Build Modern Tech Policy By Hiring The Students Who Already Understand It

ByPaulo Carvão,

Contributor.

The next generation of AI policymakers is already writing legislation, designing liability frameworks and rethinking infrastructure governance. They just happen to still be in school. That was my takeaway from judging the MIT AI Alignment (MAIA) governance competition that drew students from Boston College, Harvard, MIT, Tufts, and other parts of the local academic ecosystem. MAIA is a student organization working on AI safety research.

The strongest submissions treated AI policy as a design problem, asking what information regulators need, who should bear responsibility when things go wrong and how that responsibility should shift as AI systems become more capable.

The market is short of exactly these skills. The government needs people who can understand technical architecture without outsourcing judgment to vendors. Companies need people who can anticipate policy, safety and public trust concerns before they become litigation or political backlash. Civil society needs people who can separate real risks from slogans. The next generation is not waiting for permission to contribute.