Head of AI Policy, Abundance Institute
Neil Chilson is the Head of AI Policy at the Abundance Institute. Prior to this position, he served as a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Growth and Opportunity. Chilson is a lawyer, computer scientist, and author of the book “Getting Out of Control: Emergent Leadership in a Complex World.”
Chilson was previously the senior research fellow for Technology and Innovation at Stand Together, where he guided efforts to understand and promote the legal and cultural paradigms that best enable people to discover, innovate, and improve all our lives.
Before Stand Together, Chilson was the Chief Technologist at the Federal Trade Commission, where he focused on the economics of privacy and blockchain-related issues. Previously, he was an attorney advisor to Acting FTC Chairman Maureen K. Ohlhausen. In both roles he advised Chairman Ohlhausen and worked with staff on nearly every major technology-related case, report, workshop, or other FTC proceeding since January 2014. Neil joined the FTC from telecom firm Wilkinson Barker Knauer. Neil is frequently quoted by the press and his work has appeared in numerous news outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USAToday, and Newsweek. Neil has a J.D. from The George Washington Law School, a M.S. in computer science from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and a B.S. in computer science from Harding University.
AI Innovation and Law Fellow, University of Texas School of Law
Kevin Frazier is an AI Innovation and Law Fellow with University of Texas School of Law.
Senior Vice President, Americans for Responsible Innovation
Satya Thallam is Senior Vice President for Government of Government Affairs at Americans for Responsible Innovation, focused on AI policy issues. He is also Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation. He is a policy expert and advisor, having served in senior roles in the congressional and executive branches and as an executive at a biotechnology startup, and is frequently invited to testify before Congress and appear in media.
Previously, he was a senior policy official at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), with direct oversight, review, and negotiation of all federal regulatory policymaking across over a dozen cabinet agencies. In this role, he advised the Director of OMB and fellow senior White House colleagues on regulatory policies and process. His time in government began in the U.S. Senate, at the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, where for nearly five years he was the Senate’s point person on regulatory reform, as well as the committee’s expert on areas running the breadth of the committee’s jurisdiction.
Satya has also spent many years in the think tank sector, leading programs primarily related to financial services policy, at both university-based and independent organizations. In this capacity, he authored policy reports, congressional testimonies, op-eds, and presentations, and built new research programs. Satya’s policy career began at the Goldwater Institute, the premier state policy-focused think tank, beginning as an intern and rising to a director-level role leading the organization’s fiscal policy program.
Senior Fellow, R Street Institute
Prior to R Street, Adam spent 12 years as a senior fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Before the Mercatus Center, he served as the president of the Progress and Freedom Foundation. Adam has also worked for the Adam Smith Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute.
Adam has published 10 books on a wide range of topics, including online child safety, internet governance, intellectual property, telecommunications policy, media regulation and federalism.
In 2008, Adam received the Family Online Safety Institute’s “Award for Outstanding Achievement.”
Understanding AI
Timothy Lee is a reporter who has written about technology, economics, and public policy for more than a decade. Before he launched Understanding AI, he wrote for the Washington Post, Vox.com, and Ars Technica. Lee has a master’s degree in computer science from Princeton.
Richard M. Sherman Distinguished Professor of Law Professor of School Information Co-Director, Berkeley Center for Law & Technology
Pamela Samuelson is the Richard M. Sherman Distinguished Professor of Law and Information at the University of California, Berkeley. She is recognized as a pioneer in digital copyright law, intellectual property, cyberlaw and information policy. Since 1996, she has held a joint appointment at Berkeley Law School and UC Berkeley’s School of Information. Samuelson is a director of the internationally-renowned Berkeley Center for Law & Technology. She is co-founder and chair of the board of Authors Alliance, a nonprofit organization that promotes the public interest in access to knowledge. She also serves on the board of directors of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as well as on the advisory boards for the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the Center for Democracy & Technology, and Public Knowledge.
Samuelson began her legal career as an associate with Willkie Farr & Gallagher in New York. She began her career as a legal academic at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, from which she visited at Columbia, Cornell, and Emory Law Schools. While on the Berkeley faculty, she has been a distinguished visiting professor at University of Toronto Law School as well as a visiting professor at the University of Melbourne and Harvard Law Schools. She was named an honorary professor at the University of Amsterdam in 2002.
Director of Innovation Policy, International Center for Law & Economics
Kristian Stout, ICLE’s Director of Innovation Policy is an expert in intellectual property, antitrust, telecommunications, and Internet governance. Kristian has been a Fellow at the Internet Law & Policy Foundry, as well as the Eagleton Institute of Politics. Before practicing law, Kristian worked as a technology entrepreneur and a lecturer in the Computer Science Department at Rutgers University. Kristian served on the board of the New Jersey Leadership Program, and wasthe Chair of the Asset Forfeiture Working Group for the NJ State Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights. He has previously served on the Broadband Deployment Advisory Committee for the Federal Communications Commission. Kristian graduated magna cum laude from the Rutgers University School of law, and served on the editorial board of the Rutgers Journal of Law and Public Policy.
Legal Fellow, Center for Constitutional Studies, Cato Institute
Brent Skorup is a legal fellow in the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies.
Before joining Cato, he was a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at the George Mason University. His research areas include free speech, technology law, Fourth Amendment protections, regulation, and property law. Skorup has published pieces in economics and law journals and in popular media, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Bloomberg Law, Reuters, and Wired. He’s appeared as a TV and radio interview guest for news outlets like C‑SPAN, NPR, CBS News, ABC News, and CNBC Asia.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, a dissenting opinion at the Illinois Supreme Court, and the ALI's Restatement of the Law of Property have cited his legal research and he has testified as a technology and legal expert in legislative hearings in several states. Skorup has been appointed to several federal and state advisory bodies and he is currently a member of the Texas Advanced Air Mobility Advisory Committee.
Skorup has a BA in economics from Wheaton College and a law degree from the George Mason University School of Law, where he was articles editor for the Civil Rights Law Journal. He was a legal clerk at the FCC’s wireless bureau and Office of General Counsel and at the Energy and Commerce Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives.
AI Policy In President Trump's Second Term
Neil Chilson, Kevin Frazier, Satya Thallam, Adam Thierer
There have been significant changes in federal AI policy over the course of the first...
Tech Roundup Episode 22 - Training Artificial Intelligence & Copyright Law
Timothy B. Lee, Pamela Samuelson, Kristian Stout, Brent Skorup
Moderated by Brent Skorup, experts Timothy B. Lee, Professor Pamela Samuelson, and Kristian Stout discuss...