Most AI policy conversations start from th e assumption that we're in unprecedented territory. But are we? This conver sation brings together three scholars\, all of whom regularly engage in tod ay's policy battles\, and zooms out to consider whether history has lessons for how our institutions should adapt to rapid technological change. Just how radically might AI destabilize and restructure our constitutional and p olitical order? What historical analogues might guide us in thinking about how this process might\, or should\, unfold?
Dean Woodley Ball is a senior fellow at FAI. He most recently ser ved as senior policy advisor for Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Techn ology at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and strate gic advisor for AI at the National Science Foundation. Previously he was a research fellow in the Artificial Intelligence & Progress Project at George Mason University's Mercatus Center and a policy fellow at Fathom.
De an is author of Hyperdimensional. His work focuses on emerging tec hnologies and the future of governance\, spanning artificial intelligence\, manufacturing innovation\, neural technology\, bioengineering\, technology policy\, political theory\, public finance\, urban infrastructure\, and cr iminal justice reform. Outside of FAI\, his scholarship has been published by the Mercatus Center\, the Hoover Institution\, the Carnegie Endowment fo r International Peace\, the Federation of American Scientists\, the Manhatt an Institute\, and American Compass.
Tim Hwang is ge neral counsel and a senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation focused on emerging technologies and national security. He is also a senio r technology fellow at the Institute for Progress\, where he runs Macro science. Previously\, Hwang served as the general counsel and VP of op erations at Substack\, as well as the global public policy lead for Google on artificial intelligence and machine learning. He is the author of Su bprime Attention Crisis\, a book about the structural vulnerabilities in the market for programmatic advertising.
Ketan Ramakrishna n is an associate professor of law at Yale Law School. His interes ts include torts\, AI regulation\, constitutional law\, contracts\, propert y\, and moral and legal philosophy. His articles on these subjects are publ ished or forthcoming in the Harvard Law Review\, University of Chicago Law Review\, Yale Journal on Regulation\, Fordham Law Review\, and Philosophy & Public Affairs. He has also written on AI governance for the Carnegie Foundation\, RAND\, and Lawfare. Ramakrishnan is the associat e reporter for the American Law Institute's Principles of Civil Liability f or Artificial Intelligence project.
Ben Murphy (Moderator) HLS'27 is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Institute for Progress and a J.D. Candidate at Harvard Law School. His work focuses on how evolving tech nology interacts with existing public-law doctrines\, with particular inter est in historical analogues for technology-driven change in common law and the implications of AI for education. Previously\, Ben worked as an early e ngineer at Substack and Inflection AI\, and he was a Summer Fellow at the C entre for the Governance of AI. He holds bachelor's and master's degrees in computer science from Brown University.
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