Emmie Hine
Welcome to my site! I'm a Research Associate at the Yale Digital Ethics Center (DEC) and a PhD candidate in Law, Science, and Technology at the University of Bologna and KU Leuven. My research focuses on the ethics and governance of emerging technologies in different geopolitical contexts. At the DEC, I research the ethical and policy implications of AI and other technologies, while my dissertation focuses on the human rights impacts of XR technologies. I obtained a master’s degree in the Social Science of the Internet as a Shirley Scholar at the University of Oxford, where my thesis compared American and Chinese AI governance policies. I've published articles about European AI governance and Chinese and American technology policy, and also write the Ethical Reckoner newsletter.
Before I started my PhD, I was a full-stack software engineer at an enterprise data management software company in Boston. I hold a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Chinese, with a concentration in Science and Technology Studies, from Williams College. I am proficient in English and Mandarin, but my favorite language is TypeScript 🧑💻
Recent Updates
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Governing Silicon Valley and Shenzhen: Assessing a New Era of AI Governance in the US and China
In this paper, I discuss updates in the US and China's AI governance and what they mean for global cooperation.
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Assembly and Expression in Extended Reality: Transposing Human Rights Across Realities
How does immersion impact the freedoms of assembly and expression and change how we need to think about fundamental rights online?
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Counter-Misinformation Dynamics: The Case of Wikipedia Editing Communities during the 2024 US Presidential Elections
In this preprint, we investigate the nature of election-related misinformation on Wikipedia in the run-up to the 2024 US presidential elections.
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Global AI governance: barriers and pathways forward
In this paper, we discuss the current state of global AI governance and argue that, instead of creating a global AI governance body, we should strengthen what we already have.
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Nature Machine Intelligence's Anniversary AI Reflections
Along with other fantastic contributors, I reflect on how China's deepfake regulations have evolved since my initial commentary about them in 2022.
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Virtual Reality, Cyberspace, and Embodiment: A Historical Debate with Contemporary Resonance
In this preprint, I explore the history of VR and cyberspace and how concepts of embodiment have evolved. Even though the tech has changed, what it means for our experiences online (read: who gets harassed) has not.
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What the AI Act Grand Challenge says about robot regulation
Based on our experience winning the AI Act Grand Challenge, the LegalAIzers and I reflect on what the new AI Act means for robot regulation.
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Things I Think About
The ethics of emerging technology, especially AI and XR.
Tech governance... especially of AI and XR.
Tech policy (guess what? Mostly around AI and XR).
The geopolitics of tech ethics and governance, especially regarding China, the US, and the EU.
Relatedly, digital sovereignty and how technology impacts it.
How to encode ethics into practitioners' workflows.
Making tech ethics accessible.
Tech antitrust pros and cons.
Open-source AI.
Rock climbing.
Baking.
Things I've Written
Most publications are OA with embedded links.
As first author
Hine, E., Yousefi, Y., Osivand, P., Brand, D., Kugler, P., Chiara, P.G. "The AI Act Grand Challenge shows how autonomous robots will be regulated." Science Robotics, 2023.
As contributing author
Conference papers
Press & Op-Eds
“China Walks Perilous AI Tightrope,” written for CEPA.
"The Future of AI Policy in China," written for East Asia Forum with Huw Roberts.
Preprints
Other Things I've Done That You Can Read About
I commented for a BBC article, "How AI turned a Ukrainian YouTuber into a Russian" (a truly wild story).
I was interviewed for a South China Morning Post video, "How deepfakes are reshaping Asia politics."
I gave a keynote on protecting fundamental rights in extended reality/the metaverse for a Foundation Metaverse EU symposium, which I recapped for Metaverse EU here.
I commented on the US AI Executive Order for New Scientist:
"Biden executive order: How the US is trying to tame AI."
I was interviewed about Chinese AI regulation for The Global Eye. I was on one of the winning teams of the
University of St. Gallen EU AI Act Grand Challenge, which I wrote about
for my newsletter here
and for Science Robotics here.
I was a guest on the skeptechs podcast talking about the Apple Vision Pro and what it means for the Apple vs Meta XR battle:
skeptechs 5.8: Apple in your eye
I commented on the EU Artificial Intelligence Act for New Scientist:
"EU's Artificial Intelligence Act will lead the world on regulating AI."