Lecture: Automating Content Policy

AI is no longer just moderating individual posts — it is learning how to interpret and enforce policy itself. Dave Willner—who has led trust and safety teams at Facebook, Airbnb, and OpenAI—joins journalist Meg Marco for a conversation about the shifting terrain of moderation in the age of generative AI.

From the tipping points of past technologies, like the cell phone, to today’s new “policy-rewriting machines” that can run millions of classifications in an hour, Willner and Marco will explore how automation is changing the scale, speed, and stakes of online governance.

New systems can ingest a company’s policy documents, apply them to vast datasets, and make millions of classifications in hours. In doing so, they both replicate the human task of drawing boundaries—deciding what falls inside or outside the rules—and extend that task far beyond traditional concerns like hate speech or misinformation.