Risto Uuk
Risto Uuk works as the Head of EU Policy and Research at the Future of Life Institute in Brussels, leading policy and research initiatives aimed at maximising the societal benefits of increasingly powerful AI systems. He was recently a Visiting Researcher at Stanford’s Digital Economy Lab, conducting research on the economic and societal impact of advanced AI. He also serves as a PhD Researcher at KU Leuven, where he studies the assessment and mitigation of systemic risks posed by general‑purpose AI. He runs the biweekly EU AI Act Newsletter, which reaches over 45,000 subscribers, and has created a website that ranks among the top results for searches related to the AI Act.
Previously, he worked for the World Economic Forum on a project exploring positive AI economic futures alongside Stuart Russell, Daniel Susskind and others, and conducted research for the European Commission on trustworthy AI. He holds a master’s degree in Philosophy and Public Policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He was selected as a fellow in the International Strategy Forum – an initiative by Schmidt Futures, the nonprofit founded by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, in partnership with the European Council on Foreign Relations – and received the Global Priorities Fellowship from the Forethought Foundation for Global Priorities Research, and the Ronald Coase Fellowship from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.
