A Conversation and Book Signing with Microsoft President Brad Smith

Artificial Intelligence.  Privacy and Social Media.  Regulating Technology.  Cybercrime.  Please join us for a conversation and book signing with Microsoft President Brad Smith as he discusses these topics and more in his new book, Tools and Weapons: The Promise and Peril of the Digital Age (Publish Date: September 10, 2019).  This event is free to attend; however, books must be purchased in the Reagan Library Museum Store to receive signature.  Books may be pre-purchased during the reservation process.

“A clear, compelling guide to some of the most pressing debates in technology today.” – Bill Gates

Microsoft President Brad Smith operates by a simple core belief: When your technology changes the world, you bear a responsibility to help address the world you have helped create. This might seem uncontroversial, but it flies in the face of a tech sector long obsessed with rapid growth and sometimes on disruption as an end in itself. While sweeping digital transformation holds great promise, we have reached an inflection point. The world has turned information technology into both a powerful tool and a formidable weapon, and new approaches are needed to manage an era defined by even more powerful inventions like artificial intelligence. Companies that create technology must accept greater responsibility for the future, and governments will need to regulate technology by moving faster and catching up with the pace of innovation.

In Tools and Weapons, Brad Smith and Carol Ann Browne take us into the cockpit of one of the world's largest and most powerful tech companies as it finds itself in the middle of some of the thorniest emerging issues of our time. These are challenges that come with no preexisting playbook, including privacy, cybercrime and cyberwar, social media, the moral conundrums of artificial intelligence, big tech's relationship to inequality, and the challenges for democracy, far and near. While in no way a self-glorifying "Microsoft memoir," the book pulls back the curtain remarkably wide onto some of the company's most crucial recent decision points, as it strives to protect the hopes technology offers against the very real threats it also presents. There are huge ramifications for communities and countries, and Brad Smith provides a thoughtful and urgent contribution to that effort.

Brad Smith is Microsoft's president, where he leads a team of more than 1,400 business, legal and corporate affairs professionals working in 56 countries. He plays a key role in spearheading the company's work on critical issues involving the intersection of technology and society, including cybersecurity, privacy, artificial intelligence, human rights, immigration, philanthropy and environmental sustainability.  

Although registration for this event is closed, this is a free event and everyone is still welcome to attend both the lecture and book signing (books must be purchased at the Reagan Library Museum Store to receive signature). Please join us at 6:00 p.m. on Friday, October 4th!