Essays on AI, economic development and government by Rasmus Fonnesbæk Andersen.https://rasmusfandersen.com/enhttps://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/bluedot-and-transformative-ai/https://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/bluedot-and-transformative-ai/I spoke to BlueDot Impact about my work advising governments on governing with AI, and on governing AI itself, and they made the little video below. I talk about what their seminars were like for me, and why I do the work I do on transformative AI in low- and middle-income countries!Fri, 14 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/developing-countries-cannot-wait-for-certainty-about-ai/https://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/developing-countries-cannot-wait-for-certainty-about-ai/Last week, I joined the “Governing with AI in Low- and Middle-Income Countries” conference at the LSE, convened by International Growth Centre, the LSE Data Science Institute, and The World Bank Group.Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/ai-state-capacity/https://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/ai-state-capacity/I don't often share academic research here (for that, follow me on Twitter instead!). I'm making an exception today because reading this research felt so resonant (and almost therapeutic!) after having worked directly with political leaders and senior civil servants on GenAI strategy, delivery, adoption, and regulation for the past few years.Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/uzbekistan-ai-higher-education/https://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/uzbekistan-ai-higher-education/In 2016, I first came to Uzbekistan as an election observer. I loved the exquisite hospitality, the architecture in Samarkand and beyond, the plov and the gorgeous ceramics, and I tried to convince basically everyone I knew to come.Mon, 06 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/ai-in-education-lmics/https://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/ai-in-education-lmics/AI in education… man. I find this one difficult.Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/you-are-less-behind-on-ai-than-you-think/https://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/you-are-less-behind-on-ai-than-you-think/How do you feel looking at this billboard? If you are like me, and many people, you might feel a sinking feeling in your stomach, and you may already be breathing deeply through your nose to try to calm down your nervous system.Tue, 05 May 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/india-ai-impact-summit/https://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/india-ai-impact-summit/I got back from the India AI Impact Summit almost a week ago, and I'm still processing it, honestly. It was wonderful to be back in 🇮🇳 India after ten years away. But what stuck with me most was how much it felt like there were two summits happening in parallel.Fri, 27 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/ai-governance-beyond-technical-safety/https://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/ai-governance-beyond-technical-safety/It was a great pleasure to speak on ACM, Association for Computing Machinery's panel on Multidisciplinary AI Governance Beyond Technical Safety and "in the real world" on day 5 of the India AI Impact Summit Friday alongside a great group of thinkers and practitioners. Sun, 22 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/chatgpt-wrapped/https://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/chatgpt-wrapped/Three years ago today ChatGPT was launched, on Nov. 30, 2022. As someone wrote on Twitter the next day, "It's like waking up to the news of the first nuclear explosion: you don't yet know what to think about it, but you know the world will never be the same again."Mon, 01 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/ai-unemployment-and-the-social-contract/https://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/ai-unemployment-and-the-social-contract/How should democratic societies respond if unemployment rises substantially due to AI automation in the next few years, and income tax revenues crash correspondingly?Wed, 22 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/chatgpt5-giant-leap-for-normal-users/https://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/chatgpt5-giant-leap-for-normal-users/I’m back from two weeks of summer holidays in North Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Italy; and I’m begrudgingly ready for the second half of the year...Sun, 10 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/responsible-ai-in-public-services/https://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/responsible-ai-in-public-services/Grateful to have joined a sharp and wide-ranging conversation on “Ensuring Ethical and Responsible AI Adoption” last week in Tirana, as part of the Empowering AI in Digital Public Services conference.Tue, 22 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/democracy-needs-us-more-than-ever/https://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/democracy-needs-us-more-than-ever/In November 2016, less than 10 days after Trump’s first presidential election win, I went through my first Hostile Environment Awareness Training (HEAT) before deploying as an election observer on behalf of the 🇩🇰Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark. Sun, 02 Mar 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/what-most-people-need-from-ai/https://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/what-most-people-need-from-ai/My take-aways from playing around with OpenAI's o1 "PhD-level" reasoning model this weekend (as a PhD-holder myself): Food for thought as AI progress continues raising ahead.Mon, 09 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/future-of-work-global-remote-african/https://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/future-of-work-global-remote-african/Delivered remotely to DirectEd’s 2024 Launch Day on April 13th, 2024. First of all, I would like to wish a huge congratulations to all 98 of you who are starting DirectEd Development's bootcamp in Kenya and Ethiopia, respectively.Sat, 20 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/six-years-at-dalberg/https://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/six-years-at-dalberg/On Monday March 6th 2017, 6 years ago yesterday, I started working at the Nordic Development Corporation office with Jesper Lindhardt, Hans Uldall-Poulsen, Henrik Skovby and a bunch of other great folks out of the Dalberg-ish office in Copenhagen.Tue, 07 Mar 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/putin-personalist-rule-and-ukraine/https://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/putin-personalist-rule-and-ukraine/I took this picture in Kyiv on October 28th 2014, after leading a student election observation of the post-Maidan parliamentary elections for two weeks with Silba - Initiative for Dialogue and Democracy.Sat, 26 Feb 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/trust-as-a-nordic-tech-advantage/https://rasmusfandersen.com/writing/trust-as-a-nordic-tech-advantage/On TechBBQ's invitation, I gave a talk in Shenzhen 2 weeks ago on #trust and trustworthiness as a #Nordic tech advantage and on how to deploy it in lower-trust environments such as China and Sub-Saharan Africa.Thu, 28 Nov 2019 00:00:00 GMT