The emergence of generative artificial intelligence in the last few years has drawn a growing chorus of advocates offering proposals for how to regulate this new technology. Many of them want to treat AI as an entirely new kind of challenge that calls for entirely new regulatory tools. But starting from scratch is unlikely to lead us to effective regulation. Instead, regulators should begin from our existing tools and take the time to see what new modes of regulation might be needed.

Guest Dean Ball joins us to discuss how to strike a balance between hopeful optimism and candid recognition of the stark challenges posed by AI.

Dean Ball is a research fellow at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, where he focuses on AI. He also writes a Substack called Hyperdimensional. 

This podcast discusses themes from Dean’s essay in the Spring 2024 issue of National Affairs, “How to Regulate Artificial Intelligence.”

The textbooks most commonly used in high-school history classes are badly deficient. These books, which shape the rising generation’s perception of the country they are inheriting, often leave out the core ideas that defined the American founding and the nation’s ideals. To recover America’s sense of itself, it’s crucial to teach high-school students the connection between ideas and events.

Guest Dan Currell joins us to discuss the erasure of the founding from high-school history and how we might restore it.

Dan Currell is CEO of the Digital Commerce Alliance and a senior fellow at the National Security Institute at George Mason University’s Scalia Law School. He has served as a senior advisor at the Department of Education and as a fellow in the office of former senator Ben Sasse.

This podcast discusses themes from Dan’s essay in the Winter 2024 issue of National Affairs, “The Invisible American Founding.”

Voting should be straightforward: Figure out which candidate or party best fits one’s political views or interests, and vote accordingly. But the last few elections have shown many Americans that it’s not nearly that simple. We could benefit from a new framework for thinking about voting, and not just for elections in which we find ourselves especially bewildered.

Guest Bryan McGraw joins us to discuss a new philosophy of voting and how to apply it in this year’s elections.

Bryan McGraw is an associate professor of politics and dean of social sciences at Wheaton College. His main areas of research are in contemporary political thought and especially how those traditions intersect with religious belief and practice.

This podcast discusses themes from Bryan and Timothy Taylor’s essay in the Winter 2024 issue of National Affairs, “How to Think about Voting.”

Classical schools are distinctly American. Just as our country was founded both as a modern engineering project and as a recollection of ancient political philosophy and the traditional rights of Englishmen, the contemporary classical-education movement is an act of construction — one might say an invented tradition — seeking to revivify and participate in something that once lived, and perhaps could again.

Guest Micah Meadowcroft joins us to discuss how classical schools teach to a higher goal of human excellence.

Micah Meadowcroft is research director for the Center for Renewing America and a contributing editor of The American Conservative. He was a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow at the Fund for American Studies in 2021-2022. 

This podcast discusses themes from Micah’s essay in the Fall 2023 issue of National Affairs, “Classical Education’s Aristocracy of Anyone.”

What type of party system best suits the American regime? What can we do to cultivate such a party system? Amid the current tumult and polarization of our politics, much of it the result of the degradation of our parties, it behooves us to seek answers to these questions, and to learn from past efforts to give shape to the American party system.

Guest Daniel Stid joins us to discuss reforms to the party system that could restore coalition building and union to American politics.

Daniel Stid is the executive director of Lyceum Labs, a project of the Defending Democracy Together Institute that seeks to “reimagine political leadership and parties and the contributions they could make to U.S. democracy by rallying a coalition of like-minded charitable organizations dedicated to these goals.” He previously served as the founding director of the Hewlett Foundation’s U.S. Democracy Program, and he writes a blog called “The Art of Association.” 

This podcast discusses themes from Daniel’s essay in the Fall 2023 issue of National Affairs, “A Madisonian Party System.”

Almost nobody is taking America's drug crisis seriously. We talk about it plenty, but that talk rarely acknowledges what distinguishes today's drug epidemic from past ones: Those earlier crises inflicted many more or less equally weighty harms — to users' health, to families, to communities. In this crisis, one problem dwarfs all others: death. Drugs have changed, probably for good. They now kill their users. A haphazard public response was more tolerable when the harms of drug use were more spread out and took time to accumulate. But with tens of thousands poisoned to death every year, bolder action is required.

Guest Charles Fain Lehman joins us to discuss how policymakers can help flatten the cycle of drug use and death.

Charles Fain Lehman is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal.

This podcast discusses themes from Charles's essay in the Summer 2023 issue of National Affairs, "How to Think about the Drug Crisis."

As his term has progressed, President Joe Biden has acted more aggressively on student-loan forgiveness than anyone might have expected. And even now, the scope of what he proposes is not obvious to many. Little-noticed changes to income-driven repayment rules could dwarf the more familiar loan-forgiveness agenda, transforming the federal student-loan system and, over time, rendering it unsustainable.

Guest Nat Malkus joins us to discuss why the Biden administration’s proposed student-loan reforms would be “disastrous,” and why Congress needs to act.

Nat Malkus is a senior fellow and the deputy director of education policy at the American Enterprise Institute. He is also the host of the AEI podcast, “The Report Card with Nat Malkus,” in which he discusses the latest in education with some of the field’s most interesting researchers, practitioners, and policymakers.

This podcast discusses themes from Nat’s essay in the Summer 2023 issue of National Affairs, “The Looming Student-loan Entitlement.”

Slavery’s relation to the American Constitution has always been a point of great contention. The debate has never been resolved because the reality is complex: The Constitution did lend legal support to the practice of slavery, but it did not lend the institution legitimacy. The difference has a lot to tell us about the American political tradition.

Guest Michael Zuckert joins us to discuss why the Constitution was “admittedly imperfect, but not evil. Given the task of constitution-making as the founders conceived it, and given the mark that history had already made on the continent, it was what it had to be.”

Michael Zuckert is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Notre Dame and clinical professor at Arizona State University. His latest book is A Nation So Conceived: Abraham Lincoln and the Paradox of Democratic Sovereignty.

This podcast discusses themes from Michael’s essay in the Spring 2023 issue of National Affairs, “Slavery and the Constitution.”

If the Supreme Court curtails racial preferences in college admissions, Americans should celebrate the triumph of the truth that people should be treated as individuals rather than as members of racial groups. But we should also recognize that good-faith efforts to uplift economically disadvantaged students of all races help fulfill another cherished American goal: facilitating social mobility.

Guest Richard Kahlenberg joins us to make the case for focusing on class diversity, rather than racial groups, in college admissions.

Richard Kahlenberg is an education and housing researcher and policy consultant as well as a non-resident scholar at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. He served as an expert witness for Students for Fair Admissions in its lawsuits against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina regarding those schools’ affirmative-action policies.

This podcast discusses themes from Richard’s essay in the Spring 2023 issue of National Affairs, “A Middle Ground on Race and College.”

The Federalist was written more than two centuries ago with a particular purpose: persuading Americans to back the Constitution. Yet far from being a period piece, it initiated nothing less than a revolution in political thought — one that fundamentally redefined how we understand popular government. Grasping this point could help today’s Americans make better sense of our society’s contemporary challenges.

Guest Steven Smith joins us to discuss how the authors of The Federalist defined the republic we know today, but also their silence on important matters of moral education and statesmanship.

Steven Smith is the Alfred Cowles Professor of Political Science at Yale University. His scholarship has focused particularly on the problem of the ancients and moderns, the relation of religion and politics, and theories of representative government. He is the author of numerous books, most recently Reclaiming Patriotism in an Age of Extremes.

This podcast discusses themes from Steven’s essay in the Winter 2023 issue of National Affairs, “Learning from Publius.”

For more on this topic, see Steven’s essay in the journal Liberties, “What is a Statesman.”