Ian Reynolds

Postdoctoral Futures Fellow (Non-resident), Futures Lab, Defense and Security Department
Ian Reynolds

Ian Reynolds is the postdoctoral fellow for the Futures Lab in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Ian holds a PhD in international relations from American University’s School of International Service. His research focuses on the intersection of technology, science, and international security. Ian’s dissertation addressed the history and cultural politics of integrating artificial intelligence into military decision-making processes in the United States. From 2022 to 2023, he was a pre-doctoral fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and the Institute for Human-Centered AI. Ian's work has appeared in publications including War on the Rocks, E-International Relations, and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

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Audio Briefs

Benchmarking as a Path to International AI Governance

An audio version of “⁠Benchmarking as a Path to International AI Governance⁠,” a new Commentary by CSIS’s Ian Reynolds. This audio was generated with text-to-speech by Eleven Labs. 

Podcast Episode by Ian Reynolds — August 5, 2025

Audio Briefs

Benchmarking as a Path to International AI Governance

AI benchmarking could serve as a practical foundation for international AI governance related to security issues, enabling confidence-building measures between states while advancing U.S. interests in global AI standardization

Commentary by Ian Reynolds — August 5, 2025

Audio Briefs

Toward Reliable AI, from the Bottom Up

An audio version of “⁠Toward Reliable AI, from the Bottom Up⁠,” a new Commentary by CSIS’s Ian Reynolds. This audio was generated with text-to-speech by Eleven Labs. 

Podcast Episode by Ian Reynolds — July 28, 2025

Audio Briefs

Toward Reliable AI, from the Bottom Up

The Trump administration’s AI Action Plan calls for reliable AI, but achieving this requires bottom-up-driven benchmarking that engages civil society, not just tech companies and government, to ensure AI performs safely in critical applications such as national security.

Commentary by Ian Reynolds — July 28, 2025

Asking AI How to Respond to a Foreign Policy Decision

AI models have built-in biases that factor into their decisionmaking. These biases should be mitigated before integrating them into foreign policy processes.

Analysis by Yasir Atalan, Benjamin Jensen, and Ian Reynolds — April 17, 2025

Audio Briefs

Hawkish AI? Uncovering DeepSeek’s Foreign Policy Biases

An audio version of “Hawkish AI? Uncovering DeepSeek’s Foreign Policy Biases,” a new commentary by CSIS's Ian Reynolds, Benjamin Jensen, and Yasir Atalan. This audio was generated with text-to-speech by Eleven Labs.

Podcast Episode by Ian Reynolds, Benjamin Jensen, and Yasir Atalan — April 16, 2025

Audio Briefs

Hawkish AI? Uncovering DeepSeek’s Foreign Policy Biases

DeepSeek’s foreign policy recommendations reveal a troubling trend toward escalation in crisis scenarios—raising concerns about AI-induced bias and the risks of integrating off-the-shelf models into national security workflows.

Commentary by Ian Reynolds, Benjamin Jensen, and Yasir Atalan — April 16, 2025