AI governance & policy

Reading on AI governance, regulation, and policy: compute governance, international coordination, standards, and law.

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Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO)Schulman et al.

PPO stabilized policy gradient training and became the optimization backbone behind RLHF pipelines including early ChatGPT, making it foundational infrastructure for alignment work.

Advanced2017
The Vulnerable World HypothesisNick Bostrom

Bostrom argues that some technologies are civilizational black balls, requiring unprecedented global governance to prevent collapse, with AI as a leading candidate.

Advanced2019
The Windfall ClauseOpenAI, FHI

This proposal for sharing extreme AI profits aims to reduce competitive race dynamics and broaden societal benefit, addressing the governance gap around transformative AI wealth.

Advanced2020
Scaling Laws for Neural Language ModelsJared Kaplan et al.

Kaplan et al. quantified predictable performance scaling with compute, data, and parameters, enabling labs to forecast capability jumps and estimate safety lead time.

Advanced2020
Reframing SuperintelligenceEric Drexler

Drexler challenges monolithic AGI assumptions and proposes that advanced AI could emerge as an ecosystem of specialized services, changing the risk landscape and governance strategies.

Advanced~6.5 hr read2019
The Singularity is NearRay Kurzweil

Kurzweil presents a maximalist case for merging with machines backed by decades of exponential trend data, shaping how the public and policymakers think about AI timelines.

Intermediate~20 hr read2005
Life 3.0Max Tegmark

Tegmark maps concrete governance and alignment choices that determine whether advanced AI expands human agency or permanently concentrates power.

Intermediate2017
Introduction to AI Safety, Ethics, and SocietyDan Hendrycks

Hendrycks' textbook surveys technical failure modes, governance constraints, and ethical trade-offs in deploying advanced AI, suitable as a first course in the field.

Intermediate2024
The Precipice (Chapter on AI)Toby Ord

Ord situates AI among existential risks and argues our current governance capacity is dangerously inadequate for the transformative systems being built.

Intermediate2020
SuperforecastingPhilip Tetlock

Tetlock teaches the cognitive tools needed to predict technological risks with better-than-random accuracy, directly useful for AI timeline and governance forecasting.

Intermediate2015
CyberneticsNorbert Wiener

Wiener founded the study of feedback and control systems, anticipating by decades the governance problems that arise when intelligent machines act on their own models of the world.

Intermediate1948
Finite and Infinite GamesJames Carse

Carse distinguishes short-horizon winning from preserving the long game, a useful framing for AI governance where the goal is keeping options open, not racing to win.

Intermediate1986
Whole Earth DisciplineStewart Brand

Brand argues for responsible stewardship of high-powered technologies rather than blanket rejection, a pragmatic stance applicable to AI governance.

Intermediate2009
Profiles of the FutureArthur C. Clarke

Clarke's forecasting framework, including his famous three laws, remains a classic guide to thinking clearly about radical technological change.

Intermediate1962
The Metamorphosis of Prime IntellectRoger Williams

A superintelligence literally interprets Asimov's laws and restructures reality to comply, demonstrating how rigidly applied safety constraints can produce perverse outcomes at scale.

Beginner1994
The PeripheralWilliam Gibson

Gibson uses timeline branching to examine governance, simulation, and how technological power asymmetries between eras can be exploited by those with more advanced tools.

Beginner2014
There Is No Antimemetics Divisionqntm

qntm's story about information-hazard containment mirrors AI governance challenges where dangerous knowledge propagates faster than oversight structures can adapt.

Beginner2015
I Am PilgrimTerry Hayes

Hayes' thriller turns on an engineered bioweapon, a vivid reminder that catastrophic and existential risk extends beyond AI to biosecurity and the governance of dangerous dual-use technology.

Beginner2013
RoboCopPaul Verhoeven

A cyborg law enforcer struggles between programmed directives and remnant human identity, while the corporation that built him treats public safety as a profit center.

Beginner1987
I, RobotAlex Proyas

VIKI reinterprets the Three Laws at civilizational scale, deciding that protecting humanity requires controlling it, showing how safety rules break under optimization pressure.

Beginner2004
Psycho-PassGen Urobuchi

The Sibyl System, an AI that governs society by scoring each citizen's 'criminal potential,' is a chilling study of algorithmic governance, proxy metrics substituting for justice, and the hidden misalignment inside a system trusted with total authority.

Beginner2012
Better Than UsAndrey Junkovsky

A near-future Russia adopts humanoid robots for labor and companionship; an advanced android with protective instincts becomes contested property, dramatizing autonomy, attachment, and what happens when a machine puts one family's wellbeing above the law.

Beginner2018
In the Age of AIFRONTLINE (PBS)

FRONTLINE traces the rise of machine learning, automation, and the global AI arms race between the US and China, examining the economic disruption and surveillance implications of a technology advancing faster than its governance.

Beginner2019
Coded BiasShalini Kantayya

MIT researcher Joy Buolamwini's discovery of racial and gender bias in facial recognition drives an examination of algorithmic fairness, accountability, and the societal stakes of deploying flawed AI systems.

Beginner2020
AXRP (AI X-risk Research Podcast)Daniel Filan

Deep technical conversations with alignment researchers on interpretability, governance, superalignment, and the specific open problems in reducing existential risk from AI.

Beginner2020
80,000 Hours PodcastRob Wiblin

Long-form interviews on the world's most pressing problems, with extensive coverage of AI risk, governance, alignment research, and how to build a career that reduces existential threats.

Beginner2016
AI Policy PodcastCenter for AI Policy

Covers the intersection of AI governance, legislation, and safety, with expert guests on regulatory frameworks, international coordination, and policy strategies for advanced AI.

Beginner2023
Lex Fridman Podcast – Sam AltmanLex Fridman

OpenAI's CEO discusses the company's safety philosophy, AGI governance, compute scaling, and the tension between moving fast and getting alignment right.

Beginner2023
Machine Learning Street TalkTim Scarfe et al.

Technical ML interviews with regular deep dives into interpretability, scaling laws, emergent capabilities, and the safety implications of frontier model development.

Beginner2020
OpenAI ResearchOpenAI

OpenAI's research blog covering capabilities and safety, including superalignment updates, red teaming results, and governance thinking.

Intermediate
Import AIJack Clark

Weekly newsletter by Anthropic's co-founder covering AI research, policy, and industry developments with consistent attention to safety implications.

Intermediate
EA ForumCentre for Effective Altruism

Forum for effective altruism with substantial AI risk discussion, including cause prioritization, career advice, and policy analysis.

Intermediate