THE DATA DROP:  January 2025

Hub Updates 

Greeting friends and colleagues.

The Hub and the NSF-NIST Institute for Trustworthy AI in Law and Society (TRAILS) invite you to join us for a free conference on February 3-4 called “AI at Work: Building and Evaluating Trust”. This two-day conference will explore ethical frameworks and guidelines for AI systems, strategies for building trustworthy AI governance within organizations, supporting AI and/as workers, and tools/concepts to help address the challenges of AI at work across all sectors. Attached is the registration form, and we hope you can join us.  

Register for the Participatory AI Research & Practice Symposium on February 8th. Tune in to see Dr. Susan Aaronson present "A Dysfunctional Dialogue About AI— NTIA and the Public on The Risks and Benefits of Open Foundation Models" during the afternoon panel.

Please join the Hub for our January Webinar on Digital Sovereignty in the BRICS Countries at 10 am EST, January 31st. We look forward to seeing you there!

The Hub is a 401c3 organization and funded by government, foundation, and individual funds. If you like our work, please consider a gift to the Hub.  You can do so by sending a check to the Elliott School Gift Fund  #180441. If you want to send funds by wire, please contact saaronso@gwu.edu, and we can send the bank information. Thank you for your generosity.

Digital Trade and Data Governance News

- Five things to watch in data governance in the Asia-Pacific in 2025.

Artificial Intelligence News

- South Korea’s National Assembly has passed the “Basic Act on the Development of Artificial Intelligence and the Establishment of Trust”, joining the EU on establishing comprehensive legislation, and stricter requirements on high-impact AI systems.

- Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry of Canada François-Philippe Champagne detailed ongoing negotiations over the proposed AI regulation contained in the omnibus Bill C-27. 

- U.S. Senators Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) recently introduced the Trustworthy by Design Artificial Intelligence Act, a bill focused on tackling immediate issues posed by unregulated AI technologies by creating best practice standards for every stage of AI development.

- Examining the Promise and Peril of Synthetic Data. 

- How does the Department of Justice's plan to split up Google impact the U.S. competitiveness in AI? 

- U.S. Senators Mitt Romney (R-UT), Jack Reed (D-RI), Jerry Moran (R-KS), Angus King (I-ME), and Maggie Hassan (D-NH) introduced the Preserving American Dominance in AI Act, to protect U.S. national security from severe threats—such as chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and cyber risks—arising from future advancements in sophisticated AI models.

- In December 2024, the U.S. House of Representatives published a Bipartisan House Task Force report on Artificial Intelligence.

- The Biden administration looks to impose regulations impacting where American-made chips that are critical for A.I. could be shipped, causing opposition from tech companies. 

- The Korea Economic Institute explores Korea’s approach to AI sovereignty, the challenges of balancing innovation with national security, and the implications for global AI governance.

- New US Rule Aims to Block China’s Access to AI Chips and Models.

- The UK unveiled the details of the government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan.

What We're Reading

- Empowering Political Participation through AI.

- The AI running out of data.

- Boston Review on AI and Trust.