Kevin Klyman

Technology Policy Strategist

What I Do

I am a policy researcher and a freelance journalist who advocates for responsible uses of technology to reduce poverty and advance peace. I am currently a researcher with the Avoiding Great Power War project at Harvard's Kennedy School, where I publish research on how technology can help prevent war between the United States and China, and Stanford's Center for Research on Foundation Models, where I investigate the harms stemming from large AI models. My writing has been published by Foreign Policy, TechCrunch, Just Security, The American Prospect, The National Interest, South China Morning Post, The Diplomat, Inkstick, and the San Francisco Chronicle.

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Publications

Resume

The Foundation Model Transparency Index (2023) - a study that assesses the level of transparency of top AI companies

Biden Takes Measured Approach on China Investment Controls (2023) - a lengthy essay in Foreign Policy on outbound investment controls

Do Foundation Model Providers Comply with the Draft EU AI Act? (2023) — a piece of research for Stanford's Center for Research on Foundation Models examining large AI models

Europe Joins Washington's Campaign to Contain China (2023) — an essay on EU tech policy towards China in Just Security

Intel is reeling. Why should the government save it? (2023) — an op-ed in The National Interest on implementation of the CHIPS Act

The US Wants to Make Sure China Can't Catch Up on Quantum Computing (2023) — an essay in Foreign Policy

Making #NatSec More Inclusive (2022) — a comment in Inkstick

Biden's war on Chinese chips is counterproductive (2022) — an op-ed

in The National Interest arguing chip sanctions make inflation worse

Biden's Successor to TPP is a Boon for Big Tech (2022) — an investigation for The American Prospect arguing Biden's Indo-Pacific Economic Framework will increase Big Tech's profits

China's tech crackdown could give it an edge (2022) — an op-ed in The Diplomat arguing China's tech crackdown might just work

The US-China Tech War Isn't Inevitable (2022) — an article in Inkstick contending that the US and China should cooperate on technology-related issues rather than going to war over them

Who really benefits from digital development? (2022) — an article in TechCrunch finding that digital development often benefits Big Tech

US tech giants are playing up the China threat to oppose an antitrust bill. They may succeed (2022) — an op-ed in the South China Morning Post arguing that antitrust is in US national security interests

The Great Tech Rivalry: China vs the US (2021) — a report for the Kennedy School on ML, 5G, quantum information science, semiconductors, biotech, & green tech in China and the US

Collaborating to measure digital transformation: Sharing the Digital Impact Alliance’s draft Digital Transformation Indicator Library (2021) — a dataset of over two thousand indicators of readiness for digital investment that I collected and cleaned

Stopping Killer Robots: Country Positions on Banning Fully Autonomous Weapons and Retaining Human Control (2020) — a first of its kind report describing national policies regarding fully autonomous weapons

UC Berkeley is making the student housing crisis worse (2019) — an investigation published in the San Francisco Chronicle

Accounting for Political Tensions in Post-Cold War Sino-Mongolian Relations (2019, available upon request)

Cluster Munition Monitor (2018) — a report that exposed war crimes in bombings in Syria and Yemen

Campaign to Stop Killer Robots Report on Activities (2018) — a report documenting the campaign's influence on policymakers

Cited By

The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, NPR, Financial Times, The Economist, The Guardian, Politico, Axios, Wired, The Atlantic

Policies I've Written

United Nations Joint Statement on Data Protection and Privacy in the COVID-19 Response — a privacy policy adopted by the UN, the World Health Organization, and the World Bank

Land Value Recapture Policy and Inclusion in the Adeline Corridor Plan — a tax to fund affordable housing in Berkeley, California using revenue stemming from increases in land value

Banning the box on housing — a law preventing landlords from discrimination against formerly incarcerated tenants in Berkeley

Affordable housing action plan (Housing Related Referrals) — an ordinance codifying the prioritization of various affordable housing initiatives in the city of Berkeley

Opposition to President Trump’s first military budget (Oppose the National Defense Authorization Act) — a law that made Berkeley the only city in the country to formally oppose one of President Trump’s military budgets

Presentations

The Technology Olympics: Could China Win Gold? (2022) — presented at Harvard Kennedy School

Technology Policy at the United Nations (2021) — presented to Foreign Policy for America's NextGen Initiative

Harnessing mobile phone data in response to COVID-19 (2020) — presented to UN agencies and several National Statistical Offices in Africa

Explanations for political tensions in post-Cold War Sino-Mongolian relations (2020) — presented at the annual plenary for young scholars of the Institute for New Economic Thinking

Data privacy risks and data protection: What happens when sensitive peacekeeping data leaks? (2020) — presented to the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations

The risks of government-backed data sharing initiatives to combat COVID-19 (2020) — presented to the UN Privacy Policy Group