The Science of Solid Policy
The Program on Understanding Law, Science & Evidence (PULSE) examines how basic “facts” about our world, gained through science and credited as evidence, influence law and policy making.
Grounded in interdisciplinary research and original programming, PULSE gives students the opportunity to explore critical issues including the challenges and opportunities for the use of forensic science evidence; how psychological research on implicit bias may affect legal understandings of discrimination; and what role scientific evidence plays in disputes over climate change. Student-focused colloquia, conferences, lectures and workshops by eminent scholars also inform the PULSE arena of study.
Who We Are
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Faculty
Elana Zeide
PULSE Fellow in Artificial Intelligence, Law & Policy -
Affiliated Faculty
Ann E. Carlson
Shirley Shapiro Professor of Environmental Law
Faculty Director, Emmett Institute on Climate Change & the EnvironmentBeth A. Colgan
Professor of LawMark Greenberg
Michael H. Schill Endowed Chair in Law and Professor of PhilosophyJill R. Horwitz
David Sanders Professorship in Law and Medicine
Professor of Public Affairs (by courtesy)
Founding Faculty Director, Lowell Milken Center on Philanthropy and Nonprofits
Vice Dean for Faculty and Intellectual Life (2019-2021)Jerry Kang
Ralph and Shirley Shapiro Distinguished Professor of Law
Distinguished Professor of Asian American Studies (by courtesy)
Inaugural Korea Times – Hankook Ilbo Endowed Chair (2010-20)
Founding Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (2015-20)Douglas Lichtman
Professor of Law
Faculty Director, Ziffren Institute for Media, Entertainment, Technology and Sports LawTimothy Malloy
Professor of Law
Faculty Director, UCLA Sustainable Technology and Policy Program
Frank G. Wells Endowed Chair in Environmental LawNeil W. Netanel
Pete Kameron Professor of LawEdward A. Parson
Dan and Rae Emmett Professor of Environmental Law
Faculty Director, Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the EnvironmentSherod Thaxton
Professor of Law
Professor of African American Studies (by courtesy)
Professor of Public Policy (by courtesy)
Professor of Sociology (by courtesy)Eugene Volokh
Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law EmeritusAlex Wang
Professor of Law
Walter and Shirley Wang Chair in U.S.-China Relations and Communications
Faculty Co-Director, Emmett Institute on Climate Change & the Environment
Program on Artificial Intelligence
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AI PULSE.org
The AI Pulse project at UCLA School of Law promotes accessible, cutting-edge scholarship on AI law and policy and is supported by a generous gift from the Open Philanthropy Project.
Visit AI PULSE.org
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Program Announcement
UCLA School of Law has received a $1.5 million grant from the Open Philanthropy Project to study disruptive societal and legal changes stemming from artificial intelligence. The project will be led by UCLA Law’s Program on Understanding Law, Science and Evidence (PULSE).
Recent advances in face and voice recognition, automated translations and automated medical diagnoses illustrate the potential for artificial intelligence to alter myriad aspects of human life. Artificial intelligence may also pose risks that warrant coordinated responses to promote safety and other values.
The Open Philanthropy Project grant will support PULSE Fellowships in Artificial Intelligence, Law, and Policy — full-time academic positions dedicated to research and writing on the social, economic and legal implications of artificial intelligence and machine learning. PULSE will also organize workshops, exercises and publications that explore the rapidly advancing field of artificial intelligence safety and its legal and policy dimensions.
UCLA Law professor Edward Parson and assistant professor Richard Re will head the project.
“The Open Philanthropy Project’s gift will support a much-needed inquiry into the effects of so-called transformative AI,” said Parson, UCLA Law’s Dan and Rae Emmett Professor of Environmental Law and faculty co-director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. “Technological innovation stands to deliver broad, significant, and as yet not-fully-imagined societal changes in the years to come, and forward-looking scholarship into how we and the law must adapt has never been more important.”
Added Re, faculty co-director of PULSE at UCLA Law, “This project offers a tremendous opportunity to engage students and scholars in unexamined questions that go to the heart of PULSE’s interdisciplinary mission, to explore the complex connections between law and new technologies.”
Founded in 2009, PULSE at UCLA Law engages in cutting-edge research and programming to uncover the ways in which innovations in science and evidence influence law and policy making.
The Open Philanthropy Project identifies outstanding giving opportunities, makes grants, follows the results, and publishes its findings. Its main funding partners are Cari Tuna and Dustin Moskovitz, a co-founder of Facebook and Asana. The Open Philanthropy Project recently made a separate grant to UCLA Law for a study of climate engineering technology and its legal and policy impacts.
“Professors Richard Re and Ted Parson are both enormously creative and wide-ranging scholars and thinkers, and are ideally suited to spearhead this project,” said Jennifer L. Mnookin, Dean, David G. Price and Dallas P. Price Professor of Law, and co-founder and faculty co-director of PULSE at UCLA Law.
“I am delighted that this significant grant from the Open Philanthropy Project provides UCLA Law and PULSE the chance to take a deep and thoughtful look at what developments in artificial intelligence are likely to mean for our future.”