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Artificial intelligence leaders are proposing principles to address the risks of new AI technology, but these lack legal force. Governments should take more powerful measures in order to mitigate the risks of AI.

In September 2017, Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico causing widespread destruction, including the total loss of the power grid and potable water systems. It was the most powerful hurricane to hit the island in almost 90 years. “Make no mistake — this is a humanitarian disaster involving 3.4 million US citizens,” Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo […]

In recent years, the first thing that normally comes to mind when talking about food crises is climate change.  Indeed, “given our failure to act on greenhouse gases,” as Paul Krugman has warned, “there will be much more, and much worse, to come.”[1]  But there is another worrying trend in the disruption of food production.  […]

Photo credit: Suhyeon Choi on Unsplash By: May Chengnan Wu Memos, pitches, presentations, and speeches are deliverables we often confront at HKS. They challenge us, come with deadlines, require team efforts, and often need to be presented to an expecting audience. Last summer as a returning MPP student, I had my biggest deliverable which shared […]

How can we pursue faster, more resilient growth when economies are weighed down by structural deficiencies across the board? Infrastructure investment.

BY SYLVIE STOLOFF AND ANNA GIANNUZZI What if we could deescalate some of the world’s deadliest conflicts by nudging people to think differently about their opponents? Contemporary international conflicts are increasingly shaped by identity politics, since religion, race, social background and other identity-based factors play a large role in determining political affiliations. This poses a […]

The rise of Mohammad bin Salman raises the question of Saudi Arabia’s future relationships with the US and Russia.

Humans constantly over-indulge, and our long-term health suffers for it. Behavioral science tools called “commitment devices” could help us both stay on track and stay alive.

Despite recent disasters and major national efforts to promote disaster readiness, a full two-thirds of American households do not have adequate plans or have no plans at all for a disaster. What can behavioral science teach us about how to get people to prepare?

BY MARIE LAWRENCE The behavioral science revolution is officially underway. Nudge, one of the discipline’s most influential trade books, is now on more than 750,000 bookshelves worldwide, and its co-author Richard Thaler is a new Nobel laureate. The Behavioural Insight Team’s (BIT) successful effort to encourage Brits to pay £210 million in overdue taxes found […]

BY HUBERT WU Many major shortcomings of economic policy making can be attributed to an over-reliance on “one-size-fits-all” policies that ignore differences in countries, industries, and individuals. Until the early 21st century, the accepted means to increase the wealth of developing countries centered on a set of largely standardized policy prescriptions. At the industry level, […]

Head of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, Lina Khatib, addresses the power dynamics behind the crisis in the Gulf, its motivations, and implications for conflicts in the region.