman, who predicts expects artificial intelligence will be the harbinger of the end of movies and television as we know it.

Republican Todd Young is one of four senators charting the chamber’s path forward on artificial intelligence — a path he doesn’t expect will lead to sweeping AI legislation. In this episode, Steven Overly talks with Young about his vision for regulating this fast-moving technology and why the solution to concerns about bias, national security and even "doomsday scenarios" lies outside Congress.

Ronnie Chatterji — one of President Biden's key players on microchips — is leaving the White House this week, Politico exclusively reports. Chatterji joined the Commerce Department during the height of the supply chain crisis and quickly focused his attention on chips. Steven Overly talks with Chatterji about what’s left to do on chips, how well global competition is being managed, and what to watch for next.

Starting Wednesday, the POLITICO Tech podcast is your daily download on the disruption that technology is bringing to politics and policy. From AI and the metaverse to disinformation and microchips, we explore how today’s technology is shaping our world — and driving the policy decisions, global rivalries and industries that will matter tomorrow.

Want a personal insight into some of the world's most notorious cybercriminals through a neutral party? We interviewed a malware librarian to find out how the geopolitics surrounding the Russia-Ukraine war actually played out in the cybercriminal underground and the complex motivations of the people launching dangerous malware attacks against critical computing systems.

This episode, we're setting our gaze on the other side of the Atlantic. Laurens Cerulus, our Politico colleague in Brussels, joins us to talk about how European diplomacy has evolved to take on the cross-borders challenge of investigating and prosecuting cybercrime. We talk about the Budapest Convention, an international legal framework governing cybercrime investigations. We take the pulse on how Europol really feels about coordinating with their American counterparts on darknet cybercrime investigations and tracking cryptocurrency flows.

There are numerous agencies in the federal government involved in investigating and taking down cybercriminals. But Congress passes regulations that can improve that fight. We talk to Congressman Jim Himes (D-Ct.), chair of the House Subcommittee on National Security, International Development, and Monetary Policy. Rep. Himes is of the few people who can tell elaborate on how crypto comes into play with lawmaking to combat cybercrime on the darknet.

We kick off the second week of this limited series by taking you behind the scenes on the inter-departmental and inter-continental effort to successfully prosecute darknet cybercrimes. Across federal agencies, we find that a few digitally savvy investigators and prosecutors are leading the charge on revamping the law enforcement strategy for taking on cybercriminals. We talk to Zia Faruqui — a federal magistrate judge in DC and a former federal prosecutor for the Department of Justice in the DC Attorney General’s office — to highlight the out-of-the box thinking needed to bust cybercriminal enterprises.

Now at the halfway point of the series, we talk to a former military cyber-intelligence officer about the feedback loop between the defense community and the private sector and unpack the domestic threats posed by nation-state actors in the cybercriminal underground.

Funded by the Secret Service, the National Computer Forensics Institute is tasked with training law enforcement officers across the country in the tools they need to combat crime in an increasingly digital world. In this episode of our series on darknet forums, we dig into the top-down information-sharing model between federal, state, and local law enforcement officials. We see how jurisdictional issues can slow investigations into an increasingly interconnected global cybercriminal network, and talk with experts from the NCFI about how they’re trying to improve the playbook agencies use to fight cybercrime in the twenty-first century.

In the third episode of our series on darknet marketplaces, we’ll meet investigators who spent their careers examining these dark corners of the internet with a magnifying glass. We learn how to follow the money with the woman who pioneered what would eventually become the DEA’s Cyber Support Section. We talk to an ex-FBI agent who brought down global hacking collectives and darknet forums. No matter how advanced the technology gets, enterprising agents turn to traditional investigative techniques to get the job done. But it’s far from a perfect process.

In the second episode of our series on darknet marketplaces, we look at the personalities that helped build popular darknet forums and learn about the communication technologies and cryptocurrencies their members rely on. We also dig into how the geopolitics of the Russia-Ukraine war changed the nature of cooperation amongst cyber criminals on the dark net.

Welcome to POLITICO Tech. We’re kicking off with a limited series exploring darknet marketplaces, some of the least regulated parts of the world wide web. As malware and cybercrime attacks become increasingly frequent, regulators and law enforcement agencies work different angles to shut these platforms down, but new, often more unassailable, marketplaces pop up. We’ll trace the latest evolution of a global network of cybercriminal actors and the people tasked with catching them. In this series premiere, we’ll talk with ransomware experts and discuss the tradecraft of cybercrime collectives and the challenges inherent in monitoring them online.

The account of a 10-year-old Ohio girl seeking an abortion in Indiana has garnered international attention amid the fall of Roe v. Wade. Indiana's Attorney General is threatening criminal charges against the doctor who performed the abortion. Alice Miranda Ollstein reports.

As the January 6 hearings progress, a cadre of young, female, former Trump aides have created an informal network to support each other. Meridith McGraw reports.

The Food and Drug Administration is reviewing a first-of-its-kind application from HRA Pharma for Opill. If green-lit by the agency, Opill would become the first daily, hormonal birth control pill sold without a prescription. The submission of the application follows more than six years of studies the company has run. Alice Miranda Ollstein reports.

The Biden administration argues that the president's upcoming visits to Israel and Saudi Arabia are of great strategic importance. But possible images of him glad-handing with the Saudi crown prince threatens to be the defining moment. Alex Ward reports.

Earlier this month, a Minnesota law took effect that allows adults to purchase edibles or beverages with up to 5 milligrams of hemp-derived THC per serving. But some key state lawmakers were confused when they realized they had made those THC products legal. Paul Demko reports.

Boris Johnson resigned Thursday after fighting all week to hang on to his post as the U.K.'s Prime Minister, surviving lashings in the press, investigations and a narrow confidence vote last month. Even as the walls closed in around him, he remained defiant. Ryan Heath on how it could have been even messier.

Stung by messaging missteps over the coronavirus crisis, baby formula shortage and abortion access, the Food and Drug Administration is planning to hire Vin Gupta and other senior-level advisers to shore up the agency’s communications. Adam Cancryn reports.