Hin-Yan Liu

What do you research?

I really enjoy complex, open-ended, and unsolvable questions. As a result, my work has been a real mixed bag, but at the moment I work on policy, regulatory, and governance issues that have to do with artificial intelligence; quantum computing; existential and global catastrophic risks; climate geoengineering; and influence, manipulation, and cognitive liberty. My outlook is future-oriented, and I work to find the systemic failures. I try to be more holistic and integrative, so it is not just a matter of extrapolating from a single developmental trend, but to imagine what the world would be like with interwoven challenges taken together.

Why is it so important?

The challenges that we face today arise from the solutions to yesterday’s problems. And every time history repeats itself, the price goes up. It’s easy to respond, but it’s hard to see the iatrogenic knock-on effects of any given intervention. By looking at how things will not work – how things will fail – in the regulatory and governance space, I get a different perspective. Sort of like red teaming: if I am wrong and the system works, then great! But if we naively think that a particular regulatory or governance response will work as planned, and it doesn’t, that’s a problem. I find it important to highlight the disruptive dynamics in the regulation and governance of new and emerging technologies as a result.

A project you are proud of?

I particularly enjoyed working with Matthijs Maas and others on the Legal Disruption Model and “Solving for X?”, and on “Governing Boring Apocalypses”. These felt like playful takes on complex topics from which fun perspectives emerged on the governance of AI and on how existential risks might more realistically play out. Uniting these collaborative projects was an attempt to stay in the complexity and explore the interactions and what emerged from them.

Updated October 2024

Through his participation in Policy Fellowship 2024-2025, Hin-Yan will be working with Christina Dahl Jensen, team leader in DanChurchAid.

In previous policy fellowships, Hin-Yan has worked with Grit Munk, Chief IT Policy Advisor in The Danish Society of Engineers  (Alumner - Policy Fellowship).