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Artificial intelligence (AI) and the US

Many institutions are now using AI models as tools to think about solutions to a variety of challenges, from the everyday to the global. At the same time, many commentators have expressed concerns about AI and its effects on society, the economy and democracy.

In this series The Ballpark speaks to academic experts to explore the implications of AI technology for US society and politics.

What I'm most worried about, however, is that we don't really know much about the AI technology because it's still at the early stage, and then leading computer scientists still have quite fierce debate regarding the potentials of this technology, whether it will really get out of hand, whether it will really pose existential threat to our society

Professor Angela Zhang - Gould School of Law, University of Southern California

Latest podcasts in this series

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Who is liable for AI? With Dr Anat Lior
22 September 2025

AI has legal consequences. Who is responsible when AI makes a mistake which causes harm or financial loss? What role does government regulation play, and do we need to revise our legal frameworks in the face of increasingly capable AI?

To talk about these questions, we spoke to Anat Lior, assistant professor at Drexel University’s Thomas R. Kline School of Law.

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AI automation and the workforce with Dr Baobao Zhang
8 September 2025

We explore the impacts AI is already having on the workforce with Baobao Zhang, Maxwell Dean Associate Professor of the Politics of AI in the Political Science Department at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. The discussion covers how recent advances in AI have shifted the landscape when it comes to labor automation, the anxiety that many people are feeling about the potential for AI to affect jobs and industries through automation, and what students should be doing to best prepare for a career in workplaces that will be affected by AI in the coming decades.

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The US-China AI race with Professor Angela Zhang
30 June 2025  

We spoke to Angela Zhang, Professor of Law at the Gould School of Law of the University of Southern California about the ongoing AI competition between China and the US with  Professor Zhang is an expert on AI regulation, both in China and globally. They spoke about China’s current approach to AI regulation, and how this compares with the US, and why China may be content with being a “close second” in the AI race.

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AI and intellectual property with Dr Bhamati Viswanathan
21 May 2025 

The rise of AI tools has been fuelled by the scraping of online resources as training data for the large language models that power them. This has important implications for how we think about intellectual property and the rights of those who created this training data. To find out more, we spoke to Professor Bhamati Viswanathan of New England Law Boston. 

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Interviews in this series are conducted by the Phelan US Centre’s Chris Gilson. 

We’d love to hear what you think of our podcasts and videos – you can send us a message on Twitter , or email us at uscentre@lse.ac.uk.

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