Rob Reich is an American political theorist and the McGregor-Girand Professor of Social Ethics of Science and Technology at Stanford University, with his home appointment in political science. He is a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence and holds courtesy appointments in education, philosophy and law, and as a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute. In 2024–25 he was on public-service leave as senior advisor to the US Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute (Source: politicalscience.stanford.edu).
Background
Reich received a B.A. in philosophy from Yale University in 1991 and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford's School of Education in 1998; before graduate school he taught sixth grade at Rusk Elementary School in Houston. His early work concerned democracy and education, including Bridging Liberalism and Multiculturalism in American Education (2002) and Education, Justice, and Democracy (edited with Danielle Allen, 2013). He has written on philanthropy, including Just Giving: Why Philanthropy is Failing Democracy and How It Can Do Better (Princeton University Press, 2018), and helped create #GivingTuesday, serving as its first board chair. He sits on the boards of Boston Review and the Spencer Foundation, and has received Stanford's Walter J. Gores award for teaching (Source: politicalscience.stanford.edu).
Work on technology and AI
Stanford describes Reich's current research as concerning "governance of frontier science and technology". His books in this area are System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot (with Mehran Sahami and Jeremy M. Weinstein, HarperCollins, 2021) and Digital Technology and Democratic Theory (edited with Lucy Bernholz and Hélène Landemore, University of Chicago Press, 2021). He has testified before Congress and written for outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wired, Time, The Atlantic and The Guardian (Source: politicalscience.stanford.edu).
Roles
- US AI Safety Institute (2024–25). Senior advisor, on public-service leave from Stanford (Source: politicalscience.stanford.edu).
- California Executive Order N-9-26 (2026). On September 23, 2026 Governor Gavin Newsom named Reich, with Jason Goldman, Gillian Hadfield and Alondra Nelson, as the four experts advising on the recommendations the order requires by November 16, 2026, including whether to require onsite verification at large frontier developers and independent verification of SB 53 filings. The governor's announcement identified him as a Stanford professor and former senior advisor to the US AI Safety Institute (Source: gov.ca.gov) (California Executive Order N-9-26 (independent verification and frontier AI safety)).
Positions and statements
Reich is among the academic signatories of the "We Must Act Now" statement (We Must Act Now: A Statement on AI's Transformation of the Economy (July 2026)).