Kevin Klyman

Bio

Kevin Klyman is a JD-MA candidate at Harvard Law School and Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute. He is also the Lead Technology Researcher at Harvard's Avoiding Great Power War Project, an Emerging Expert at the Forum on the Arms Trade, and part of the policy team at Stanford's Center for Research on Foundation Models. His research focuses on the regulation of large AI models and the competition in emerging technology between the US, China, and Europe.

Klyman’s writing on US-China relations has been published in Foreign Policy, TechCrunch, Just Security, The American Prospect, The Diplomat, Inkstick, The National Interest, and South China Morning Post among others. He is the author of “The Great Tech Rivalry: China vs. the US” with Professor Graham Allison, which has been cited by The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and NPR.

Klyman's research at Stanford covers the level of transparency of foundation model developers, the policies companies employ to restrict how their models are used, and government regulation of AI. His recent study with Professor Percy Liang, "The Foundation Model Transparency Index," was cited by the New York Times, the Atlantic, and WIRED.

At Harvard, Klyman has published on issues including compute governance, quantum computing export controls, digital trade agreements, and clean energy supply chains. Klyman was the inaugural recipient of the Belfer Center's Lovita Strain Award for Advancing Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging in recognition of his work to promote equity as a leader on Belfer's DIB Committee.

Klyman has led tech policy initiatives for a variety of the world’s leading international organizations. As an Artificial Intelligence and Digital Rights Fellow at United Nations Global Pulse, the AI lab of the UN Secretary-General, he headed the organization’s work on national AI strategies and coordinated the UN’s Privacy Policy Group. Klyman helped lead the development of a risks, harms, and benefits assessment for algorithmic systems that is now used across the UN. After the onset of the pandemic, Klyman coauthored a new privacy policy in partnership with the World Health Organization—the “Joint Statement on Data Protection and Privacy in the COVID-19 Response”—which was adopted by the UN as a whole.

As a Policy Fellow at the UN Foundation’s Digital Impact Alliance, Klyman built a database that is now used by the World Bank and the UN Development Programme to assess countries' readiness for digital investment. At the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, Klyman directed research on countries’ policies regarding autonomous weapons, resulting in the landmark report “Stopping Killer Robots: Country Positions on Banning Fully Autonomous Weapons and Retaining Human Control.”

Klyman has also worked on a wide range of issues aside from technology. At Human Rights Watch, he helped expose war crimes in Syria and Yemen through open-source intelligence gathering and coauthored a report about the illegal use of cluster munitions. As a Legislative Assistant to the Mayor of Berkeley, California, he drafted a dozen pieces of legislation that nearly doubled the city’s investments in affordable housing.

Klyman attended UC Berkeley as an undergraduate, graduating with highest honors in political science along with a degree in applied mathematics concentrating in computer science. He is an award-winning debater who achieved the highest ranking in Berkeley’s history in American parliamentary debate and was Co-President of Berkeley’s parliamentary debate team. His thesis on Chinese foreign policy won the Owen D. Young Prize as the top paper in international relations and he received the John Gardner Public Service Fellowship as one of Berkeley’s top three public service-oriented graduates. He serves as Co-President of the John Gardner Fellowship Association, a 501(c)3.

Professional Affiliations and Activities

• Co-President, John Gardner Fellowship Association (2022 - Present)

Education & Certifications

• BA, University of California, Berkeley, Applied Mathematics (Computer Science) and Political Science (International Relations) (2019)