Publications

CSET produces evidence-driven analysis in a variety of forms, from informative graphics and translations to expert testimony and published reports. Our key areas of inquiry are the foundations of artificial intelligence — such as talent, data and computational power — as well as how AI can be used in cybersecurity and other national security settings. We also do research on the policy tools that can be used to shape AI’s development and use, and on biotechnology.

Report

CSET’s 2024 Annual Report

Center for Security and Emerging Technology
| March 2025

In 2024, CSET continued to deliver impactful, data-driven analysis at the intersection of emerging technology and security policy. Explore our annual report to discover key research highlights, expert testimony, and new analytical tools — all aimed at shaping informed, strategic decisions around AI and emerging tech.

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Reports

Trust Issues: Discrepancies in Trustworthy AI Keywords Use in Policy and Research

Emelia Probasco, Kathleen Curlee, and Autumn Toney
| June 2024

Policy and research communities strive to mitigate AI harm while maximizing its benefits. Achieving effective and trustworthy AI necessitates the establishment of a shared language. The analysis of policies across different countries and research literature identifies consensus on six critical concepts: accountability, explainability, fairness, privacy, security, and transparency.

AI has the potential to revolutionize approaches to climate change research. Using CSET's Map of Science, this data brief maps the production of research publications at the intersection of AI and climate change to better understand how AI methods are being applied to climate change-related research.

Reports

Skating to Where the Puck Is Going

Helen Toner, Jessica Ji, John Bansemer, and Lucy Lim
| October 2023

AI capabilities are evolving quickly and pose novel—and likely significant—risks. In these rapidly changing conditions, how can policymakers effectively anticipate and manage risks from the most advanced and capable AI systems at the frontier of the field? This Roundtable Report summarizes some of the key themes and conclusions of a July 2023 workshop on this topic jointly hosted by CSET and Google DeepMind.

Data Visualization

ETO Scout

September 2023

Scout is ETO's discovery tool for Chinese-language writing on science and technology. Scout compiles, tags, and summarizes news and commentary from selected Chinese sources, helping English-speaking users easily keep up to date, skim the latest news, and discover new perspectives. Use the Scout web interface to browse and filter articles, or get customized updates delivered to your inbox through the Scout email service.

Reports

Understanding the Global Gain-of-Function Research Landscape

Caroline Schuerger, Steph Batalis, Katherine Quinn, Ronnie Kinoshita, Owen Daniels, and Anna Puglisi
| August 2023

Gain- and loss-of-function research have contributed to breakthroughs in vaccine development, genetic research, and gene therapy. At the same time, a subset of gain- and loss-of-function studies involve high-risk, highly virulent pathogens that could spread widely among humans if deliberately or unintentionally released. In this report, we map the gain- and loss-of-function global research landscape using a quantitative approach that combines machine learning with subject-matter expert review.

Data Brief

Bayh-Dole Patent Trends

Sara Abdulla and Jack Corrigan
| August 2023

This brief examines trends in patents generated through federally funded research, otherwise known as Bayh-Dole patents. We find that while Bayh-Dole patents make up a small proportion of U.S. patents overall, they are much more common in certain fields, especially in biosciences and national defense related fields. Academic institutions are major recipients of Bayh-Dole patents, and the funding landscape for patent-producing research has shifted since Bayh-Dole came into effect in 1980.

Data Brief

Voices of Innovation

Sara Abdulla and Husanjot Chahal
| July 2023

This data brief identifies the most influential AI researchers in the United States between 2010 and 2021 via three metrics: number of AI publications, citations, and AI h-index. It examines their demographic profiles, career trajectories, and research collaboration rates, finding that most are men in the later stages of their career, largely concentrated in 10 elite universities and companies, and that nearly 70 percent of America’s top AI researchers were born abroad.

Data Brief

Who Cares About Trust?

Autumn Toney and Emelia Probasco
| July 2023

Artificial intelligence-enabled systems are transforming society and driving an intense focus on what policy and technical communities can do to ensure that those systems are trustworthy and used responsibly. This analysis draws on prior work about the use of trustworthy AI terms to identify 18 clusters of research papers that contribute to the development of trustworthy AI. In identifying these clusters, the analysis also reveals that some concepts, like "explainability," are forming distinct research areas, whereas other concepts, like "reliability," appear to be accepted as metrics and broadly applied.

Data Snapshot

Tracking Industry in Government Contracts

Christian Schoeberl
| July 19, 2023

Data Snapshots are informative descriptions and quick analyses that dig into CSET’s unique data resources. This short series explores how government procurement data can shed light on federal technological interest and utilization. It analyzes contract metadata, provided in a collaborative project with Govini, to track key emerging technologies through the federal procurement process.

Data Brief

Identifying AI Research

Christian Schoeberl, Autumn Toney, and James Dunham
| July 2023

The choice of method for surfacing AI-relevant publications impacts the ultimate research findings. This report provides a quantitative analysis of various methods available to researchers for identifying AI-relevant research within CSET’s merged corpus, and showcases the research implications of each method.