US Policy Communication Playbook for an AI Crisis

The problem:
At the time of a major AI-related incident, like an AI-enabled cyber attack, an AI-assisted biological incident or a loss-of-control event, it's likely that the U.S. government will take fast action under pressure.
Due to the rapid progress of AI, it's likely that AI safety policies will need to be implemented in crisis conditions, but the policy literature is severely lacking in understanding how best to advocate for certain policies during these fast-moving crisis windows.
Understanding how crisis policymaking works could be critical for implementing AI safety solutions that address X risk. We need to know who to build relationships with, through which channels, with what type of messaging, and on what timelines. I have found no resources that discuss this topic as it refers to U.S. domestic policy making on AI. This project will fill the gap.

What I will do:

• Analyze five historical windows when the U.S. government implemented new policy to deal with a fast-moving crisis. For each case study, I will extract takeaways about what actions and structures had the strongest effects on which policies got put in place.

• Interview experienced AI policy advocates and congressional staff to surface the tacit knowledge of how this actually works, and where organizations feel underprepared.

Concrete output:
A written policy communication strategy playbook that contains:

1. Short breakdowns of each historical case study I looked at along with actionable takeaways

2. An guide suitable for low-capacity organizations who want to improve their policy positioning

3. A more aspirational capacity-building section that's aimed at funders and org builders to know where it might be good to put resources for policy impact at the time of crisis

4. Action plans that can be triggered at the time of crisis to make use of pre-positioning and networks

Each section will have a quick reference card containing the key insights.

I plan to publish through an established institution to increase credibility and reach.

As I work, I will be releasing a series of blog posts to stress test the arguments and quickly show progress.

Who:
I am the primary person doing this work, but I'm actively recruiting collaborators. I have a bachelor's degree in science communication. I've completed the AGI Strategy course and the Frontier AI Governance course from Bluedot Impact, as well as the Aspen Policy Academy's Getting Through to Government course. I've done over 700 hours of active study on AI safety and AI policy. I also co-lead the Community Engagement Group in Utah's Responsible AI Community Consortium.
I'm a strong fit for this project because of my experience in both communication strategy as well as AI safety policy. This project is also building a base of quality outputs needed to secure other AI safety policy roles in the future.