FTC Commission Chair Lina Khan Appoints Indian American Amba Kak to AI Group Within Office of Policy Planning
- A policy counsel, researcher, and lawyer, Kak has previously worked on network neutrality, zero-rating and copyright licensing practices in the digital age.
Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan has appointed Amba Kak and three others to an artificial intelligence strategy group within the Office of Policy Planning that will advise the agency on emerging technology issues. While Olivier Sylvain, a law professor from Fordham University, will serve as Khan’s senior adviser on technology, Kak, along with New York University’s Meredith Whittaker and Sarah Myers West will all work as the chair’s senior advisers on AI.
Kak most recently served as director of global policy at NYU’s AI Now Institute. In this role, Amba develops and leads AI Now’s global policy engagement, programs, and partnerships, according to her NYU profile. She is also on the Strategy Advisory Committee of the Mozilla Foundation.
As a policy counsel, researcher, and lawyer, Kak has worked on a variety of technology-related issues. She joined AI Now from her role as a policy advisor at Mozilla, where she led the organization’s work in India and contributed to global policy fora on issues such as data protection, online content regulation, and network neutrality. She was also part of Mozilla’s inaugural cohort of Technology Policy Fellows.
Kak’s interdisciplinary research includes a project on network neutrality and zero-rating at the Oxford Internet Institute in 2014, as well as work on copyright licensing practices in the digital age as Google Policy Fellow in 2012.
Previously, she has worked at the National Institute of Public Finance & Policy, New Delhi where she provided advisory to government regulators on telecom policy. She has also been the Secretariat Coordinator for the National Campaign for People’s Right to Information, an advocacy network focused on transparency and accountability laws.
Trained as a lawyer, Kak received her BA LLB (Hons) from the National University of Juridical Sciences in India. As a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford, she has received a Masters in Law (BCL) and an MSc in Social Science of the Internet.