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Rand Report: Public Procurement and AI Governance
SANTA MONICA, California, Sept. 14 (TNSLrpt) -- Rand Report issued the following report on September 11, 2026, entitled "Public procurement and AI governance."
Here are excerpts:
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Frontier AI capabilities are concentrated among a small number of private firms headquartered in the United States and China. For states which neither develop nor host leading models, this concentration creates a dependence on foreign AI providers whose capabilities they often cannot independently evaluate and whose technology may be constrained by the laws of the provider's home jurisdiction.
Public procurement
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SANTA MONICA, California, Sept. 14 (TNSLrpt) -- Rand Report issued the following report on September 11, 2026, entitled "Public procurement and AI governance."
Here are excerpts:
* * *
Frontier AI capabilities are concentrated among a small number of private firms headquartered in the United States and China. For states which neither develop nor host leading models, this concentration creates a dependence on foreign AI providers whose capabilities they often cannot independently evaluate and whose technology may be constrained by the laws of the provider's home jurisdiction.
Public procurementoffers 'AI middle powers' one mechanism for governing these dependencies. These are states with significant economic, diplomatic, security or regulatory capabilities that nevertheless depend technologically on foreign frontier AI firms. The report finds that three categories of risk fall disproportionately on state buyers in AI middle powers: vendor lock-in and the threat of service withdrawal, limited visibility into frontier AI development, and data sovereignty and information-security risks.
To mitigate these risks, the report develops a framework of procurement obligations that governments could seek to negotiate with AI providers. These include model access for evaluation, information sharing, funding for reliability research, state-of-the-art risk management requirements, termination and exit provisions, and measures to support domestic and allied capability.
The analysis finds that public procurement is a useful but bounded mechanism for governing frontier AI. Governments are not yet major customers of frontier AI firms, and leading developers may be able to forego government contracts rather than accept costly requirements. Procurement contracts with foreign providers may also remain subordinate to the national-security laws of a vendor's home state, and state buyers can face persistent information asymmetries when negotiating with leading technology companies. At the same time, government demand for frontier AI is growing, and public-sector contracts offer firms more than revenue alone. They provide financial predictability and a degree of prestige and regulatory validation, making governments strategically important customers even if they are not yet indispensable to firms' business models.
The central recommendation is that AI middle powers should assess whether collective coordination on procurement requirements can strengthen their bargaining position and state capacity.
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View the full report here: https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RRA5200/RRA5284-1/RAND_RRA5284-1.pdf
[Category: ThinkTank]
Rand Report: Open-Weight AI Models May Increase Biological Misuse Risks
SANTA MONICA, California, Sept. 14 (TNSLrpt) -- Rand Report issued the following report on September 14, 2026, entitled "Open-Weight AI Models May Increase Biological Misuse Risks."
Here are excerpts:
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Open-weight LLMs can be freely downloaded and modified, creating benefits but also biosecurity risks. We examine whether frontier open-weight LLMs can be modified for malicious biological purposes. We find that removing an LLM's safety training is highly feasible, while enhancing an LLM's biological capabilities is harder. A custom biosecurity evaluation suggests that safety removal alone
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SANTA MONICA, California, Sept. 14 (TNSLrpt) -- Rand Report issued the following report on September 14, 2026, entitled "Open-Weight AI Models May Increase Biological Misuse Risks."
Here are excerpts:
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Open-weight LLMs can be freely downloaded and modified, creating benefits but also biosecurity risks. We examine whether frontier open-weight LLMs can be modified for malicious biological purposes. We find that removing an LLM's safety training is highly feasible, while enhancing an LLM's biological capabilities is harder. A custom biosecurity evaluation suggests that safety removal alonecould aid a realistic threat pathway.
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View the full report here: https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RRA5100/RRA5112-1/RAND_RRA5112-1.pdf
[Category: ThinkTank]
Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft: 'A Blueprint for US Policy Toward the In-Between States'
NEW YORK, Sept. 14 (TNSLrpt) -- The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft issued the following brief on September 9, 2026, by Artin DerSimonian and Mark Episkopos entitled "A Blueprint for US Policy Toward the In-Between States."
Here are excerpts:
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Introduction
Russia's Feb. 2022 invasion of Ukraine definitively marked the end of the unipolar post-Cold War era. The United States now confronts a rapidly shifting international system, marked most clearly by an increasingly competitive relationship with China. As a part of effectively managing this transition and best positioning itself
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NEW YORK, Sept. 14 (TNSLrpt) -- The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft issued the following brief on September 9, 2026, by Artin DerSimonian and Mark Episkopos entitled "A Blueprint for US Policy Toward the In-Between States."
Here are excerpts:
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Introduction
Russia's Feb. 2022 invasion of Ukraine definitively marked the end of the unipolar post-Cold War era. The United States now confronts a rapidly shifting international system, marked most clearly by an increasingly competitive relationship with China. As a part of effectively managing this transition and best positioning itselffor the years ahead, Washington requires a policy reassessment toward former Soviet countries, caught effectively "in between" the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, and Russia. This policy reassessment, alongside preventing escalation of the Ukraine war and rebalancing NATO and the transatlantic alliance more broadly, will be the key task before American policymakers focusing on Eurasia.
Thus far in the Trump administration's second term, with regard to the in-between states, the United States has pursued a pragmatic approach that seeks to alleviate Eurasian regional tensions while pursuing America's broader interests. Although some elements of this approach had begun during the Biden administration, the current administration has driven these processes further ahead.
Early on, for example, the second Trump administration prudently accepted that the NATO alliance should close its door to future enlargement into former Soviet states, mostly notably Ukraine.
At the same time, the administration recognized that it maintains limited, but important, interests across Eurasia and an ability to help advance stability and prosperity there. Acknowledging that the United States can pursue its economic and political interests across the in-between states without expanding its security commitments and military footprint has proven both shrewd and fruitful.
Over the past year and a half, the United States has made important progress through its engagements in Eurasia: Restarting dialogue with Belarus led to the release of hundreds of political prisoners and is slowly reawakening Minsk's multi-vector foreign policy approach, while supporting the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process through economic connectivity projects is helping lay the groundwork for diversified US supply chains.
As a result of the significant upheavals ongoing across Eurasia and beyond, a unique moment exists for the United States to solidify consensus behind a new, more prudent policy toward the in-between states that can drive Washington's engagement for years to come. The key to its success will rest on sensibly and consistently managing relations with Russia while promoting Eurasian regional stability and prosperity.
Therefore, one of the most critical factors in ensuring that US policy can succeed and the Eurasia region can thrive will be avoiding escalation of the Ukraine war that risks drawing the West into more direct conflict with Russia. Achieving a negotiated settlement to the war is the most comprehensive method available to preclude the dangers of horizontal and vertical escalation, though the window for such an agreement is narrowing. Absent a negotiated resolution, advancing a new US policy toward the in-between states will be more complicated but just as important. The strategic principles and recommendations in this brief can serve as important guides for avoiding future Ukraine-like scenarios.
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View full version at: https://quincyinst.org/research/a-blueprint-for-us-policy-toward-the-in-between-states/#h-introduction
[Category: ThinkTank]
Manhattan Institute: 'New York's LOADinG Act: Protecting Public-Sector Jobs From AI'
NEW YORK, Sept. 14 (TNSLrpt) -- The Manhattan Institute issued the following issue brief on September 10, 2026, by Sean Speer entitled "New York's LOADinG Act: Protecting Public-Sector Jobs from AI."
Here are excerpts:
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Introduction
Artificial intelligence may be one of the most important tools available to improve government performance in a generation. At a time when governments face mounting fiscal pressures, AI offers a rare opportunity to improve services without simply spending more money or hiring more people. It can help public agencies process claims faster, reduce administrative
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NEW YORK, Sept. 14 (TNSLrpt) -- The Manhattan Institute issued the following issue brief on September 10, 2026, by Sean Speer entitled "New York's LOADinG Act: Protecting Public-Sector Jobs from AI."
Here are excerpts:
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Introduction
Artificial intelligence may be one of the most important tools available to improve government performance in a generation. At a time when governments face mounting fiscal pressures, AI offers a rare opportunity to improve services without simply spending more money or hiring more people. It can help public agencies process claims faster, reduce administrativebacklogs, detect fraud, improve customer service, strengthen internal analytical capacity, and deliver better outcomes at lower cost.
Yet the principal barriers to adoption are increasingly institutional and political. AI derives much of its value from its ability to automate routine tasks, reorganize workflows, and enable organizations to produce more output with fewer labor inputs. Those same characteristics can create resistance from groups whose interests may be affected by technological change.
New York's Legislative Oversight of Automated Decision-Making in Government Act, commonly known as the LOADinG Act, provides an early and revealing example of this tension.[1] Introduced as a framework for governing the use of automated decision-making systems in state government, it paired AI accountability and transparency requirements with extensive employment protections for public-sector workers. As enacted, it prohibited state agencies from using automated systems in ways that displace employees, transfer duties performed by workers, reduce compensation, or alter certain workplace arrangements. Those prohibitions now bind most of the state's public employers, and the accountability requirements have since been repealed.
The law's evolution is itself revealing. Through successive rounds of revision, a statute introduced as an accountability and transparency framework for AI in state government has become, in substance, a job-protection law. The mechanics of that transformation deserve as much attention as the result, and no account has yet traced them across all four enactments--the 2024 law and the three rounds of amendments that followed.
The workforce protections were a late addition to a bill that had been originally introduced in June 2023 and that had spent a year advancing as a pure AI-governance statute. Over the 14 months that followed, those governance provisions were repeatedly enacted in public and then repealed through closed-door negotiations before they ever took effect. The workforce protections, by contrast, gradually grew, reaching from state agencies alone to school districts, public universities, counties, cities, towns, and villages--that is, to nearly every public employer in the state.
The LOADinG Act's restrictions do more than shield current employees from layoffs or lost wages. Even if no one loses a job, or a dollar of wages, an agency may not reassign to an automated system a duty that its employees currently perform. The law, in other words, prevents AI from performing almost any task currently performed by civil servants. It also prevents almost any productivity improvements through the use of AI.
Public-sector unions and other organized interests can invoke those protections to challenge or delay the deployment of AI systems that alter existing work arrangements, even where the systems in question would improve service delivery or reduce administrative costs.[2] The predictable result is slower adoption, forgone productivity gains, and a higher-cost public sector.
This issue brief examines why AI matters for public administration, describes the origins and evolution of the LOADinG Act, and analyzes its implications for AI adoption in government. It argues that the law's workforce protections discourage the use of AI and other productivity-enhancing technologies across New York State government. More broadly, New York's experience illustrates how efforts to protect existing work arrangements can come at the expense of government performance.
Why AI Matters for Public Administration
Much of the public discussion surrounding artificial intelligence has focused on its implications for the private economy. Far less attention has been paid to its potential role in improving public administration.
Emerging evidence suggests that the productivity gains from AI may be substantial, including in areas of work that the public sector performs. Three Stanford and Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers studied the staggered introduction of a generative AI assistant among more than 5,000 customer-support agents and found that it raised productivity by 14%, on average, with the largest gains among novice workers.[3] A randomized experiment in Science found that generative AI cut the time professionals spent on routine writing by roughly 40%, while improving its quality.[4]
Much of modern government is precisely this kind of work: processing applications, reviewing permits, answering inquiries, and monitoring compliance. Researchers at the Alan Turing Institute estimate that 84% of the U.K. central government's complex but repetitive transactions--roughly 143 million each year--are highly automatable, and that saving just one minute per transaction would free the equivalent of 1,200 person-years of work annually.[5] A trial that gave 20,000 U.K. civil servants access to a generative AI assistant found self-reported time savings of 26 minutes per day[6] (or nearly two weeks per employee per year), and a subsequent controlled study[7] at the Department for Work and Pensions confirmed meaningful daily savings concentrated in search, summarization, and first-draft writing.
The U.S. is already moving in this direction. Federal agencies disclosed roughly 3,600 AI-use cases in 2025,[8] a nearly 70% increase from the previous year, and participation in the federal use-case inventory has nearly doubled since 2023.[9] State and local governments are beginning to follow.
The implications extend beyond administrative convenience. What is ultimately at stake is state capacity. A capable government is not necessarily a larger government. It is one that can translate public resources into effective outcomes.
Yet capturing these gains requires governments to do precisely the things that make the technology valuable in the first place: reorganize how work is done, shift routine tasks from people to systems, and deliver more with the same resources. Whether public institutions are permitted to make those changes is less a technical question than a political one. New York's LOADinG Act shows how that question is beginning to be answered.
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View full issue brief at: https://manhattan.institute/article/new-yorks-loading-act-protecting-public-sector-jobs-from-ai
[Category: Think Tank]
IEEFA: South Korean Offshore Wind Success Requires a Public-private Approach to Project Realizatio
WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 (TNSLrpt) -- The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis issued the following report on Septemebr 10, 2026, by Grant Hauber entitled "South Korean offshore wind success requires a public-private approach to project realization."
Here are excerpts:
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South Korea is turning to offshore wind to diversify and secure its energy supply, develop new domestic industries, and support its decarbonization goals. On 30 June 2026, the South Korean government issued a medium-term offshore wind development program (Medium-term Plan), targeting 55 gigawatts (GW) of capacity
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WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 (TNSLrpt) -- The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis issued the following report on Septemebr 10, 2026, by Grant Hauber entitled "South Korean offshore wind success requires a public-private approach to project realization."
Here are excerpts:
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South Korea is turning to offshore wind to diversify and secure its energy supply, develop new domestic industries, and support its decarbonization goals. On 30 June 2026, the South Korean government issued a medium-term offshore wind development program (Medium-term Plan), targeting 55 gigawatts (GW) of capacitydeployment through 2035. The program seeks to auction approximately 4GW of capacity annually from 2026, reaching 10.5GW under construction by 2030 and 25GW by 2035.
However, just seven weeks later, on 26 August 2026, the Ministry of Climate, Environment and Energy issued a summary of the upcoming 12th Basic Plan for Long-term Electricity Supply and Demand (BPLE). This plan targets 45GW of offshore wind by 2040, with currently contracted capacity to be deployed by 2030, and new capacity procured at 4GW to 4.4GW annually from 2029. Figure 1 compares the two plans.
Both plans follow the March 2026 Offshore Wind Special Act, passed in 2025, which aims to streamline offshore wind site management and the approvals process, establishing a centralized permitting framework.
Taken together, these measures signal a significant acceleration in offshore wind development, positioning it as a core contributor to South Korea's energy mix. The scale of these plans aligns with President Lee Jae-myung's call to strengthen energy security following price spikes and supply disruptions resulting from the Middle East conflict by rapidly expanding renewable energy and energy storage. The question is how government and private industry can work together to achieve South Korea's ambitious goals.
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View full briefing note at: https://ieefa.org/sites/default/files/2026-09/IEEFA%20Briefing%20Note_South%20Korean%20offshore%20wind%20success%20requires%20a%20public-private%20approach%20to%20project%20realization_September2026.pdf
[Category: ThinkTank]
Economic & Social Research Institute: 'Stepping Stones or Carbon Lock-in? Homeowner Preferences for Biofuels and Heat Pumps in Residential Heating Decarbonisation'
DUBLIN, Ireland, Sept. 14 (TNSLrpt) -- The Economic and Social Research Institute issued the following working paper on September 10, 2026, entitled "Stepping stones or carbon lock-in? Homeowner preferences for biofuels and heat pumps in residential heating decarbonisation."
Here are excerpts:
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Decarbonising residential heating in Europe and North America depends on millions of individual household decisions. While policy has largely focused on replacing fossil-fuel boilers with heat pumps, slow progress has prompted growing interested in alternatives. Lower-carbon "drop-in" fuels such
... Show Full Article
DUBLIN, Ireland, Sept. 14 (TNSLrpt) -- The Economic and Social Research Institute issued the following working paper on September 10, 2026, entitled "Stepping stones or carbon lock-in? Homeowner preferences for biofuels and heat pumps in residential heating decarbonisation."
Here are excerpts:
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Decarbonising residential heating in Europe and North America depends on millions of individual household decisions. While policy has largely focused on replacing fossil-fuel boilers with heat pumps, slow progress has prompted growing interested in alternatives. Lower-carbon "drop-in" fuels suchas hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) and biomethane are one type of alternative that can be used within existing heating systems relatively straightforwardly.
Whether promoting such biofuels accelerates decarbonisation by acting as a stepping stone towards heat-pump adoption or instead delays it by reinforcing incumbent technologies has received much debate, but little direct empirical attention. We generate evidence for this debate using a survey experiment with a nationally representative sample of Irish homeowners with gas or oil boilers (N > 1,000), in which all respondents evaluated both a biofuel option and a heat pump, with the order of exposure randomised. Awareness of biofuels was low, particularly for biomethane.
Initial willingness to switch was high and driven primarily by the ease of switching, but fell sharply once respondents learned about higher fuel costs and sustainability concerns. Heat-pump evaluations also declined as information was revealed, especially following disclosure of building-fabric retrofit requirements. Despite these declines, final willingness-to-switch remained substantially higher for biofuels than for heat pumps.
Critically, exposure to biofuels did not reduce subsequent willingness to adopt a heat pump, with a point-estimate that was in-fact positive, providing no evidence for household-level carbon lock-in. The findings suggest that promoting lower-carbon fuel alternatives need not undermine support for electrification, though the attractiveness of both pathways remains strongly conditioned by their perceived financial and practical costs.
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View the full doc at: https://www.esri.ie/system/files/publications/WP843.pdf
[Category: ThinkTank]
AEI Review Finds Limited Evidence That Guaranteed Income Pilots Raise Employment
WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 (TNSLrpt) -- The American Enterprise Institute issued 'What Can We Learn from Guaranteed Basic Income Pilots in the United States? Evidence on Employment Effects,' by Kevin Corinth and Hannah Mayhew. Issued Sept. 11, 2026, the report reviews guaranteed basic income experiments conducted from 2017 through 2025 and finds that employment effects across published randomized trials clustered near zero, while the largest studies showed moderately lower employment consistent with prior research on income effects.
The report identifies at least 122 guaranteed basic income, or GBI,
... Show Full Article
WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 (TNSLrpt) -- The American Enterprise Institute issued 'What Can We Learn from Guaranteed Basic Income Pilots in the United States? Evidence on Employment Effects,' by Kevin Corinth and Hannah Mayhew. Issued Sept. 11, 2026, the report reviews guaranteed basic income experiments conducted from 2017 through 2025 and finds that employment effects across published randomized trials clustered near zero, while the largest studies showed moderately lower employment consistent with prior research on income effects.
The report identifies at least 122 guaranteed basic income, or GBI,pilots across 33 states and the District of Columbia. The programs provided regular, unrestricted cash payments that did not decline as recipients earned more income and had defined start and end dates. Together, the pilots distributed an estimated 481 million in payments to 40,921 recipients and involved 61,664 people when control-group participants are included.
The study excludes permanent policies such as Alaska Permanent Fund disbursements and tribal casino payments, as well as the negative income-tax experiments of the 1970s. The authors say those programs differ from the targeted, time-limited cash pilots they examined because the older negative income-tax benefits fell as earnings rose, while the Alaska and tribal programs are ongoing rather than pilot projects.
"Most of the pilots had small sample sizes and substantial attrition," Corinth and Mayhew write. They caution that even stronger studies were conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic or in its aftermath and may not show how a permanent, universal, nationwide guaranteed-income program would affect work under different economic conditions.
Of the 122 pilots, 52 produced published reports tracking individual outcomes. Thirty-five were randomized controlled trials, meaning participants were assigned to treatment and control groups through random assignment. Thirty of those trials reported employment outcomes and formed the core of the authors' analysis.
Across the 30 randomized trials, the average treatment effect was a 0.8-percentage-point increase in employment, while the median effect was a 0.5-percentage-point decrease. Results varied widely, ranging from an 18.9-percentage-point decline to a 20-percentage-point increase. The report says that broad range reflects major differences in sample sizes, participant groups, payment amounts, study methods and data quality.
The four largest trials, each with at least 500 treatment-group members, produced a different pattern. Together, they represented 55 percent of all treatment participants in the 30 studies. Their average employment effect was a 3.2-percentage-point decline, and their mean income elasticity was negative 0.18. The authors say that result is broadly consistent with academic research suggesting that people work somewhat less when their unearned income rises.
The report defines the employment measure as participation in paid labor-market work, including full-time work, part-time work, self-employment and gig work. The authors note that some pilot reports used different definitions, sometimes including unpaid caregiving as employment, which complicates comparison among studies.
The average pilot payment was 7,177 a year, with payments ranging from 3,996 to 12,000 annually. Across the studies, payments represented income increases ranging from 17.8 percent to 87.1 percent of baseline household income, with a mean increase of 39.5 percent. Payments were provided for an average of 19.2 months.
The report highlights the OpenResearch Unconditional Income Study in Illinois and Texas as one of the larger and stronger trials. It provided 1,000 people with 1,000 monthly payments for three years, totaling 36,000 per person and 36 million in transfer payments. The study used administrative and survey data and had little attrition, but its results showed moderate employment reductions, according to the AEI analysis.
Another large trial, the Basic Income Guaranteed Los Angeles Economic Assistance Pilot, provided 3,202 recipients with 1,000 a month for 12 months at a total transfer cost of 38.4 million. But the report says the study had 55 percent attrition because it relied on survey data. Other relatively large trials included Chelsea Eats in Massachusetts, with 1,067 treatment participants, and the Compton Pledge in California, with 695.
Small samples were common. Thirty of the 122 pilots had fewer than 100 treatment participants, and 18 had fewer than 50. Among the 30 randomized studies reporting employment outcomes, 20 had treatment groups of 200 or fewer participants. The authors say estimates from small experiments varied much more widely than those from larger studies, making it hard to distinguish true effects from statistical noise.
Attrition was another concern. Among the 26 pilots where the authors could calculate participant dropout, the average attrition rate was 37 percent. The report says nonrandom dropout could bias findings if participants who leave a study differ systematically from those who remain.
The pilots were concentrated in a small number of states. California had 45 of the 122 programs, followed by New York with 10 and Colorado with eight. Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Texas each had six; Oregon and Louisiana had four; and Virginia and the District of Columbia had three apiece. The 30 randomized trials with employment outcomes were located in 21 states and the District of Columbia.
The report finds no strong pattern connecting employment effects to most participant characteristics. Across the studies, treatment groups averaged 74 percent parents, 71 percent women, 50 percent Black, 27 percent Hispanic and 15 percent married. The authors observed a modest relationship between lower baseline household income and more negative employment effects, as well as a modest association between a higher share of married participants and lower employment. They found no visible relationship for most other demographic measures.
The timing of the pilots limits conclusions, the authors say. None ended before the COVID-19 pandemic began. Many operated during a period marked by mass job losses, stimulus checks, enhanced unemployment insurance, expanded child tax credits, school closures, rent assistance, student-loan payment pauses and high inflation. While these conditions affected both treatment and control groups in individual trials, they may have changed the effect of cash payments on work.
The authors also argue that temporary, targeted programs may not predict behavior under a permanent universal basic income. Recipients may respond differently to income they expect to receive indefinitely, including by changing education, training, savings, work hours and longer-term career choices. The report says those differences would be especially important if a universal basic income were considered in response to widespread job displacement from artificial intelligence.
The review concludes that the pilots provide some evidence about how low-income people respond to temporary income increases, but not enough to settle the policy debate over guaranteed basic income. While employment effects averaged near zero across all published randomized trials, the better-powered studies showed more consistent negative effects on employment. The authors say policymakers should avoid extrapolating those findings directly to a permanent, universal program implemented under ordinary economic conditions.
-- Moira Sirois, Targeted News Service
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View report at: https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/what-can-we-learn-from-guaranteed-basic-income-pilots-in-the-united-states-evidence-on-employment-effects/
[Category: ThinkTank]
