--- aliases: - Jeffrey Alstott category: AI & Effective Altruism created: 2026-09-23 relations: - fn: 1 role: program manager type: employed_by with: '[[Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity]]' - fn: 1 role: expert; ran a program on technology forecasting type: employed_by with: '[[National Science Foundation]]' - fn: 1 role: director for technology and national security type: employed_by with: '[[National Security Council]]' - fn: 1 role: assistant director for technology competition and risks type: employed_by with: '[[Office of Science and Technology Policy]]' - fn: 1 role: senior information scientist; founding director of the Center for Technology and Security Policy type: employed_by with: '[[RAND Corporation]]' summary: IARPA program manager and National Security Council technology director who became founding director of RAND's Technology and Security Policy center and helped shape the compute thresholds in Biden's AI executive order. tags: - Person - RAND - IARPA - NationalSecurityCouncil - ArtificialIntelligence - AIGovernance - OpenPhilanthropy updated: 2026-09-23 --- Jeff Alstott holds a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, where he studied complex networks, and an M.B.A., a B.S. and a B.A. from Indiana University. He worked in academia for the [Massachusetts Institute of Technology](/organizations/massachusetts-institute-of-technology/), the Singapore University of Technology and Design, the World Bank and the University of Chicago, publishing research on animal behavior, computational neuroscience, complex networks, design science, statistical methods and science and technology forecasting.[^1] ### Intelligence community and White House Alstott was a program manager at the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), with a portfolio covering artificial intelligence, analytic methods, biosecurity, and science and technology forecasting. He "helped lead intelligence working groups on AI intelligence collection and analysis, and was part of an award-winning team on technology counterintelligence." At the National Science Foundation he ran a program on technology forecasting and improving returns on research investment. In the [White House](/places/white-house/) he was director for technology and national security at the [National Security Council](/organizations/national-security-council/) and assistant director for technology competition and risks at the [Office of Science and Technology Policy](/organizations/office-of-science-and-technology-policy/).[^1] *[Politico](/organizations/politico/)* described him as having worked in the White House alongside [Jason Matheny](/people/jason-matheny/), the former IARPA director.[^2] ### RAND Alstott moved to the [RAND Corporation](/organizations/rand-corporation/), whose president and chief executive since July 2022 has been Matheny,[^3] as a senior information scientist and founding director of its Center for Technology and Security Policy (TASP), which "performs policy R&D on technology competition and risks." He is also a professor of policy analysis at the RAND School of Public Policy.[^1] [Open Philanthropy](/organizations/open-philanthropy/) gave RAND 5.5 million dollars in April 2023 and 10.5 million dollars in October 2023, in each case "to be spent at the discretion of RAND president and CEO Jason Matheny."[^4] In an email of April 19, 2023 to members of the [Omidyar Network](/organizations/omidyar-network/), Alstott circulated a proposal for licensing advanced AI that he said he had shared with about "40 Hill staffers of both parties," asking recipients to "keep this document and attribution off the public internet." A RAND spokesperson, Jeffrey Hiday, confirmed the email to *Politico*.[^2] On September 19, 2023, Alstott testified before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Spending Oversight, in testimony RAND published as "Preparing the Federal Response to Advanced Technologies."[^1] According to *Politico*, RAND personnel including Alstott helped draft the reporting requirements in Section 4 of President [Joe Biden](/people/joe-biden/)'s executive order on AI of October 30, 2023, which set the reporting threshold for advanced models at more than 10^26 operations, the figure Alstott had proposed, and all six of the recommendations he made at the September hearing appeared in Section 4 "in some fashion." Hours before the order was released, Alstott emailed RAND colleagues what he called "a version [of the order] from a week ago." Hiday confirmed the email.[^5] In a letter to Matheny of September 2024, Senator [Ted Cruz](/people/ted-cruz/) wrote that the order "captures all six of the policy recommendations a senior RAND official provided in congressional testimony last year."[^6] Alstott was a co-author of RAND's report "Securing AI Model Weights: Preventing Theft and Misuse of Frontier Models" (May 2024).[^1] In an October 2025 interview with *ChinaTalk*, whose hosts Jordan Schneider and Phoebe Chow introduced him as "the fairy godfather of D.C. AI policy," Alstott described TASP as "a team of between 50 and 100 people" whose "mission is tech competition and tech risks. It's beat China and don't die. That has predominantly meant frontier AI issues." He described RAND's classified work as "a central institutional comparative advantage," naming the "Overmatch Brief," a classified analysis of a [Taiwan](/places/taiwan/) conflict, then in its third version, as "the briefing that goes to the White House when the White House asks, 'All right, how would this happen?'" He said he had come to RAND "nearly three years ago to create a thriving, vibrant ecosystem of policy and technology R&D on frontier AI issues and how they affect national security," and that "within a few months, I'll be stepping down as director of the TASP center." He gave his "median prediction for an AGI that can do every economically and militarily relevant task as well as a human" as "the early 2040s."[^7] By September 2026 RAND listed him as the center's former founding director.[^1] [^1]: RAND Corporation, "Jeff Alstott," staff profile and publications list, archived September 17, 2026. http://web.archive.org/web/20260917062102/https://www.rand.org/about/people/a/alstott_jeffrey.html [^2]: Bordelon, Brendan. "How a billionaire-backed network of AI advisers took over Washington." *Politico,* October 13, 2023. http://web.archive.org/web/20250902172514/https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/13/open-philanthropy-funding-ai-policy-00121362 [^3]: RAND Corporation, "Jason Matheny," staff biography. https://www.rand.org/about/people/m/matheny_jason.html [^4]: Open Philanthropy, "RAND Corporation, Emerging Technology Initiatives," gift of October 2023, with the related April 2023 gift, archived January 22, 2025. http://web.archive.org/web/20250122041729/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/rand-corporation-emerging-technology-initiatives/ [^5]: Bordelon, Brendan. "Think tank tied to tech billionaires played key role in Biden's AI order." *Politico,* December 15, 2023, archived February 11, 2026. http://web.archive.org/web/20260211112614/https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/15/billionaire-backed-think-tank-played-key-role-in-bidens-ai-order-00132128 [^6]: U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, "Sen. Cruz Sounds Alarm Over Industry Role in AI Czar Harris's Censorship Agenda," September 16, 2024, quoting Cruz's letter to Matheny. https://www.commerce.senate.gov/press/rep/release/sen-cruz-sounds-alarm-over-industry-role-in-ai-czar-harriss-censorship-agenda/ [^7]: Schneider, Jordan, and Phoebe Chow. "RAND's Jeff Alstott on Facts and Policymaking." *ChinaTalk,* October 6, 2025. https://www.chinatalk.media/p/how-facts-matter-for-tech-policymaking