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March 3, 2025
WEIRD? Institutions and Consumers’ Perceptions of Artificial Intelligence in 31 Countries
A survey of perceptions of Artificial Intelligence in 31 countries in 2023 yields significantly less positive perceptions of the new technology in developed western economies than in emerging and non-western economies. This could reflect citizens in non-Western countries perceiving machines (computers) and algorithms differently from those in Western countries, or that a more positive outlook…
February 20, 2025
Innovating Future Power Systems: From Vision to Action
Key Points Executive Summary The global energy landscape is transforming, and nowhere is this more evident than the electricity sector. Technological advancements, shifting economic conditions, and evolving environmental policies are converging to reshape the way power systems operate. This report explores the implications of these changes for the future of power systems, focusing on the…
February 5, 2025
The Innovation Imperative: Crossing the Valley of Death
Millions of Americans face diseases that lack treatment options, while many more face impairments in independence as a result of inadequately treated medical conditions. Innovation in the life sciences offers the opportunity to cure debilitating illnesses as well as to promote independence and increased convenience of care delivery. However, pharmaceutical and medical device innovation each…
January 16, 2025
AI-Generated Regulation: Not Ready for Prime Time (Yet)
Key Points Read the PDF. Executive Summary Generative AI has attracted great attention in the policymaking sphere, including for agency rulemaking. This report compares a final rule drafted by a generative AI model with the Department of Transportation’s actual rule. The AI model’s policy recommendations appear overly sensitive to the number of commenters supporting a…
October 31, 2024
Regulating Artificial Intelligence in a World of Uncertainty
Key Points Read the pdf. Executive Summary New and increasingly capable artificial intelligence applications are a fact of life. They offer great promise of advances in human welfare but also have engendered fears of misalignment with human values and objectives, leading at best to harm to individuals and at worst to catastrophic societal outcomes and…
September 23, 2024
Response To The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
SummaryEnergy “savings” as asserted by DoE in its notional CRE Standards as analyzed in theNotice of Data Availability and Request for Comment are illegitimate as a benefit of any suchStandards because they shunt aside the CRE performance benefits attendant upon the higherenergy use currently observed. CRE consumers, after all, are not fools. In any event,…
September 10, 2024
The Precautionary Principle, Safety Regulation, and AI: This Time, It Really Is Different
Key Points Read the pdf. The precautionary principle (PP) holds that in the face of scientific uncertainty about the outcomes of deploying a new technology, and especially when serious or irreversible damage could occur, a cautionary approach is justified—“better to be safe than sorry”—which necessitates strictly regulating the technology’s release. The PP has long been…
July 17, 2024
Recovering Science Policy
Key Points Executive Summary The aftermath of a global public health crisis, combined with the rise of populism at home and growing economic and security threats abroad, has persuaded a wide swath of Americans that a more interventionist state is needed to shore up, promote, or protect particular sectors of the economy. This has led…
July 11, 2024
The Refs Are Working Us
“Not true, Governor Romney.” President Barack Obama, widely considered to have lost his first debate against Mitt Romney thirteen days previously, was eager to defend his record. But Romney, having returned to familiar territory, was unwilling to concede the point. “In the last four years,” Romney had said, “you cut permits and licenses on federal…
June 6, 2024
Scientific integrity and U.S. “Billion Dollar Disasters”
Abstract For more than two decades, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has published a count of weather-related disasters in the United States that it estimates have exceeded one billion dollars (inflation adjusted) in each calendar year starting in 1980. The dataset is widely cited and applied in research, assessment and invoked to…