David Evan Harris
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davidevanharris.com
David Evan Harris
@davidevanharris.com
1.3K followers 340 following 67 posts
Chancellor's Public Scholar @UCBerkeleyofficial.bsky.social

Advisor/Fellow: @BrennanCenter.bsky.social, CA Initiative for Tech & Democracy, Int’l Computer Science Inst., Ctr. for Int’l Governance Innovation

https://haas.berkeley.edu/faculty/harris-david/
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davidevanharris.com
I spoke to ABC 7 News about the new law. For more about this, check out my more detailed write-up on LinkedIn, where I will continue posting more often than I post here, unless someone convinces me otherwise :) www.linkedin.com/feed/update/... @abc7news.bsky.social
October 17, 2025 at 12:47 AM
davidevanharris.com
WE DID IT!!! Gov. Newsom has signed the California AI Transparency Act of 2025 (AB 853) into law! This first-in-nation bill from Assemblymember Buffy Wicks requires online platforms to give users with a clear way to differentiate AI-generated & real content.
@governor.ca.gov @buffywicks.bsky.social
1931 OFFICE O F THE GOVERNOR OCT 1 3 2025 To the Members o f the California State Assembly: 1 am signing Assembly Bill 853, which strengthens the California Al Transparency Act t o ensure that Californians can begin t o reliably assess whether digital content is generated o r modified using artificial intelligence (Al). The proliferation o f Al-generated content is having a profound effect o n all o f us, particularly as the rapidly evolving technology becomes increasingly easy t o access and distribute, and the content itself becomes more and more difficult to distinguish from reality. This bill is a critical step in allowing us t o clearly distinguish the real from the synthetic, and thereby enhance trust in the use o f A l i n our everyday lives. As with the regulation of any nascent technology, some stakeholders remain concerned that provisions of the bill, while well-intentioned, present implementation challenges that could lead t o unintended consequences, including impairment of user privacy. I encourage the Legislature to enact follow-up legislation in 2026, before the law takes effect, t o address these technical feasibility issues without jeopardizing its intent t o enhance the safety and security Ø f all Californians. avin Newso GOVERNOR GAVIN NEWSOM • SACRAMENTO, C A 95814 • (916) 445-2841
October 17, 2025 at 12:45 AM
davidevanharris.com
Just leaked! Disappointing alleged draft declaration from Paris AI “Action” Summit is focused on everything but action. My thoughts here: www.linkedin.com/posts/davide... also, hello from Paris! #AIActionSummit
TRANSFORMER Here's the full draft statement, dated 30/01/2025. Al Action Summit Co-chaired by France and India 10-11 February, 2025, Paris Statement on Inclusive and Sustainable Artificial Intelligence for People and the Planet 1. Participants from XX countries, including government leaders, international organisations, representatives of civil society, the private sector, and the academic and research communities gathered in Paris on 10 and 11 February 2025 to hold the Al Action Summit. Rapid development of Al technologies represents a major paradigm shift, impacting our citizens, and societies in many ways. In line with the Paris Pact for People and the Planet, and the principles that countries must have ownership of their transition strategies, we have identified priorities and launched concrete actions to advance the public interest and to bridge digital divides through accelerating progress towards the SDGs. Our actions are grounded in three main principles of science, solutions - focusing on open Al models in compliance with countries frameworks - and policy standards, in line with international frameworks. 2. This Summit has highlighted the importance of reinforcing the diversity of the Al ecosystem. It has laid an open, multi-stakeholder and inclusive approach that will enable Al to be human rights based, human-centric, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy while also stressing the need and urgency to narrow the inequalities and assist developing countries in artificial intelligence capacity-building so they can build Al capacities. 3. Acknowledging existing multilateral initiatives on Al, including the United Nations General Assembly Resolutions, the Global Digital Compact, the UNESCO Recommendation on Ethics of Al, the African Union Continental Al Strategy, and the works of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the council of Europe and European Union, the G7 including the Hiroshima Al Process and G20, we have affirmed the follo… To deliver on these priorities: • Founding members have launched a major Public Interest AI Platform and Incubator, to support, amplify, decrease fragmentation between existing public and private initiatives on Public Interest Al and address digital divides. The Public interest Al Initiative will sustain and support digital public goods and technical assistance and capacity building projects in data, model development, openness and transparency, audit, compute, talent, financing and collaboration to support and co-create a trustworthy Al ecosystem advancing the public interest of all, for all and by all. • We have discussed, at a Summit for the first time and in a multi-stakeholder format, issues related to Al and energy. This discussion has led to sharing knowledge to foster investments for sustainable Al systems (hardware, infrastructure, models), to promoting an international discussion on Al and environment, to welcoming an observatory on the energy impact of Al with the International Energy Agency, to showcasing energy-friendly Al innovation. • We recognize the need to enhance our shared knowledge on the impacts of Al in the job market, though the creation of network of Observatories, to better anticipate Al implications for workplaces, training and education and to use Al to staThe country that stormed the Bastille can than this!1 4. We recognize the need for inclusive multistak he eater ence a mersakeholder aalogue nd cooperation on Al governance. We underline the need for a global reflection integrating inter alia questions of safety, sustainable development, innovation, respect of international laws including humanitarian law and human rights law and the protection of human rights, gender equality, linguistic diversity, protection of consumers and of intellectual property rights. We take notes of efforts and discussions related to international fora where Al governance is examined. As outlined in the Global Digital Compact adopted by the UN General Assembly…
February 9, 2025 at 11:12 AM
davidevanharris.com
I sat down for a wide-ranging interview with the The Ethical Tech Digest, a publication from Stanford University community members in the Ethics, Technology + Public Policy for Practitioners class, which I took ~3 years ago. Enjoy! www.theethicaltechdigest.org/q-a-with-dav...
Q&A with David Evan Harris David Evan Harris was named one of Business Insider’s top 100 people in AI in 2023. We sat down with Harris to discuss his views on equitable AI, the militarization of AI, election integrity, and fostering ethical tech ecosystems. David Evan Harris was named one of Business Insider’s top 100 people in AI in 2023. Harris recently began serving as a Member of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Election Security Advisory Committee, convened by Arizona’s Secretary of State. As the Chancellor's Public Scholar at UC Berkeley and Continuing Lecturer at the Haas School of Business, he teaches courses on AI Ethics, Social Movements & Social Media, and Civic Technology. Harris has held positions in the U.S. government and founded the Global Lives Project in 2004, an initiative building a video library of daily life worldwide. We sat down with Harris to discuss his views on equitable AI, the militarization of AI, and fostering ethical tech ecosystems. Sudeshna Mukherjee (SM): Your career spans academia, the private sector, and the nonprofit world. How do you leverage these experiences in your work on Artificial Intelligence (AI)?? David Evan Harris (DEH): Now that I'm doing more work in academia and the nonprofit sector, people value my firsthand experience of how decisions are made inside big tech companies. People in government have called upon me to share my views because they lack access to people with inside experience in tech companies who aren't currently employed there. In the past year, I’ve testified almost a dozen times before legislative bodies—in San Francisco, Sacramento, and most recently, the US Senate. Right now, my big focus is trying to get AI legislation passed. We had two big wins recently with AB 2839 and AB 2655—two bills banning election-related deepfakes—in California just getting signed by the governor. This was the result of the work of the team at the California Initiative for Technology and Democracy (CITED). SM: W…
December 6, 2024 at 9:56 PM
davidevanharris.com
And it would seem you could ban users/IPs/networks groups doing this and take legal action. This excellent @nytimes.com article from April indicates that YouTube knew of this option when they found OpenAI was scraping but chose not to because they were training too. www.nytimes.com/2024/04/06/t...
Some Google employees were aware that OpenAI had harvested YouTube videos for data, two people with knowledge of the companies said. But they didn’t stop OpenAI because Google had also used transcripts of YouTube videos to train its A.I. models, the people said. That practice may have violated the copyrights of YouTube creators. So if Google made a fuss about OpenAI, there might be a public outcry against its own methods, the people said.
November 27, 2024 at 4:35 AM
davidevanharris.com
At the opening reception for the inaugural meeting of the Network of International AI Safety Institutes, hosted by @carnegieendow.bsky.social & @salesforce.bsky.social . Great welcome talks from US AISI head, Elizabeth Kelly; French Digital Minister, Clara Chappaz; Tino Cuellar & Ian Klaus, Carnegie
November 20, 2024 at 5:40 AM
davidevanharris.com
IMHO, the European AI Office is the most important AI governance body on the planet. This is why I’m thrilled to share that I am now officially a member of the Working Group to create the first General-Purpose AI Code of Practice. More here: www.linkedin.com/feed/update/... #AI #AIPolicy #EUAIAct
I visited the AI Office on a visit last month to Brussels, where I met with numerous AI Office staff, including Alex Moltzau of LinkedIn AI fame, who is now seconded from NORA – The Norwegian Artificial Intelligence Research Consortium. Fun fact for non-Europeans, you may not know that Norway is not in the EU, but their gov'ts collaborate closely, with Alex as living proof.
November 19, 2024 at 8:58 PM
davidevanharris.com
#photography (taken of a cool science exhibit at the @exploratorium.bsky.social)
November 17, 2024 at 5:50 AM
davidevanharris.com
New piece in the Guardian today about the EU AI Act. Comments section is getting heated! Enjoy! www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... Thought y'all might enjoy this: @mmasnick.bsky.social @zittrain.bsky.social @chrismessina.me @mchrisriley.com @sayhar.bsky.social @davidkaye.bsky.social
December 13, 2023 at 7:11 PM
davidevanharris.com
#hashtags #please #hashtagsplease #pleaseblueskyhashtags #nohashtags #whynohashtags #desperateforhashtags #beggingforhashtags #needhashtagsnow #nohashtagsnodiscoverability #hashtagsessential #istheproblembskyorATprotocol? #thankyoudevs! @bsky.app @atproto.com
December 9, 2023 at 6:20 PM
davidevanharris.com
It's hard to understand the #EUAIAct when there's no Act to read. Could be weeks+ before text is finalized. So I put all my resources here. Edit suggests welcome. Thx to @thierrybreton.bsky.social for the late nights and @euractiv.com for covering! docs.google.com/document/d/1...
December 9, 2023 at 5:58 PM
davidevanharris.com
Some propose to exempt #opensource #AI from regulation. I strongly disagree. The threats that unsecured AI systems bring are actually much more severe than those from secured systems. My latest policy brief on Tech Policy Press: www.techpolicy.press/how-to-regul... cc: @justinhendrix.bsky.social
December 4, 2023 at 3:25 PM
davidevanharris.com
Did you attempt last week to actually read the The White House's AI Executive Order? Well, my students and I did, and it was tough, in part just due to formatting. So here's our gift to you! The AI Exec Order: Human-Readable Edition. #AI #WhiteHouse docs.google.com/document/d/1...
November 6, 2023 at 7:35 PM