On Thursday, April 3, 2025, the Tech Policy Lab hosted Dr. Alondra Nelson for its annual Distinguished Lecture, drawing a crowd of over 350 to Kane Hall in Seattle, Washington.
Nelson, the former Acting Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, focused her remarks on “algorithmic agnotology,” which is the strategic manufacture of ignorance at scale. She identified how artificial intelligence technologies, when administered through large corporations, follow the pattern of other examples of agnotology, namely the tobacco and fossil fuel industries’ efforts to sow doubt and unknowing among the population.
Nelson suggested that companies create knowledge asymmetries that reinforce their power while evading accountability. Deliberate opacity has profound implications for democratic governance and digital rights, she said.
She urged the audience to confront the systemic nature of doubt, rather than accepting the unknown, and as inevitable.
Over a dozen audience members lined up to ask questions after the lecture.
“I’m especially interested in how we can […] actively redistribute power and understanding to users,” said Cherry Roy, a UW graduate student pursuing a Master’s of Science in Technology Innovation, who attended the lecture and found the parallels between Big Pharma and AI thought-provoking.
The lecture continued to spark conversations in classes and labs afterwards.
“I have heard so many students and other faculty glow about the talk,” said Tech Policy Lab Co-Director Tadayoshi Kohno. “Several students have now added ‘agnotology’ to their active vocabulary during project meetings.”
Vice Provost Mari Ostendorf opened the event with remarks about the importance of interdisciplinarity, and Kohno introduced Nelson, whose career spans academia and public service. Presently, Nelson is the Harold F. Linder Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, where she leads the Science, Technology, and Social Values Lab. In 2023, she was named to the inaugural TIME100 list of the most influential people in AI and recognized by Nature as one of the “Ten People Who Shaped Science.”