But actually, our data are actually expressions of our innocence, our life force.

Like, our data are what are being, you know, spat out about us at all places and all times essentially,

even if it's not on our phones, it's being triangulated on other systems.

So we have to kind of think about data as an expression of ourselves as human beings.

And how do we kind of, a, understand that and be protect that as a right?

I think that's something I'm trying to work on with multiple members of Congress,

you know, kind of conceptualizing data as a, as a right.

This week on Forward, UCLA professor and author of Beyond the Valley,

one of the experts on text impact on us and our lives, Ramestrian of ASEAN.

It is my pleasure to welcome to the Forward podcast author of Beyond the Valley, UCLA professor,

surrogate for Bernie and Joe and Kamala.

I don't know how we pulled that one off. One of the foremost experts on technology's impact on our society,

Ramestrian of ASEAN. Welcome, Ramest.

Thank you, Andrew. Thank you for having me. I'm psyched to join Forward.

Yeah, we're psyched to have you. So tell us a little bit about how the heck you came to be,

one of the world's leading authorities on technology's impacts.

You, you know, came up as a student, you got your PhD like, when did you become passionate about this?

So I studied engineering at Stanford in the late 1990s, right?

We remember that time we're around the same age, Andrew, you know, and in the late 1990s,

as some of us may remember, there was a lot of buzz in within Silicon Valley and Stanford was very much like a hub of...

Do you know any of the famous people then who are classmates around then was like, Jerry Yang down the hall and stuff like that?

I mean, some of the PayPal founders were in my classmates, you know, definitely people who were early in, you know,

...