Fadi Tahati

Big Tech Under the Spotlight: Privacy, Transparency, and Regulation

Julia Boorstin, Michael Beckerman, Fadi Tahati, Tristan Harris, Luke Nozick, Kathleen Sullivan, Eric Schmidt

Leading technologists, antitrust officials, and investors convened to address the misalignment between rapid digital innovation and outdated 20th-century governance frameworks, highlighting critical risks ranging from deepfake-driven violence and algorithmic radicalization to the potential erosion of U.S. competitive advantage against state-backed foreign rivals. The panelists identified structural flaws in the current attention economy and data practices, with experts like Michael Beckerman warning that unilateral U.S. regulation could disarm domestic firms while figures such as Fadi Tahati and Tristan Harris called for a new global social contract to treat human attention as a finite resource. Ultimately, the discussion emphasized the urgent need to decouple rule design from enforcement timelines and to establish transnational norms that prioritize long-term societal goals over short-term profit incentives.