Cybersecurity & Tech

Lawfare Daily: Vinh Nguyen, Elham Tabassi, and Kat Duffy on How to Design a Better AI Regulator

Kate Klonick, Vinh Nguyen, Elham Tabassi, Kat Duffy, Jen Patja
Tuesday, August 18, 2026, 7:01 AM
Discussing the FINRA-style AI regulator reportedly under White House review.
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Lawfare Senior Editor Kate Klonick is joined by three guests to discuss their recent article for the Council on Foreign Relations on the FINRA-style AI regulator reportedly under White House review: Vinh Nguyen, former chief AI officer at the National Security Agency and now CFR’s Senior Fellow for Artificial Intelligence; Elham Tabassi, former chief AI advisor at NIST and now director of Brookings’ AI and Emerging Technology Initiative; and Kat Duffy, CFR’s Senior Fellow for Digital and Cyberspace Policy and director of LEAD AI.

The conversation follows recent news of Demis Hassabis’s July 14 framework calling for a U.S.-led Frontier AI Standards Body and a subsequent Bloomberg report that Treasury Secretary Bessent is involved in reviewing a version of the proposal. They discuss the problems but benefits with a FINRA-like model and what that means for public trust before the body even launches, especially for allies abroad who may be reluctant to treat an American, industry-funded body as an international standard-setter.

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Kate Klonick

Kate Klonick

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Kate Klonick is an Associate Professor at St. John’s University Law School, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, Yale Law School’s Information Society Project, Harvard Berkman Klein Center and a Distinguished Scholar at the Institute for Humane Studies. Her writing on online speech, freedom of expression, and private internet platform governance has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, Yale Law Journal, The New Yorker, the New York Times, The Atlantic, the Washington Post and numerous other publications. For the 2023-2024 academic year, she was a Fulbright Schuman Innovation Scholar in the European Union where she was a Visiting Professor at SciencesPo and University of Amsterdam researching and writing about the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act.
Vinh Nguyen

Vinh Nguyen

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Vinh Nguyen is the former chief AI officer at the National Security Agency and now CFR’s Senior Fellow for Artificial Intelligence.
Elham Tabassi

Elham Tabassi

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Elham Tabassi is the former chief AI advisor at NIST and now director of Brookings’ AI and Emerging Technology Initiative.
Kat Duffy

Kat Duffy

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Kat Duffy is the CFR’s Senior Fellow for Digital and Cyberspace Policy and director of LEAD AI.
Jen Patja

Jen Patja

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Jen Patja is the editor of the Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security, and serves as Lawfare’s Director of Audience Engagement. Previously, she was Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics and Deputy Director of the Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier, where she worked to deepen public understanding of constitutional democracy and inspire meaningful civic participation.
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