Governing AI Before It Outpaces Us: Safety for Critical Infrastructure

About this episode

The episode discusses the urgent need for safety, trust, and governance in AI as it becomes critical infrastructure, featuring insights from Dr. Rumman Chowdhury.

As generative AI systems move from novelty to infrastructure, questions of safety, trust, and governance are becoming urgent. In this episode of TechSurge, host Sriram Viswanathan is joined by Dr. Rumman Chowdhury, CEO of Humane Intelligence PBC and responsible AI Pioneer, about what AI safety really means and why the industry may be focusing on the wrong problems. Rumman argues that the most overlooked lever in AI development is evaluation. While companies emphasize model training and capabilities, far less attention is paid to how systems are assessed in real-world contexts, who defines “good,” what risks are measured, and how societal impacts are accounted for at scale. She distinguishes between technical assurance and broader sociotechnical risk, from misinformation and bias to over-reliance and erosion of institutional trust. Drawing on her experience at Twitter (X) and in global policy circles, Rumman highlights a fundamental governance gap: unlike finance, aviation, or healthcare, AI lacks a mature, independent ecosystem of auditors and evaluators. Today, the same companies building AI systems often define what counts as harm. She also challenges the belief that stronger…

People in this episode

Host: Sriram Viswanathan

Guest: Dr. Rumman Chowdhury

Topics covered

• AI safety
• governance
• critical infrastructure
• evaluation in AI
• sociotechnical risks
• trust in AI

Keywords

• AI governance
• safety
• evaluation
• sociotechnical risks
• trust
• critical infrastructure
• generative AI

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Humane Intelligence PBC, Twitter

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