Technology and the Public Interest
Books, essays, and commentary from John Palfrey
Essays
Notes from AI Action Summit in Delhi, India, February 2026
Reflections on AI, governance, and the public interest from the AI Action Summit in Delhi.
Read essayConcord Free Public Library 150th Anniversary Celebration
Remarks on libraries, civic institutions, and the enduring importance of public knowledge.
Read essayInvesting in the Arts—in Chicago and Beyond
Thoughts on philanthropy, culture, and why investing in the arts matters for public life.
Read essayCommentary from John Palfrey
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A Citizens' Choice Framework for Net Neutrality
I’ve just submitted a comment to the FCC with respect to a proposal for a compromise solution on network neutrality. I’m very grateful to the many friends who provided constructive criticism during the drafting and refinement of the ideas. Here’s the text: * * * Mr. Chairman and Members of the Commission: Thank you for…
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Born Digital: The Video Version
One of the ideas that Urs Gasser and I had from the start of the Born Digital book project was to find a way to co-produce the ideas behind the book. The concept was to celebrate, in a graphic way, the creativity and ability of young people. We worked closely with dozens of student interns…
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Laptop and Filtering Policies for Classrooms
I had the pleasure of teaching in the Research Symposium for Spanish and Latin American Academics, held at Harvard University this August. As part of a three-hour session on learning with technologies, I assigned an exercise in which groups of teachers (mostly at the university level; a few teaching younger students) had to work together…
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Guest Blog Post: Lawrence Lessig
John, As you know, my blog is in hibernation. Would you mind posting the following response to Andy Orlowski’s latest for the record? I hadn’t thought any response would be necessary, but the ordinarily sensible (even if I disagree with its politics) Capitol Confidential seems to have been misled by Orlowski’s piece. Perhaps there are…
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Some Basic Facts about the Berkman Center
A new group of (utterly wonderful) interns has arrived at the Berkman Center, asking lots of questions about what the place is about. I met with a big group of them, working on a few projects I’m involved with, this afternoon. There’s also a reporter who has been working on a story about the Center,…
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Susan Rabiner, Thinking Like Your Editor
As I’ve been gearing up to write a new book, I’ve been thinking about how to do it better this time — continuous improvement and all that. Some fairly obvious observations are on my mind: stronger argument, a more compelling narrative, less repetitive, probably shorter, and one big-picture idea,* below the rest of the post.…
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Danner: Taming Multiplicity in a Post-Print Era
Prof. Richard Danner of Duke Law School is giving a truly inspiring lecture today at Harvard about libraries and legal information. He has grounded his talk in a lecture by Morris Cohen, a former Harvard Law School library director and professor (later, he had both jobs at Yale as well), about the “multiplicity” of legal…
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Upcoming Lecture: Richard Danner on Open Access (4/29 at 12:30 p.m. at Harvard)
I’m just thrilled that Richard Danner has agreed to give a major lecture on the Harvard campus about open access on April 29, 2010. As a rookie law library director, I’ve asked many people in the profession about the leaders in the field, and roads inevitably lead to Danner, among a small handful of others…
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Night at the Cambridge School Committee
At the Cambridge City Hall, the School Committee is meeting about its budget for the coming year. There’s not a seat to be had in the Sullivan Chamber. People are clustered in the antechamber, watching the proceedings on a TV monitor in the hallway. The School Committee is expected to approve the proposed $137.5 million…
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Google in China
I’m looking forward to a day of watching the fallout from the Google-China-HK announcement yesterday. I give Google an enormous amount of credit for the approach that they are taking; it’s a worthy effort to meet what they consider their human rights obligations while seeking to engage in the China market, both of which are…
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Joel Reidenberg: Transparent Citizens and the Rule of Law
Prof. Joel Reidenberg (Fordham Law; director of the Center on Law and Information Policy) starts out a luncheon talk at the Berkman Center’s Law Lab with a provocative opening theme: Transparency challenges the very existence of the Rule of Law. Some hasty/live-blogged notes follow: As a practical matter, in the cloud era, we’ve lost the…