Publications: Hodan Omaar

California’s new AI safety law includes some constructive measures like incident reporting and whistleblower protections, but by acting at the state level, it creates a fragmented regulatory patchwork that undermines innovation, complicates a national framework, and risks weakening U.S. leadership in AI governance.

By uniting strategy, promotion, and regulation in a single law, South Korea has given itself a powerful instrument to shape AI—but its blunt regulatory mandates threaten to drag down the very strengths that make the act ambitious.

The idea that nations can invoke “AI sovereignty” to draw on U.S. technology when convenient, while walling off their markets, is not a bargain U.S. policymakers should entertain.

The United States plans to win the AI race by “exporting its full AI technology stack—hardware, models, software, applications, and standards—to all countries willing to join America’s AI alliance.” To succeed, it will need to pursue the right partners, make offers that meet their ambitions, and resist the urge to lead with virtue over value.

Philadelphia’s recent trash crisis highlights the need for a smarter approach to city services—one that uses low-cost AI tools to improve sanitation, reduce costs, and free up resources to better support the city’s workers.

The AI Action Plan signals that the United States is not only committed to pushing the boundaries of what AI can do but also ready to shape how it is built, deployed, and governed globally.

The American Science Acceleration Project (ASAP) is a timely effort to modernize the infrastructure that powers U.S. research. By improving how science is organized, resourced, and executed, ASAP can help unlock faster breakthroughs across a range of disciplines.

Germany’s new coalition government has created a central digital ministry to finally accelerate its slow-moving AI agenda, aiming to modernize public services and support AI innovation. But success hinges on whether it prioritizes practical reform over symbolic sovereignty, especially amid EU regulations and global competition.

The Center for Data Innovation urges the U.S. to refocus its federal AI R&D strategy on unlocking AI’s full potential by emphasizing deployment over harm prevention, linking technical design to real-world performance outcomes, and investing in the generation of high-quality, representative data to drive innovation and public benefit.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued two memos aimed at accelerating AI adoption across the federal government. But that vision won’t materialize unless other parts of the administration stop pulling in opposite directions or failing to act altogether.