​AI POLICY & GOVERNANCE READING CIRCLE

​Governing Intelligence

​A biweekly learning group for practitioners navigating the AI policy landscape

​The decisions being made about artificial intelligence right now, how it is built, governed, regulated, and deployed, will shape society for decades. Yet most of those conversations are happening in rooms that too few people have access to or engage.

​This group is to raise awareness and add more people to the AI policy ecosystem.

​This biweekly research paper reading group is a curated space for professionals who want to engage seriously with AI policy and governance without requiring a technical background. Each session we will review a research paper selected in advance, drawn from policy briefs, academic research, regulatory frameworks, and working papers, with facilitated discussion that connects ideas to practice. You will leave each session sharper, more informed, and better positioned to participate in these conversations in your own work.

​Note: This group will have a US focus on policy issues however, we will review papers, documents, etc from the EU, China and the Global South.

​Session Format

​Each 60-minute session follows a consistent structure.

​10 min  Framing and context

​30 min  Guided discussion of the session reading

​15 min  Questions

​5 min  Preview of the next session

​Readings are shared one week in advance. Participation is active but you are welcome to listen and learn as well.

​Bring your work into the room.  Participants are encouraged to present papers, research, policy briefs, or relevant work they are actively engaged with. This is a community of practitioners, not a passive audience. If you have something worth discussing, reach out directly to be considered for a future session.

​Who This Is For

​Practitioners, communicators, advocates, researchers, and civic leaders who work adjacent to AI and want to engage more fluently with policy and governance conversations. No technical background required please bring your intellectual curiosity.

​This group is especially relevant for professionals in nonprofit, education, civic tech, public policy, communications, and community organizing who recognize that AI governance affects their constituencies, their institutions, and their work.

​June 5th paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.03718

​Advanced AI models hold the promise of tremendous benefits for humanity, but society needs to proactively manage the accompanying risks. In this paper, we focus on what we term "frontier AI" models: highly capable foundation models that could possess dangerous capabilities sufficient to pose severe risks to public safety. Frontier AI models pose a distinct regulatory challenge: dangerous capabilities can arise unexpectedly; it is difficult to robustly prevent a deployed model from being misused; and, it is difficult to stop a model's capabilities from proliferating broadly. To address these challenges, at least three building blocks for the regulation of frontier models are needed: (1) standard-setting processes to identify appropriate requirements for frontier AI developers, (2) registration and reporting requirements to provide regulators with visibility into frontier AI development processes, and (3) mechanisms to ensure compliance with safety standards for the development and deployment of frontier AI models. Industry self-regulation is an important first step. However, wider societal discussions and government intervention will be needed to create standards and to ensure compliance with them. We consider several options to this end, including granting enforcement powers to supervisory authorities and licensure regimes for frontier AI models. Finally, we propose an initial set of safety standards. These include conducting pre-deployment risk assessments; external scrutiny of model behavior; using risk assessments to inform deployment decisions; and monitoring and responding to new information about model capabilities and uses post-deployment. We hope this discussion contributes to the broader conversation on how to balance public safety risks and innovation benefits from advances at the frontier of AI development.

​Program Details

​Format:  Zoom, 60 minutes

​Frequency:  Every other Friday

​Time:  12:00 - 1:00 PM ET

​Pilot Run:  Summer 2026 (June - August)