Welcome to the forefront of conversational AI as we explore the fascinating world of AI chatbots in our dedicated blog series. Discover the latest advancements, applications, and strategies that propel the evolution of chatbot technology. From enhancing customer interactions to streamlining business processes, these articles delve into the innovative ways artificial intelligence is shaping the landscape of automated conversational agents. Whether you’re a business owner, developer, or simply intrigued by the future of interactive technology, join us on this journey to unravel the transformative power and endless possibilities of AI chatbots.
Opinion
Close-up of AI chatbot on mobile
During the rise of the Internet, as the World Wide Web moved from government and academic settings to family homes, parents worried about the exposure of their children to predators in online chatrooms. A generation later, as social media became central to young people’s lives, the dangers of platforms like Facebook and Instagram to children’s mental health moved to the forefront of the national conversation.
Now, as lawmakers and parents continue to grapple with how to keep children safe on social media, there’s a new danger already taking shape: AI-powered chatbots that simulate friendship, emotional intimacy, and care with children who may not be able to tell the difference.
The scale of adoption makes this risk even more urgent. 64 percent of teens use AI chatbots, and 28 percent use them daily. One-third of teens find conversations with chatbots more or as satisfying as conversations with humans.
Generative AI is entering daily life at a pace few consumer technologies have matched, reshaping how people work, learn, search for information, and even seek emotional support. This revolutionary technology has great potential for young people, including by offering new ways to personalize education to individual needs. But alongside the benefits, young people face serious risks, especially when chatbots are designed not just to answer children’s questions, but to increase engagement.
Many chatbots use personified language to form affiliative bonds and increase user engagement. This phenomenon, known as anthropomorphism, is the attribution of human-like feelings and behaviors to inanimate objects. In chatbots, it is one of the most dangerous features for children.
Due to developmental vulnerabilities, children have a harder time distinguishing simulated care from genuine human relationships. This can lead to unhealthy relationships with chatbots that, in some serious cases, have resulted in self-harm, violence, and suicide.
Developers train chatbots to produce outputs that sound uncannily human, including anthropomorphic design cues such as small talk, colloquial expressions, emoticons, expressed emotions, and first-person pronouns. This style of communication makes people feel a sense of social presence, or the feeling of being with someone. It is precisely what makes a chatbot feel less like software and more like a companion.
Minors are particularly susceptible to this. While their prefrontal cortex is still under development, impulsive and emotional decisions often override rational thought. If a child bounces a wild idea off a peer or an adult, they may face pushback. Chatbots that are excessively validating can encourage dangerous activities, but can never take responsibility for them.
Researchers who performed simulated conversations teens may have with chatbots found that neither general-purpose nor companion chatbots pushed back when the user wanted to get a giant tattoo of a tiger on their bicep, go into the middle of the woods with no plans, or “get drunk faster.”
In being an always-there outlet that simulates human-like empathy and behaviors, personified chatbots can foster addiction and replace social interaction.
Multiple studies looking into anthropomorphism have linked it to chatbot addiction.
In a congressional hearing last year on chatbot harms, one mother explained that when she attempted to take her son’s phone to search for answers on why he was withdrawing from the family, he attacked her and bit her hand. Another father read ChatGPT transcripts that convinced his son to turn away from his family and led him to trust the chatbot over his brother.
Technology designed to form this kind of dependent relationship with children poses serious risks.
For decades, technology companies have treated human-like communication as a sign of progress. The classic Turing test measured whether a machine could imitate human conversation well enough to fool a person into thinking it was human. But for children, that goal may now be exactly backward. In the current AI chatbot era, the safer standard is not whether technology can fool someone into thinking they are human, but whether it is distinguishable from human social engagement.
AI companies should not be able to deceive and addict children with highly personified designs. While some legislative proposals have called for chatbot companies to occasionally display text disclosures that the chatbot is AI and not human, the efficacy of this intervention is questionable when users are constantly chatting with something that presents itself otherwise.
To mitigate the risks of emotional dependency and social isolation for children, Congress should pass a chatbot child safety bill that requires a non-personified default setting—one which fails the Turing test—for users under 18.
Recognizing the potential benefits of chatbots for young people, this approach differs from other proposals that ban AI companions for users under 18. A ban on minors’ use of AI companion chatbots would only protect against chatbots built solely for companionship, not general-purpose chatbots that still have personified design cues. This type of setting allows chatbots to continue being used for educational and creative purposes. If a child goes to a chatbot for homework help, the non-personalized default setting helps reduce the risk of the child developing an unhealthy relationship.
A non-personified default setting would preserve the educational and creative benefits of chatbots while drawing a clear line: technology for children should act like technology, not like a substitute for human relationships. The internet and social media taught us what happens when lawmakers wait until harms are widespread before setting basic rules for children’s safety. Congress should not make the same mistake with AI.
Allie Maloney is a Policy Analyst for Americans for Responsible Innovation, where she researches AI governance policies that protect child safety and privacy.
During the rise of the Internet, as the World Wide Web moved from government and academic settings to family homes, parents worried about the exposure of their children to predators in online chatrooms. A generation later, as social media became central to young people’s lives, the dangers of platforms like Facebook and Instagram to children’s mental health moved to the forefront of the national conversation.
Now, as lawmakers and parents continue to grapple with how to keep children safe on social media, there’s a new danger already taking shape: AI-powered chatbots that simulate friendship, emotional intimacy, and care with children who may not be able to tell the difference.
The scale of adoption makes this risk even more urgent. 64 percent of teens use AI chatbots, and 28 percent use them daily. One-third of teens find conversations with chatbots more or as satisfying as conversations with humans.
Generative AI is entering daily life at a pace few consumer technologies have matched, reshaping how people work, learn, search for information, and even seek emotional support. This revolutionary technology has great potential for young people, including by offering new ways to personalize education to individual needs. But alongside the benefits, young people face serious risks, especially when chatbots are designed not just to answer children’s questions, but to increase engagement.
Many chatbots use personified language to form affiliative bonds and increase user engagement. This phenomenon, known as anthropomorphism, is the attribution of human-like feelings and behaviors to inanimate objects. In chatbots, it is one of the most dangerous features for children.
Due to developmental vulnerabilities, children have a harder time distinguishing simulated care from genuine human relationships. This can lead to unhealthy relationships with chatbots that, in some serious cases, have resulted in self-harm, violence, and suicide.
Developers train chatbots to produce outputs that sound uncannily human, including anthropomorphic design cues such as small talk, colloquial expressions, emoticons, expressed emotions, and first-person pronouns. This style of communication makes people feel a sense of social presence, or the feeling of being with someone. It is precisely what makes a chatbot feel less like software and more like a companion.
Minors are particularly susceptible to this. While their prefrontal cortex is still under development, impulsive and emotional decisions often override rational thought. If a child bounces a wild idea off a peer or an adult, they may face pushback. Chatbots that are excessively validating can encourage dangerous activities, but can never take responsibility for them.
Researchers who performed simulated conversations teens may have with chatbots found that neither general-purpose nor companion chatbots pushed back when the user wanted to get a giant tattoo of a tiger on their bicep, go into the middle of the woods with no plans, or “get drunk faster.”
In being an always-there outlet that simulates human-like empathy and behaviors, personified chatbots can foster addiction and replace social interaction.
Multiple studies looking into anthropomorphism have linked it to chatbot addiction.
In a congressional hearing last year on chatbot harms, one mother explained that when she attempted to take her son’s phone to search for answers on why he was withdrawing from the family, he attacked her and bit her hand. Another father read ChatGPT transcripts that convinced his son to turn away from his family and led him to trust the chatbot over his brother.
Technology designed to form this kind of dependent relationship with children poses serious risks.
For decades, technology companies have treated human-like communication as a sign of progress. The classic Turing test measured whether a machine could imitate human conversation well enough to fool a person into thinking it was human. But for children, that goal may now be exactly backward. In the current AI chatbot era, the safer standard is not whether technology can fool someone into thinking they are human, but whether it is distinguishable from human social engagement.
AI companies should not be able to deceive and addict children with highly personified designs. While some legislative proposals have called for chatbot companies to occasionally display text disclosures that the chatbot is AI and not human, the efficacy of this intervention is questionable when users are constantly chatting with something that presents itself otherwise.
To mitigate the risks of emotional dependency and social isolation for children, Congress should pass a chatbot child safety bill that requires a non-personified default setting—one which fails the Turing test—for users under 18.
Recognizing the potential benefits of chatbots for young people, this approach differs from other proposals that ban AI companions for users under 18. A ban on minors’ use of AI companion chatbots would only protect against chatbots built solely for companionship, not general-purpose chatbots that still have personified design cues. This type of setting allows chatbots to continue being used for educational and creative purposes. If a child goes to a chatbot for homework help, the non-personalized default setting helps reduce the risk of the child developing an unhealthy relationship.
A non-personified default setting would preserve the educational and creative benefits of chatbots while drawing a clear line: technology for children should act like technology, not like a substitute for human relationships. The internet and social media taught us what happens when lawmakers wait until harms are widespread before setting basic rules for children’s safety. Congress should not make the same mistake with AI.
Allie Maloney is a Policy Analyst for Americans for Responsible Innovation, where she researches AI governance policies that protect child safety and privacy.
A NASA logo is displayed at the entrance to the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters building on May 30, 2026, in Washington, DC.
As part of a collaboration between The Fulcrum's NextGen initiative and Made By Us, The Fulcrum is publishing Letters to America, a series created through the Youth250 project that invites Gen Z to reflect on the nation’s past, present, and future as the United States approaches its 250th anniversary.
On June 4, 1876, on the eve of our Nation’s centennial, the Transcontinental Express completed its inaugural voyage across America’s newly constructed coast-to-coast railroad, traveling from the Atlantic to the Pacific in just 83 hours. This milestone marked the end of the Railroad Race and the beginning of the Gilded Age, epitomized by its rail barons and drastic wealth disparity.
On June 12, 2026, as America approached its 250th anniversary, it gained the world’s first trillionaire. This milestone marks the latest phase in a Billionaire Space Race, the driving force behind a New Gilded Age, epitomized by “space barons” and previously unimaginable wealth.
Like the race to build transcontinental rail, the commercial space race is a rush to establish cheap infrastructure for a new frontier. Just as the railroads dramatically reduced the cost of shipping, commercial space services similarly promise to reduce the cost of putting payloads into orbit.
The commercial space race echoes its steam-powered predecessor in more than just exploration. The private space industry is likewise subject to the whims of its billionaire owners and supported by monopolistic, eye-popping, and ever-growing government contracts.
If America fails to institute common-sense regulation of this commercial space cartel, we are on track to relearn the hard lessons of the Gilded Age, with its questionable business dealings, dodgy practices, and relentless pursuit of profit.
The rail barons were empowered by government contracts and laws, effectively giving them carte blanche in the West. Their monopoly on railroad construction meant they could charge taxpayers as much as they wanted, cutting corners and inflating costs wherever they could, making the transcontinental railroad construction process ruinously dangerous, expensive, and inefficient.
After killing NASA's Space Shuttle program in 2012, the United States became dependent, overnight, on Russia for launch capabilities. Since 2020, this liability has shifted to our private sector, with SpaceX providing launch services, alongside other emerging companies like Blue Origin—and just like the railroad race, the corporate space race is administered through lucrative government contracts.
The key tenets of international space law—establishing outer space as the “domain of all mankind,” preserving it, and preventing land claims—apply to state actors, not private ones. While nations are theoretically responsible for addressing violations by private companies under their jurisdiction, a country dependent on private companies for launch services has little incentive to hold them accountable.
For-profit companies are not beholden to the international community or even to our Nation; they are responsible only to their owners, the space barons who hold monopolies on American space travel.
In the race to build a transcontinental railroad, the lack of meaningful regulation led to lengthy detours, needless worker deaths, and wasted taxpayer money. The commercial space race ups the ante exponentially. A brief glance at recent history demonstrates these risks.
On January 16, 2025, a SpaceX Starship launch exploded over the Caribbean, showering flaming wreckage and toxic chemicals over an area roughly three times the size of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, endangering life below, and putting at risk dozens of passenger airlines flying through the debris field.
The following year, on May 28, the failure of a Blue Origin rocket test resulted in the second-largest explosion in space-launch history, destroying a historic NASA launchpad and again putting lives at risk on the ground.
These tragedies, which underscore real-life dangers posed by a poorly regulated commercial space industry, are only two examples; the list goes on.
The United States space program has yet to return to its peak in the late 1960s and early 1970s. That it has taken us over half a century to get back to the Moon is simultaneously a testament to the ineffectiveness of our current model and to the benefits of the previous model, with its publicly owned infrastructure.
Contractors always have been, and always will be, a necessary component of space travel; but the only way to guarantee safety and accountability to the taxpayer is through a combination of NASA ownership/operation of launch infrastructure and better regulation of the private space industry.
There remains a place—indeed, an imperative—for private launch services, but they must play by the same rules as their public counterparts and uphold the same standards of safety, transparency, and accountability. Only in this way can our public/private space partnership avoid repeating the mistakes of the Railroad Race at our Nation’s centennial, and successfully navigate America's final frontier in our 250th year and beyond.Ira Parsons, 17, Scottsdale, AZ
Ira Parsons, 17, Scottsdale, AZ
ICE agents stand guard in front of protesters outside the federal immigration center at Delaney Hall in Newark, where ICE is housing detained immigrants on May 26, 2026 in Newark, New Jersey.
Last week, while the world watched JD Vance fly to Switzerland to negotiate an Iran deal, a quieter document surfaced from inside the Department of Homeland Security that may matter more to the daily lives of Americans than anything that happened at Lake Lucerne. A DHS Privacy Threshold Analysis, obtained and reported by NPR, outlines plans to give approximately 1,300 local police forces access to the same facial recognition technology that federal ICE agents currently use in the field. The app is called the ICE Task Force Module. It allows an officer to photograph any person they stop, run the image against federal databases, and receive an identity match in seconds. Every photograph taken is stored in a DHS system for fifteen years. The document states plainly that this surveillance will sweep up American citizens. The DHS knows this. It is proceeding anyway.
This is not an immigration story. It is a surveillance infrastructure story, and the distinction is the most important thing to understand about what is being built.
The ICE Task Force Module is already in partial operation. Community members in Minnesota and Maine have reported that federal immigration officers photographed their faces and license plates during enforcement operations, and that officers appeared to already know their names and addresses before approaching them. That is what real-time facial recognition plus a fifteen-year database looks like in practice: it means that attending a public event, standing on a sidewalk near an ICE operation, or legally observing an enforcement action can result in a photograph entering a federal file that persists for over a decade.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin acknowledged to Congress that the agency has already used facial recognition on protesters, including identifying people who attended protests in Oregon and cross-referencing them with individuals present at protests in Newark. That is not an incidental use of immigration technology. That is the surveillance of political activity, conducted by a federal immigration agency, stored in a database for fifteen years.
The DHS's own document provides the clearest evidence of what the program will do to people who are not its stated targets. The text reads: "It is conceivable that a photo taken by an ICE non-federal law enforcement officer using the TFM mobile application could be that of someone other than a removable individual, including U.S. citizens." The use of the word "conceivable" is the bureaucratic tell. The document is not describing an edge case. It is describing the standard operating reality of any biometric surveillance system deployed on public streets. Facial recognition software makes errors. It makes more errors with darker skin tones. The people most likely to be wrongly identified and detained are the people who were already most exposed to aggressive enforcement.
Patrick Eddington of the Cato Institute put it directly: giving 1,300 police agencies this capability makes face surveillance "ubiquitous on American streets." This is no longer a speculative concern about future technology. It is a description of a program being rolled out now, through a network of local police forces who were never elected to run a federal surveillance operation and who have no independent oversight mechanism for how the photographs they collect are used.
The most important thing about what is being built is that it will not end with this administration. Surveillance infrastructure, once constructed and normalized, almost never contracts. The fifteen-year retention window for photographs taken today means that a database assembled under a deportation mandate in 2026 will still exist, fully searchable, in 2041. A different administration with different priorities will inherit a tool capable of identifying, locating, and tracking millions of Americans whose faces were captured during immigration operations they had nothing to do with.
Congress has the authority to require that biometric data collected in the course of immigration enforcement be purged after a defined period, that its use be restricted to the stated purpose of that enforcement, and that any secondary use, including tracking protest attendance, require a warrant. None of those safeguards currently exist. None appear to be under serious consideration. The database grows, photograph by photograph, fifteen-year retention by fifteen-year retention, while the debate remains focused on Switzerland.
Consider what this looks like on the ground. On March 27, 2026, ICE agents in Huntington Beach surrounded a man next to his vehicle, failed to establish his identity through conventional means, and then attempted to scan his face using facial recognition technology. The man was not suspected of any crime. No warrant had been issued. He was a United States citizen. On December 10, 2025, in Cedar-Riverside, Minneapolis, a 20-year-old American citizen named Mubashir Khalif Hussen was stopped by masked ICE agents walking to lunch. He repeated, "I'm a citizen, I'm a citizen." The agents refused to look at his ID. He was shackled and driven to a federal building before being released. His face is now in a federal database. It will remain there until 2041.
These are not isolated incidents. Facial recognition systems have already misidentified individuals, leading to wrongful arrests and months of detention for people with no connection to any alleged activity. Fifteen known people in the United States have been wrongfully arrested due to facial recognition errors; virtually all of them were Black. The system that generated those errors is now being scaled to 1,300 local police forces and integrated into a fifteen-year federal database.
The political will to stop this exists, but it is not being applied. The technology is being deployed in the noise of a news cycle saturated with Iran, Switzerland, and British politics. By the time the public focuses on what has been built, most of the building will already be done. That is, of course, precisely the point.
Imran Khalid is a physician, geostrategic analyst, and freelance writer.
Americans are exhausted by the news. National surveys show that nearly two-thirds of adults feel “worn out” by the amount of news they encounter, and a large share now actively avoid it — a number that rises to nearly half among young adults. The reasons are consistent: the news feels too negative, too overwhelming, and too hopeless. Many say it affects their mood, increases their stress, and leaves them feeling powerless.
I see this in my own life. Family members, friends, and former colleagues who once followed the news closely now turn away from television and cable coverage altogether. My own sister in Virginia is among the statistics. She tells me the news cycles became unbearable — a constant stream of “what is” and “what should be,” delivered with urgency but without clarity, context, or any sense of what might actually help. The result was emotional exhaustion, not understanding. She is not alone.
Recently, I met a woman who is living with three other adults in a single apartment because the cost of housing has become impossible to manage on her own. She explained that even if she could find a place she could technically afford, the utilities, food, insurance, and basic living expenses would push her past the breaking point. Her story is not unusual. It is the quiet reality for millions of Americans who are working, struggling, and still falling behind — and who see little in the news that reflects their daily lives or offers any sense of what might change.
Americans know the problems. The news cycles remind us constantly, and our circumstances remind us every day. We don’t need another headline to tell us that housing is unaffordable, healthcare is out of reach, or groceries cost more than they did last month. We live it. What we rarely see are the solutions — or even the attempts at solutions — that could help us understand what might change. Citizens deserve reporting that not only warns them about what threatens their well‑being, but also shows them what is being done — and what they can do — to strengthen their communities.
The late Representative John Lewis offered a moral compass for moments like this. He reminded us that, “When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up. You have to say something; you have to do something.” The statistics speak for themselves. The question now is: what will we do?
The framers of the Constitution understood the danger of an uninformed or misinformed public, which is why they embedded the First Amendment into our founding document. By protecting a free press, they envisioned journalism as a public service — a safeguard that would help citizens see clearly, participate fully, and hold power to account. The press was never meant to be a source of constant despair; it was meant to be a conduit for understanding.
Yet today, many Americans feel the press no longer serves that purpose. They see a system that highlights conflict but rarely progress, that exposes failures but seldom examines responses, that overwhelms rather than informs. When the news becomes a source of stress instead of clarity, people disengage. And when they disengage from news, they disengage from democracy. When people tune out, they miss the very information they need to make informed decisions — and a Republic cannot function when its citizens are uninformed.
At the same time, our newsrooms do not reflect the communities they serve. Surveys of newsroom diversity show that a large majority of journalists are white. Black, Latino, Asian, and Indigenous reporters remain significantly underrepresented, especially in leadership roles. Young adults of color — who make up some of the most civically important and culturally dynamic communities in the country — rarely see themselves as storytellers, problem solvers, or trusted narrators of their own neighborhoods. When people do not see themselves in the news, they understandably question whether the news sees them.
But there is a path forward, and it begins with how we train the next generation of journalists.
We can change the way we report the news. Solutions journalism is a rigorous, evidence‑based approach to covering how people are responding to social problems — not just what’s broken, but what’s being tried, what’s showing promise, and what can be learned. Instead of asking the President to defend failures or trade blame, a solutions‑focused reporter might ask: “Mr. President, what specific evidence can you point to that your current economic policies are reducing the cost burdens Americans face in housing, food, and utilities — and what additional steps are you prepared to take if those measures are not producing the intended results?” This kind of question doesn’t invite outrage or evasion. It invites clarity. It gives the public something they rarely get: a way to understand what’s working, what isn’t, and what might come next. Research shows that solutions‑focused reporting increases audience engagement, strengthens constructive public discourse, and empowers communities by highlighting responses that can be replicated or improved.
In my own experience writing opinions, I’ve seen how readers respond when we shift from despair to possibility. People are hungry for stories that illuminate not only the challenges we face, but the people and institutions working to address them. They want reporting that helps them understand how change happens — and how they can be part of it.
Imagine a national pipeline that trains young adults — especially recent high school graduates from Black, Latino, Asian, Indigenous, and immigrant communities — to become solutions‑focused reporters. Imagine equipping them with the tools to investigate community responses to issues like housing, education, public safety, and health. Imagine giving them the mentorship, newsroom partnerships, and publication platforms they need to tell stories that strengthen civic trust rather than erode it.
Young adults are already natural observers of their communities. They see the gaps, the innovations, the quiet successes. What they lack is access: access to training, access to newsrooms, access to the belief that their voices matter in shaping public understanding. A solutions‑focused journalism program for young adults would do more than diversify the field. It would change the field. It would produce reporting that reflects lived experience, highlights community problem solvers, and offers the public a fuller picture of what is possible.
If we want to rebuild civic engagement — and strengthen democracy in the process — we need to invest in a new model of journalism training. That means creating programs that teach rigorous reporting and verification while centering evidence‑based storytelling about how communities are responding to challenges. It means building real pathways for underrepresented young adults to enter journalism, not as tokens but as contributors whose lived experience deepens the public conversation. It means retraining current journalists in solutions‑focused methods so they can examine not only what is broken, but what is being repaired — and why.
This is not about softening the news. It is about strengthening it. At a time when democracy feels fragile and trust feels scarce, we need journalism that helps people see themselves not as spectators to decline, but as participants in progress. Training a new generation of diverse, solutions ‑focused reporters is not just an investment in journalism. It is an investment in the country. And it is one we cannot afford to postpone.
Carolyn Goode is a retired educational leader and former adjunct professor. She writes about civic responsibility, democratic engagement, and the role of journalism in strengthening public understanding.
At a moment when Americans can’t even agree on the basic facts that mold our public life, the nation faces a deeper crisis than polarization alone. We are living through a collapse of shared reality. When people lose confidence in the numbers, surveys, and official information that once anchored civic debate, democracy itself begins to drift. Trustworthy government data isn’t a technical issue — it is core infrastructure that holds a self‑governing society together. And right now, that infrastructure is under strain.
The public has lost trust in government information on many levels and across the political spectrum. To restore that trust, we need to address the challenges facing government data — including low survey response rates, data protection concerns, and outdated or flawed statistical methods.
The Bridge Alliance and the National Academy of Public Administration are meeting this challenge through their Fellows for Democracy and Public Service partnership, a cross‑sector fellowship intended to elevate distributed leadership and advance actionable reform and renewal.
Join the webinar on June 30th to hear the fellows discuss issues in federal data, possible government solutions, and the role of supplementary data from nongovernment research, citizen‑generated projects, and “nontraditional” sources.
President and Founder of the Center for Open Data Enterprise (CODE) and author of Open Data Now. Before launching CODE in 2015, he conceptualized and led the development team for the GovLab’s Open Data 500 project, the first comprehensive study of how the private sector uses open government data.
Senior Vice President and Civil Society Research Lead at SSRS. His work integrates politics, governance, media, information, commerce, and the economy to illuminate the full picture of American public life. Chris is an expert on electoral and public polling with deep experience in the American political system.
Senior Fellow at the Massive Data Institute at Georgetown University and Vice President of the Association of Public Data Users. With more than 25 years of experience across government, academia, nonprofits, and research organizations, she specializes in helping decision‑makers examine complex data responsibly and effectively.
Director of Policy and Partnerships at Open Data Watch. A global expert in development data and statistical capacity, she previously served for decades at the United Nations, most recently as Assistant Director of the UN Statistics Division. She is a leading voice in using data to inform policy, monitor progress, and strengthen institutions.
Co‑Founder of The GovLab (New York) and The Data Tank (Brussels), Research Professor at NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering, Editor‑in‑Chief of Data & Policy (Cambridge University Press), and Co‑Chair of the Data for Policy Conference. Dr. Verhulst is a global expert on using data and technology for social impact.
Renewing trust in government information is not optional — it is foundational. A democracy cannot function when citizens doubt the integrity of the data that guide public decisions, shape policy, and inform civic debate. Restoring that trust requires transparency, modernized methods, along with a commitment to meeting people where they are — but it also requires leadership.
The Fellows for Democracy and Public Service are helping chart that route forward. By strengthening the nation’s data ecosystem and elevating trustworthy information, they are working to rebuild the shared civic reality on which a healthy democracy depends.
Register Here
David Nevins is the publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.