Societal AI research has become less interdisciplinary, narrowing governance knowledge
This suggests that AI regulations and agency guidance built on a contracting research base may systematically underweight risk categories — labor displacement, psychological harm, distributional effects — that fall outside the fields now dominating the literature, leaving compliance-focused organizations exposed to harms that current frameworks do not require them to address.
Researchers Markus, Gilardi, and Stetsenko, presenting at IASEAI 2026 under the University of Zurich, studied the disciplinary composition of societal AI research over time and found it has become progressively less interdisciplinary as AI governance has moved from academic niche to mainstream policy.
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