How can we keep people at the centre of tech, and build products that are safe by design instead of fixed after harm is done?

Jen and Producer Nico sit down with Nakshathra Suresh, cyber criminologist, UNSW academic and co-founder of Eiris, to talk about what happens when AI blurs the line between our online and offline lives. Nakshathra works with startups, universities and businesses to build with safety, inclusion and human-centred design. She talks about why critical thinking is a bare minimum skill, and why that bar should rise with every tool we use.

You'll hear Nakshathra share how getting her first social media account at 10 shaped her sense of self, and why she believes the problem isn't tech alone, it's the humans who interact with it. She explains the fine line between access and dependence with AI, how generative AI is collapsing the barrier between online and offline, and why people hand over intimate details to tools that may be collecting them. She also unpacks how AI supercharges romance scams, and what it means when your social media can be used to map your whole life.

Nakshathra also tells the story of founders who assume the compliance team will handle privacy, and what happens when she asks how they're using AI. She makes the case for safety by design, points to the free eSafety Commissioner framework, and explains why you don't need a trust and safety team to think like a trust and safety person. Plus: why some cybercrime laws are older than the technology they now cover, and why privacy policies don't need to be 15 pages long.

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