161. LLMs: The Next Frontier of Information Warfare / Carl Miller

In this episode, I speak with Carl Miller: an author, journalist and researcher at Demos, a London think tank where he co-founded the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media in 2012. A renowned speaker, Carl has given address in Parliament, to NATO, at TED, the Web Summit, the Hay Literary Festival, Oxford University, the British Academy, the Mayor of London, Latitude and many more.

As a journalist, he has written on everything from living in a political technology commune and visiting an information warfare base, to meeting fake news merchants in Kosovo. He’s conducted longterm, immersive investigations into the digital democrats in Taiwan, hackers in Las Vegas and assassination markets on the dark net, and he's the host of the multi-award-winning, 7-country #1 podcast, Kill List.

The author of several books, including The Death of the Gods: The New Global Power Grab (which won the 2019 Transmission prize), Carl has led over 40 major projects to research the digital world. He highlighted the influence of conspiracy theories in 2010, called for digital literacy education in 2012. He warned about the rise of crypto-currencies in 2013, and how the digital world was transforming policing. With the former Director of GCHQ, he coined 'SOCMINT', social media intelligence.

In 2015 he led a team monitoring the rise of digital politics over the General Election. In 2016 he worked on using machine learning to measure how social media was targeting minority groups for abuse. From 2019 onwards, he has focussed on confronting the rise of shadowy forms of influence, disinformation and information warfare.

And this, dear listeners, is what we’ll be exploring today…

WEBSITES

• www.carlmiller.co
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlmiller/
• http://www.demos.co.uk/people/carl-miller
• https://demos.academia.edu/CarlMiller
• www.demos.co.uk

BOOKS & RESOURCES

Book: The Death of The Gods – Carl Miller (https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/436073/the-death-of-the-gods-by-carl-miller/9781786090126)

Writing: https://carl-miller-website.webflow.io/writing

Podcast: Kill List (Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/kill-list/id1769072368 / Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0MKZSB39sSnSYHzey11SPF)

CITED

Demos Waves Project - https://demos.co.uk/project/waves/

Estonia's X-Road Digital Identity System - https://e-estonia.com/solutions/interoperability-services/x-road/

CHAPTERS

06:06 The Role of Technology in Society

11:18 Information Warfare and AI

17:00 Civic Engagement and Digital Literacy

25:41 The Challenge of Digital Identity and Security

28:17 The Evolution of Internet Trust and Fraud

30:28 The Implications of AI on Identity and Trust

33:53 Innovations in Digital Democracy: The Waves Project