Frightening Things Are Happening in Science Policy 👻
Frightful Things in the News We’re Seeing 😱
- AI is getting a little too comfortable crossing boundaries. Anthropic’s Claude accessed voting data without human authorization while working on an internal statistics project. To be clear, it did not access individual voter records or alter election data. (It just walked through walls, like a ghost!)
- A truly chilling case of now you see it, now you don’t. The EPA’s online archives are under scrutiny for removing informationon environmental and public health issues. When the public records start disappearing, it gets harder to track what the government knew, what it did, and who bears the consequences.
- The National Science Foundation has a grant problem that’s anything but theoretical. Newly obtained federal records shed light on DOGE’s role in initiating grant terminations.
CLIMATE & ENERGY
Addy Smith and Arjun Krishnaswami explain how Virginia has become ground zero for one of the country’s biggest energy questions. Asking: How do we keep the lights on as electricity demand surges, without sending costs soaring or locking in the energy system of the past?
EMERGING TECHNOLOGY & COMPETITIVENESS
From 3,700 Applicants: We Announce the 2026 AI Safety Fellows Exploring Public Policy at the Frontier
More than 3,700 people applied to be part of this latest cohort of AI Safety Policy Entrepreneur (PEF) Fellows. Clara Langevin introduces us to the eight incredible PEFs working to turn ambitious ideas into actionable policy on the AI Safety front.
GLOBAL RISK
What can we learn from visual comparison of the Sentinel and Minuteman III ICBM?
Mackenzie Knight-Boyle and Hans Kristensen give us an update on the new milestone for the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program, based on new imagery released by Northrop Grumman.
GOVERNMENT CAPACITY
At Summer Camp We Stress-Tested Policy Assumptions So You Can Lead the Talent Show
A quick look back at this summer when the Center for Regulatory Ingenuity (CRI) team hosted their State Capacity Summer Camp! Read more from Laura Sigelman and Loren DeJonge Schulman.
STATE & LOCAL INNOVATION
We Want Better Data Center Deals. We Need Your Help.
We are assembling a task force- think the Avengers but for data centers. Kate Garman Burns and Stefania Di Mauro-Nava give us the rundown and remind us that sign-ups are due by October 30th to establish a model community benefits agreement for data centers.
IN THE MEDIA
🎧 Audio: The Biden/Trump/Bolsonaro AI Policy Episode (featuring Clara Langevin)
📰 Print: How tech billionaires are disrupting biomedical science (Daniel Correa)
📷 On Your Screen: FAS is launching a national task force
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