In this episode, we are joined by Alondra Nelson, the Harold F. Linder Chair in the School of Social Science at the Institute of Advanced Study, and the former acting director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). We discuss her background in AI policy (1:30), the Blueprint for the AI Bill of Rights (9:43), its relationship to the White House Executive Order on AI (23:47), the Senate AI Insight Forums (29:55), the European approach to AI governance (29:55), state-level AI regulation (41:20), and how the incoming administration should approach AI policy (47:04).
Dr. Alondra Nelson holds the Harold F. Linder Chair in the School of Social Science at the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, where she also founded and leads the Science, Technology, and Social Values Lab.From 2021 to 2023, she was deputy assistant to President Joe Biden and acting director and the first person to serve as principal deputy director for science and society of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). She led the development of the White House “Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights,” a cornerstone of President Biden’s Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence. In recognition of Nelson’s impactful OSTP tenure, Nature named her to its global list of the 10 People Who Shaped Science. In 2023, she was included in the inaugural TIME100 list of the most influential people in AI, and was nominated by the White House and then appointed by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres to serve on the UN High-level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence. In 2024, Nelson was appointed by President Biden to the National Science Board, the body that establishes the policies of the National Science Foundation and advises Congress and the President. Nelson previously was Columbia University's first Dean of Social Science and served as the 14th president and CEO of the Social Science Research Council, an independent, international nonprofit organization.
