Quick Assessment
| Dimension | Assessment |
|---|---|
| Primary Role | VP of AI Policy, Google DeepMind (2024–present) |
| Prior Role | Founding Director, Centre for the Governance of AI (GovAI) at Oxford (2017–2024); Associate Professor of International Politics, University of Oxford |
| Key Contributions | Helped establish AI governance as an academic field; lead author of "AI Governance: A Research Agenda" (GovAI, 2018); co-leads the Cooperative AI Foundation; influential in shaping Anglo-American AI-policy discourse on compute governance and racing dynamics |
| Education | PhD in Political Science, UC Berkeley (2012); BA, Stanford |
| Research Themes | International political economy of AI; compute governance; cooperative AI; arms-race dynamics; structural risks from advanced AI |
Overview
Allan Dafoe is a political scientist who has played a central role in establishing AI governance as a recognized field of academic research and in connecting that research to Western government policy. He founded the Centre for the Governance of AI (GovAI) in 2017, initially as a research program inside the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford, and led it until joining Google DeepMind as Head of Long-term Strategy and Governance in 2021. He was promoted to VP of AI Policy in 2024.
His 2018 paper "AI Governance: A Research Agenda" — published as a GovAI white paper — is widely cited as one of the first systematic articulations of what AI governance research should aim to do, and has functioned as a curriculum-shaping document for the field.