I'm nearly in Seoul for #CoRL2025, where I'll be presenting a talk on "Robots as the testbed for AI, AI as the testbed for Robots" at the Eval&Deploy workshop. Super excited to rep the newly formed Brown GIRAFFE Lab in the wild for the first time :D :D :D @confrobotlearning.bsky.social. Say hi!

The house approps budget is out, and it includes a very slight increase to the NIH budget. Senate approps committee held NSF funding steady. Don't back down from this fight!!! We must celebrate and share our wins, too, to build and maintain momentum. appropriations.house.gov/sites/evo-su...

This is totally unacceptable. I've followed Lisa Cook for a while since she has developed the leading perspective on AI over at the Fed: www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/s...

Emma is amazing, you should apply.

Algorithmic Wage Discrimination is spreading beyond 'Gig' work: Healthcare, Customer Service, & Logistics bosses are buying AI products that set compensation structures & wages using real time data. @wilneida.bsky.social & I did an audit & here are our findings equitablegrowth.org/how-artifici...

One study shows four in ten data brokers are leaving consumers exercising their privacy rights on read—in violation of California law. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...

We shouldn't just be aiming for whistleblower protections. We should borrow from finance land and create whistleblower *incentives* (www.sec.gov/enforcement-...).

The fun lil update is that this work won RLC Outstanding Paper in Emerging Topics :D. Work with Calarina Muslimani, Kerrick Johnstonbaugh, Suyog Chandramouli, @bradknox.bsky.social, and Matt Taylor.

We have two papers at #RLC! “Towards Improving Reward Design in RL: A Reward Alignment Metric for RL Practitioners”, lead by Callie Muslimani (Alberta) & “Goals vs. Rewards: Towards a Comparative Study of Objective Specification Mechanisms” lead by Septia Rani (CSU). Come to our posters today!

Applications are open for the Doctoral Consortium at the 2025 Summit on Responsible Computing, AI, and Society rcais.github.io. Taking place October 27, 2025. Applications received by September 15 will receive full consideration.

Fun fact - the ADA was a Republican endeavor, signed into law by H.W. My great hope for the nation is that we can find shared priorities and get all parties to work in the interests of the people. And maybe we can fix that ridiculous $2000 asset limit sometime???

Excited to be at #ICML2025 to present our paper on 'pragmatic misalignment' in (deployed!) RAG systems: narrowly "accurate" responses that can be profoundly misinterpreted by readers. It's especially dangerous for consequential domains like medicine! arxiv.org/pdf/2502.14898

I'll be presenting a position paper about consumer protection and AI in the US at ICML. I have a surprisingly optimistic take: our legal structures are stronger than I anticipated when I went to work on this issue in Congress. Is everything broken rn? Yes. Will it stay broken? That's on us.

There may be some tiny opening to save the NSF funding. It is worth calling your Senators. This is a big deal if it can be saved. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

This algorithmic monoculture and AI collusion stuff is so insidious. We need to get ahead of this, both from technical and legislative perspectives! IMO our existing anticompete laws are not sufficient for the newest forms of correlated decision-making and influence before us.

I've struggled to announce this amidst so much dark & awful going on in the world, but with 1mo to go, I wanted to share that: (i) I finally graduated; (ii) In August, I'll begin as an assistant professor in the CS dept. of the National University of Singapore.

Complicated implications, but compelling research. I'd still bet the explanation requirement of ECOA has prevented a lot of discrimination because it puts an obstacle in place, but I wonder how well we can detect discrimination from human decision makers with explanations!

Zana does thoughtful work in XAI and human-AI teaming, and she's going to be a wonderful PI. I'm especially glad to keep her in the Boston area :)

Unhinged. We could (and I might even argue we should) accept preemption if Congress would act in good faith for the American people, but to both sit on their hands and to disallow others from taking action is beyond negligent.

I'm terribly sad that my fellowship at @simonsinstitute.bsky.social is ending tomorrow. I've spent my time here mostly writing about, thinking about, and giving talks on my policy experiences in the US Senate, and to organize the Brown CNTR AI Policy Summer School (cntr.brown.edu/summer-school).

Waited to finish reading it but I wanted to highlight the nice reward design here, which alleviates many of the failures of reward shaping

Thrilled to be joining this community :D

The Computing Research Association (@cra-hq.bsky.social) has a new trustworthy AI research fellowship. Intended for folks 1-3 years out of their PhD and with interdisciplinary experience in social sciences. cra.org/cra-trustwor...

The AAAS AI Policy fellowship is open til May 1st: stpf.tfaforms.net/4689382. Go work in Congress and provide technical expertise to guide the development and oversight of our AI-relevant laws! I strongly recommend this (yes, even now, w/ some caveats). Happy to discuss with interested folks, too.

I'm so glad I've gotten to participate in these during my short time at Berkeley 😊

A great Pew Research survey: "How the U.S. Public and AI Experts View Artificial Intelligence" Everyone working in ML should read this and ask themselves why experts and non-experts have such divergent views about the potential of AI to have a positive impact. www.pewresearch.org/internet/202...

Over 100 researchers are issuing a statement today that reiterates the scientific consensus that AI can exacerbate bias and discrimination. The last three U.S. Administrations — including the first Trump Administration — and 192 other nations have recognized this basic fact.

Brown's Center for Tech Responsibility, Reimagination, and Redesign is hosting an AI Policy Summer School in Providence and DC, hosted by @reniebird.bsky.social. Several great speakers. Deadline April 5. cntr.brown.edu/summer-school

Great job alert: ProPublica is hiring a computational journalist, "someone who will use technology and data to identify and unlock stories that would otherwise be out of reach." Salary: $120K-$140K Remote: ✅ Come join us!

My productivity in a nutshell today

2018: Saliency maps give plausible interpretations of random weights, triggering skepticism and catalyzing the mechinterp cultural movement, which now advocates for SAEs. 2025: SAEs give plausible interpretations of random weights, triggering skepticism and ...

See you at the March for Science on Friday!

I'm very excited we are finally hiring a POLICY LEAD for Ai2 / OLMo. This is going to be super useful to massively amplify the impact of our all our open efforts and have a positive impact on the world. You will work with people like me + Ai2 leadership to improve the AI ecosystem.

I don't think we talk enough about the attack on domestic talent recruitment and training. We had _already_ neglected investing in Americans, starting with our K-12 education.

After organizing AAAI's AI for social impact track with Xiaoli Fern (omg it's so much work), I'm finally here at AAAI! Come say hi if you're around :) or come to my new faculty highlight talk on Friday at 4:15pm!

Funding for basic research is not a partisan issue. www.aei.org/economics/wh...

I'm giving a public lecture at UC Berkeley Simons Institute on March 4th! Sign up link: simons.berkeley.edu/events/musin...

Call your senators and representatives RIGHT NOW. It's not hard: a friendly intern will answer the phone and jot down the topic and your concerns. At some point in the day/week, the Member will hear an aggregate version of everything people called about.

100% going to use this idea

I'm writing an optimistic piece about how consumer protection laws have been successful in protecting people from some AI harms, and how we need to double down on consumer protection as a first line of defense for AI safety. Every couple hours I have to hold my head in my hands and wallow.

The metro is what I'll miss most about living in DC. <3 WMATA

RLHF algorithms assume humans generate preferences according to normative models. We propose a new method for model alignment: influence humans to conform to these assumptions through interface design. Good news: it works! #AI #MachineLearning #RLHF #Alignment (1/n)

After 10 meandering days of driving and hiking across the country, we made it to Berkeley. Excited to call this place home for a few months :D

Today is my last day in the US Senate. I'm going to miss - so much - being a public servant. Next up: I'm driving across the country to hang in Berkeley at the Simons Institute for 5 months, where I'll be writing about AI policy for my research peers. Come say hi if you find yourself in the Bay :)

I am in awe of my city: volunteers set up exactly this, an e-bike lending library. cpp.ebikelibrary.org

I'm hiring PhD students at Brown CS! If you're interested in human-robot or AI interaction, human-centered reinforcement learning, and/or AI policy, please apply. Or get your students to apply :). Deadline Dec 15, link: cs.brown.edu/degrees/doct.... Research statement on my website, www.slbooth.com

If anyone is thinking about where to drop some dollars for giving Tuesday, my climate scientist friends recommended EarthJustice, NRDC, and the National Parks Foundation.

JOB: NYT is hiring for an early-career fellow on A.I. Initiatives! We're a small, interdisciplinary group experimenting to help reporters, facilitate newsroom processes and reimagine reader-facing experiences. Apply by Dec. 2. DM with any questions! boards.greenhouse.io/thenewyorkti... #JobSky

Urbanist friends, especially around Cambridge and Providence: does anyone know if there's a way to try out an electric bucket bike before buying one? I promise y'all some AI / AI policy content in a few months.