Policy & Ethics
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 18-Nov-2025 19:11 ET (19-Nov-2025 00:11 GMT/UTC)
9-Oct-2025
China’s emerging AI regulation could foster an open and safe future for AI
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)Reports and Proceedings
In a Policy Forum, Yue Zhu and colleagues provide an overview of China’s emerging regulation for artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and its potential contributions to global AI governance. Open-source AI systems from China are rapidly expanding worldwide, even as the country’s regulatory framework remains in flux. In general, AI governance suffers from fragmented approaches, a lack of clarity, and difficulty reconciling innovation with risk management, making global coordination especially hard in the face of rising controversy. Although no official AI law has yet been enacted, experts in China have drafted two influential proposals – the Model AI Law and the AI Law (Scholar’s Proposal) – which serve as key references for ongoing policy discussions. As the nation’s lawmakers prepare to draft a consolidated AI law, Zhu et al. note that the decisions will shape not only China’s innovation, but also global collaboration on AI safety, openness, and risk mitigation. Here, the authors discuss China’s emerging AI regulation as structured around 6 pillars, which, combined, stress exemptive laws, efficient adjudication, and experimentalist requirements, while safeguarding against extreme risks. This framework seeks to balance responsible oversight with pragmatic openness, allowing developers to innovate for the long term and collaborate across the global research community. According to Zhu et al., despite the need for greater clarity, harmonization, and simplification, China’s evolving model is poised to shape future legislation and contribute meaningfully to global AI governance by promoting both safety and innovation at a time when international cooperation on extreme risks is urgently needed.
- Journal
- Science
9-Oct-2025
Award committee seeks federally funded basic research that unexpectedly benefited society
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)Grant and Award Announcement
he Golden Goose Award, which spotlights silly sounding or odd federal basic research that ultimately benefited society, seek nominations to recognize the 2026 awardees.
9-Oct-2025
Research shows National Living Wage has reduced labor mobility across firms, but at what cost?
City St George’s, University of LondonPeer-Reviewed Publication
New research led by Bayes Business School (formerly Cass) has revealed the introduction of the National Living Wage (NLW) in the UK in April 2016 significantly decreased labour mobility across firms by minimum wage workers. While this meant a pay boost for many low-paid workers, the rising wage floor could be affecting the fluidity of the job market if it is reducing workers’ incentives to search for new jobs and move between firms.
- Journal
- British Journal of Industrial Relations
- Funder
- ADR UK
9-Oct-2025
Dental shame stops people seeking help for oral health issues, study warns
University of ExeterPeer-Reviewed Publication
Shame can lead people to avoid getting treatment for dental issues, potentially worsening oral health inequalities, a new study warns.
- Journal
- Community Dentistry And Oral Epidemiology
9-Oct-2025
New data challenge could reimagine future food and nutrition facts
American Heart AssociationBusiness Announcement
Competition from the American Heart Association invites researchers, designers and policy leaders to redesign nutrition information using advanced molecular data from the Periodic Table of Food Initiative.
9-Oct-2025
Emergency Medicaid spending for undocumented immigrants in the US
JAMA NetworkPeer-Reviewed Publication
About The Study: In this nationwide analysis, emergency Medicaid accounted for only a small fraction of total Medicaid expenditures. Although states with larger undocumented populations spent approximately 15 times more per capita, emergency Medicaid still constituted less than 1% of overall Medicaid spending even in states with large undocumented populations, posing a limited fiscal burden on Medicaid. These results suggest that cuts to emergency Medicaid will produce minimal overall cost savings and will disproportionately harm states with large undocumented populations.
- Journal
- JAMA