AI Policy Hackathon at Johns Hopkins University

Shaping the Future of AI Governance

Join us for a weekend of collaboration, problem-solving, and networking as you work with like-minded peers to tackle real-world policy challenges related to AI! Located in Washington D.C. or online via Discord. Final deliverables can be either technical demos or policy paper. No coding required and all backgrounds are welcomed!

Why Participate?

• Skill development through hands-on experience in policy-making and AI applications
• Network with industry leaders from OpenAI, Microsoft, and Apart Research, and AI governance scholars
• Receive mentorship from experts in AI and policy
• Present your solutions to tech policy experts & policymakers
• Compete for prizes and recognition

Challenges and Themes

Below are some challenges that participants can work on! We have provided the following tracks, but the participants are welcomed to work on an AI policy-related challenge of their own.

AI Safety:

1. ‍Challenge 1.1: Agentic System Governance‍
   1. Partner: OpenAI‍
   2. Description: Agentic AI systems—AI systems that can pursue complex goals with limited direct supervision— will likely be broadly useful if we can integrate them responsibly into our society. While such systems have substantial potential to help people more efficiently and effectively achieve their own goals, they also create risks of harm. An OpenAI paper discussed this governance issue and implicated a set of open questions. Participants are encouraged to work on a policy paper or a technical demo that addresses these issues.‍
2. Challenge 1.2: How Far Are We from Achieving ASI? Measuring the Progress of AI‍
   1. Partner: OpenAI‍
   2. Description: In the coming decades, AI will enable us to achieve feats that once seemed unimaginable. We are on the cusp of a new era—an "Intelligence Age" (Altman, 2024) —where AI will serve as a foundational tool for human progress, from personalized education and healthcare to groundbreaking scientific discoveries. This challenge invites participants to evaluate how close we reach Artificial Superintelligence (ASI), the next leap in AI’s evolution. Through technical prototypes, research, or theoretical frameworks, explore the key milestones we’ve reached and those still ahead. How can AI continue to amplify human capability and drive unprecedented prosperity?

AI and the Future of Work:

1. ‍Partner: OpenAI
2. ‍Description: As AI continues to transform industries, the nature of work is evolving at an unprecedented pace. In the near future, AI systems will serve as collaborative assistants, helping us solve complex problems and automating routine tasks. This challenge invites participants to explore the future of work in the AI era. How will AI reshape labor markets, create new roles, or redefine existing ones? Participants can develop policy frameworks, design AI-driven tools for workplace efficiency, or propose strategies to ensure AI enhances human potential while addressing shifts in job structures. The goal is to envision a future where AI and human collaboration lead to shared prosperity.

AI and Public Health:

Challenge Overview

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the critical importance of rapid, data-driven decision-making in public health emergencies. AI and machine learning have immense potential to support real-time disease monitoring, early warning systems, resource allocation, and policy interventions. For this hackathon challenge, we’re asking teams to develop AI-powered solutions to enhance public health preparedness and emergency response capabilities. Your task is to identify a specific public health challenge and create an AI-driven tool or system that can help address it.

The Challenge:

Choose one of the following public health focus areas and develop an innovative AI-powered solution:

1. Disease Surveillance and Early Warning: Create an AI system that can rapidly detect, track, and predict the spread of infectious diseases using diverse data sources (e.g., electronic health records, social media, transportation patterns).
2. Resource Allocation and Logistics: Develop an AI-powered decision support tool to optimize the distribution of medical supplies, hospital beds, and other critical resources during public health emergencies.
3. Personalized Public Health Interventions: Design an AI platform to deliver customized health recommendations, nudges, and interventions to individuals based on their unique risk factors and behaviors.
4. Health Equity and Vulnerable Populations: Build an AI system that can identify and address disparities in health outcomes, access to care, and social determinants of health for marginalized communities.

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AI & Sustainability

Challenge Overview:

Create an innovative solution that leverages AI to address a specific environmental sustainability challenge. Solutions can be either technical demonstrations (prototype/proof of concept) or policy proposals.

Challenge Statement:

Choose one of these sustainability challenges and propose either a technical or policy solution:

1. Urban Energy Optimization
   • Reduce energy waste in buildings
   • Optimize public transportation
   • Smart grid management
2. Waste Reduction
   • Improve recycling efficiency
   • Reduce food waste
   • Optimize supply chains
3. Climate Impact Monitoring
   • Track carbon emissions
   • Monitor deforestation
   • Predict environmental risks

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AI & Law:

1. ‍Partner: Center for Language and Speech Processing, Johns Hopkins University (PI: Benjamin Van Durme)
2. ‍Description: Participants in this challenge will have access to CLERC, a massive US case law dataset, offering a rich resource for exploring legal discovery through AI. You can tackle existing tasks such as legal case retrieval, automate legal analysis generation, or develop innovative ideas and novel tasks based on this dataset. Whether improving retrieval accuracy or enhancing AI-driven legal reasoning, this challenge provides the opportunity to shape the future of legal tech by leveraging advanced machine learning on one of the largest legal corpora available.

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Prize Pool: $3,000

Outstanding Solutions (3 teams)

• $500 per team ($1,500 total)
• Opportunity to present to policymakers and industry leaders
• Recognition at award ceremony

Spotlight Awards (5 teams)

• $200 per team ($1,000 total)
• Recognition from expert judges
• Networking with AI policy professionals

Special Awards

• Best Innovation Award: $250
• Diversity & Inclusion Award: $250
  • Independent award that can be won alongside other prizes
  • Recognizes teams promoting diverse perspectives in AI policy

To help you prepare for the AI Policy Hackathon, we've curated essential materials that will equip you with the knowledge and tools needed to develop effective AI policy proposals. These resources range from foundational policy ideas to real-world examples of policy engagement.

Key Documents & Readings

Essential Policy Frameworks

• "12 Tentative Ideas for US AI Policy" by Open Philanthropy: A comprehensive overview of concrete policy proposals for managing AI risks, from export controls to safety testing requirements. Essential reading for understanding the current policy landscape.
• "Speaking to Congressional Staffers about AI Risk"A firsthand account of engaging with policymakers on AI safety. Invaluable insights for participants interested in how policy ideas get translated into action.
• "Thoughts on Responsible Scaling Policies"Critical analysis of how industry self-regulation and government oversight can work together. Useful for understanding the interplay between private and public sector approaches.

Practical Resources

1. Policy Proposal Templates
   • Sample bill formats
   • Policy brief structures
   • Impact assessment frameworks
2. Technical Documentation Guidelines
   • Standards for AI system documentation
   • Risk assessment protocols
   • Safety evaluation metrics

Inside AI Policy with Markus Anderljung 🎥

Why Watch This Interview?

‍This in-depth conversation with Markus Anderljung, Head of AI Policy at the Centre for Governance of AI (GovAI), provides crucial insights that will help you develop more effective policy proposals during the hackathon:

• Learn from real examples of successful and unsuccessful policy approaches
• Understand how to make your proposals more practical and implementable
• See how different stakeholders think about AI governance
• Gain insights into balancing competing interests
• Learn how to communicate complex policy ideas effectively

Recommended Deep Dives

For those wanting to explore specific areas

AI Safety & Governance

• "Why and How Governments Should Monitor AI Development" (Whittlestone & Clark, 2021)
• "Regulatory Markets: The Future of AI Governance" (Hadfield & Clark, 2023)

International Cooperation

• "AI & Global Governance" (Miailhe, 2018)
• Recent global AI safety summit outcomes

Legal & Liability Frameworks

• "Products Liability Law for AI" (Villasenor, 2019)
• European Commission reports on AI liability

*This list was inspired by posts on Less Wrong

AI Policy & Technical Research Agenda 📚

Explore a comprehensive collection of technical research directions and open problems in AI governance compiled by researchers actively working in the field. This agenda maps out crucial areas where technical expertise can directly inform and strengthen AI policy development.

Why This Matters For Your Hackathon:

1. Identifies concrete technical bottlenecks in AI governance that need solving, helping you choose high-impact projects that address real gaps in current policy frameworks and technical capabilities.‍
2. Maps relationships between different policy mechanisms and their technical requirements, enabling you to design solutions that integrate effectively with existing governance structures and frameworks.‍
3. Provides detailed examples of successful technical implementations in AI governance, offering practical templates and approaches you can adapt or build upon for your own policy proposals.
4. Shows how technical capabilities and limitations influence policy decisions, helping you develop more realistic and implementable proposals that account for current technological constraints and opportunities.
5. Highlights emerging challenges at the intersection of AI development and policy, allowing you to anticipate future governance needs and design forward-looking solutions that address upcoming challenges.‍

Getting Started

1. For Policy Track Participants:
   • Focus on the policy frameworks and Congressional engagement resources
   • Review existing AI governance proposals
   • Study successful policy implementation cases
2. For Technical Track Participants:
   • Examine technical documentation requirements
   • Review safety testing protocols
   • Study implementation feasibility metrics

Join our Discord community to connect with mentors and fellow participants before the event here

The schedule runs from 8 AM EST Saturday to 4 PM EST Sunday. We start with an introductory talk and end the event during the following week with an awards ceremony. Join the public ICal here. You will also find Explorer events, such as collaborative brainstorming and team match-making before the hackathon begins on Discord and in the calendar.