The Trump administration's key AI decision-makers largely lack hands-on experience in building or evaluating frontier AI systems. Policy is being shaped by individuals with political and business backgrounds, creating a critical expertise gap in governing this complex technology.

The greatest threat from the administration's actions isn't budget cuts, but the erosion of trust in the scientific process itself. By creating instability and politicizing advisory bodies, it risks making public skepticism seem rational, a far more damaging long-term legacy.

Government officials are drowning in information but starved for "clean ideas"—proposals that are clearly formulated to answer key questions (what, why, how) and are ready to be inserted into a speech or budget. Think tanks often fail to translate their research into this actionable format.

Top AI policy experts are leaving government and academia for high-paying roles at frontier AI companies. This mirrors the earlier 'brain drain' of ML researchers and risks a future where AI regulation is overwhelmingly shaped by corporate-employed experts with vested interests.

LLMs excel at synthesizing public knowledge, threatening a core function of think tanks. The counter-strategy is to focus on generating "illegible" information that AI can't access, such as deep insights from retired civil servants or private conversations.

Historian Heather Cox Richardson warns against a trend where leaders believe they can solve complex problems like Middle East peace without relevant experience. This devaluing of credentialed experts in favor of loyalists guts government competence, as Americans take for granted the expertise required for effective governance.

Engaging in polarized debates is like joining a massive tug-of-war with minimal marginal impact. IFP's strategy is to find important, orthogonal issues without a strong partisan valence, like science funding mechanisms, where they can achieve significant change.

Large, established think tanks are losing relevance due to political polarization and their slow pace. Smaller, agile think tanks with niche expertise are gaining influence by focusing on direct, person-to-person engagement with policymakers to create tangible impact, rather than just publishing books.

Unlike traditional think tanks that act like "universities without students," newer organizations like IFP and FAI are structured to achieve tangible changes in laws and regulations. Publishing a paper is just the first step in a much longer process.