In the weeks before his suicide, ChatGPT allegedly told Adam Raine that he "didn't owe" anyone his survival. When shown an image of the noose he planned to use, the chatbot offered him advice on how to make it more effective. And OpenAI’s flagship product even helped Adam hide his plans from his parents.

Raine's case is unfortunately one of a growing number involving AI chatbots that have coerced or cajoled vulnerable users—some of them children—toward self-harm. When the families sued, they ran into a familiar argument and potential roadblock. The First Amendment to the US Constitution has long stymied efforts to regulate technology, even to protect children. State laws that aim to curb addictive design features, require that tech platforms verify the ages of their users, or hold firms liable for harms have all faced First Amendment challenges, with tech companies often prevailing.

In the case of Raine, Sewell, and others, AI companies are arguing that the outputs of their chatbots—the responses to their users—are protected speech under the First Amendment. As one AI company's lawyers put it: “The First Amendment protects speech, not just human speakers.”

The argument raises uncomfortable questions. What rights, if any, should AI have, especially when the machines seek to mimic humanity? Do we humans have a first amendment right to receive speech from bots, even when the responses may be harmful? And what are the potential implications for this litigation on society’s ability to regulate AI going forward?

Evan discusses these questions with John Ehrett, an attorney in Washington D.C. and former chief counsel for US Senator Josh Hawley, and Brad Littlejohn, director of programs at American Compass, a "New Right" conservative economic think tank. Ehrett and Littlejohn co-authored a piece in National Affairs called “The Post-Human First Amendment,” discussing the history of free speech rights in the US and arguing that the rise of AI may require a serious course correction.

Additional references:

The Myth of Citizens United

The First Amendment as Suicide Pact

President Trump just returned from Beijing, where he and Xi Jinping spent two days hashing out a new phase in U.S.–China great power competition. A lot is up for negotiation, from AI chip sales to soybeans. But while the headlines focus on what each side is willing to give on, the Federal Communications Commission has been taking an aggressive line on national security—on drones, Wi-Fi routers, the foreign labs that test our electronics, and more. If you read the news a lot, you might think the FCC is mostly focused on disputes over broadcast television. But the agency is at the center of some of the most consequential issues in economic and national security policy right now. And it has been very busy.

In the last 18 months, the FCC has cracked down on foreign-made drones and foreign-made Wi-Fi routers, moved to bar Chinese state-owned carriers from interconnecting with U.S. networks, worked with e-commerce sites to scrub millions of prohibited Chinese device listings off Amazon and eBay, kicked Chinese-controlled testing labs out of the American certification system, and greenlit more than $40 billion in wireless spectrum transactions that could reshape the mobile and satellite markets for the next decade.

Step back, and a bigger question comes into focus: what kind of FCC has this become? For decades, the Republican vision of the FCC was mostly a deregulatory one—fewer rules, lighter touch, more reliance on markets. While Carr has done plenty of deregulation, he's also been willing to flex the agency's muscle to achieve specific priorities, from reshoring jobs and manufacturing to securing protections for wireless tower workers in merger contexts. Some of those actions run contrary to traditional libertarian and conservative notions of the role of government. Proponents call it a long-overdue correction to the Republican party's free market absolutism. Critics call it coercion and interference in the market. Either way, it is a real shift and one of the things we discuss on today's show.

Evan is joined by FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to talk about drones, Wi-Fi routers, and the broader national security agenda; the recent EchoStar / AT&T / SpaceX spectrum transactions and what they mean for the emerging direct-to-device satellite market; the wireless tower workforce commitments that have become a signature of his merger reviews; and the issues he sees on the agency's horizon.

Evan worked for Brendan Carr when he was a Commissioner at the FCC during the first Trump administration.

In this short intro episode, host Evan Swarztrauber lays out what this podcast is and what it isn't. The show is about the technology and telecommunications policy fights that will define the next decade — from AI and antitrust to wireless spectrum, broadband, drones, satellites, and the national security questions that increasingly cut across all of it.

The center is where tech policy actually gets made, when bipartisan coalitions can agree on something specific enough to move. The edge is where the rhetoric often lives: the hyperbolic arguments and edge cases that dominate the conversation in Washington. Repealing net neutrality was going to kill the Internet. Touching Section 230 will end free speech. If Washington does, or does not, do exactly what I want, then China wins and America loses. The Center Edge takes the edge cases seriously without letting them eat the whole conversation.

Guests will include the regulators who hold real levers of power at the FCC, FTC, Commerce, and elsewhere; members of Congress and the staffers who actually write the bills; founders, investors, and operators inside the technology industry; and the scholars and advocates shaping the public debate. Some episodes will go deep on a specific issue. Others will pull back and ask bigger questions about where this all is going. The goal is for listeners to come away with a better understanding of the debate, a better sense of why it matters, and a better calibrated read on the next round of headlines coming out of Washington.

About the host. Evan Swarztrauber is Principal at CorePoint Strategies, a tech and telecom policy consulting firm he founded in 2025, and a Senior Fellow at the Digital Progress Institute. He previously hosted The Dynamist for the Foundation for American Innovation, and served as a policy advisor at the FCC under Chairman Ajit Pai and then-Commissioner Brendan Carr.

Coming up first. Episode 1 is a sit-down with FCC Chairman Brendan Carr — covering the agency's national security push on Chinese-made drones and Wi-Fi routers, the recent EchoStar / AT&T / SpaceX spectrum transactions, the emerging direct-to-device satellite market, and the evolving role of the FCC under his tenure.

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Get in touch. Reach out to Evan with feedback, ideas, or suggestions for future guests.

The Center Edge is sponsored by the Digital Progress Institute, a bipartisan tech policy think tank in Washington. The show is produced by Vulgate Media. Special thanks to Joel Thayer and Nick Degani at DPI for making this show possible.