Chris Meserole

Chris Meserole is the director of the Brookings Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology Initiative and a fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution.

Meserole’s current research is focused on two major streams. The first is how democratic governments and societies should respond to the exploitation of digital technologies by both extremist movements and authoritarian regimes. He has written widely on the challenges posed by extremist recruitment and mobilization online, and serves as a co-facilitator of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism’s working group on content-sharing algorithms. He has also advised a wide range of government offices on extremist use of the internet, as well as the Christchurch Call workstream on algorithms and radicalization.

Relatedly, Meserole has also published and spoken frequently on the rise of digital authoritarianism. As smartphones and remote sensors have proliferated, illiberal regimes have leveraged new forms of digital surveillance — typically under the pretense of counterterrorism and counter-extremism — to repress minority groups and human rights dissidents around the world. Meserole is particularly concerned with the global spread of Chinese surveillance infrastructure and governance models, which he described in a co-authored report on “Exporting Digital Authoritarianism” as well as testimony to a United States Commission on International Religious Freedom hearing on digital repression in China.

The second major stream of Meserole’s research is focused on the use and impact of artificial intelligence within military applications. He is especially interested in the new norms, confidence building measures, and verification regimes that will be required to minimize the risks posed by AI-enabled military systems. Meserole has advised officials in the United States and Europe on ethical principles and policy frameworks for lethal autonomous weapons systems, and taken part in the US-China Track 2 Dialogue on AI Security led by the Brookings Institution and Tsinghua University.

Meserole’s work has appeared or been featured in the New Yorker, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Wired, and other publications.