Sneha Revanur

Sneha Revanur (born 2004) is an Indian-American activist.

She is the founder and president of Encode Justice, a youth organization advocating for the global regulation of artificial intelligence.

In 2023, she was described by Politico as the "Greta Thunberg of AI".

Revanur was born and raised in San Jose, California, where she attended Evergreen Valley High School and was a delegate to the United States Senate Youth Program.

Growing up, both of Revanur's parents worked in tech, as does her older sister.

She describes how her upbringing in Silicon Valley influenced her activism: "I was exposed early on to a culture of thinking that every problem in society can be fixed with some sort of computational solution—whether that's a mobile app or a machine-learning model ... there was always this view that innovation was some sort of Silver Bullet ... I often say that, had I been born anywhere else, Encode Justice would not exist."

Revanur is now a student at Williams College in Massachusetts, where she studies political economy and hopes to attend law school after graduation.

In the spring of 2023, Revanur led a coalition of 10 youth-led organizations to send a joint letter to congressional leaders and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy calling for the inclusion of young people on AI oversight and advisory boards.

She has stated that the project was sparked by concerns around the impact of generative AI on society following the release of GPT-4.

Later that year, Revanur was invited to meet with Vice President Harris as the youngest participant on a roundtable of civil society leaders convened to discuss threats posed by AI.

Revanur described this as "a pretty significant turning point" in "increasing legitimization of youth voices in the space".

Revanur has spoken widely about her support for increased international cooperation on AI regulation, calling for an "international regulatory body" to mitigate global risks.

She has also expressed how, while a student at Williams College, she has seen public interest in AI grow over time, and attitudes towards her work evolve: "Last year, my friends and peers would have been like, oh, this is Sneha, she does this AI thing. I couldn't really tell you what it is. She just like, skips class and goes to D.C. sometimes. And now people are actually walking up to me on campus and they're asking questions and they're expressing genuine concern about just how far-reaching AI has become in our daily lives ... to me, that is so encouraging."

She describes being alarmed by the challenge of algorithmic bias after reading a 2016 ProPublica investigation, inspiring her decision to oppose Proposition 25: "That was a very rude awakening for me in which I realized technology is not this absolutely objective, neutral thing as it's reported to be."

The group quickly expanded its membership and mobilized students to participate in voter outreach and public awareness efforts.

After Proposition 25 failed to pass, Revanur broadened Encode Justice's focus to include other societal challenges related to AI use, including surveillance, disinformation, and job loss.

Encode Justice now spans around 1,000 young people, primarily high school and college students, across every inhabited continent, according to the organization's website.

The group receives funding from the Omidyar Network, Heising-Simons Foundation, and the Responsible Technology Youth Power Fund.

Since its founding, Encode Justice has contributed to a number of AI policy initiatives, including the Biden administration's Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights.

The organization also runs a workshop program that it reports has reached over 20,000 students and has established a global chapter network that "[empowers] young people to take action on the ground" in various states and countries.

Revanur has also expressed growing concern over the possibility of larger-scale "catastrophic" harms from increasingly powerful AI systems.

In October 2023, Encode Justice published a joint statement with the Future of Life Institute supporting the creation of a U.S. AI licensing regime to address these risks.

Responding to a growing divide in the AI community separating those focused on issues like bias and those focused on issues like existential risk, the groups rejected the "false choice between addressing the documented harms of today and the potentially catastrophic threats of tomorrow."

At the Washington Post's Futurist Summit, Revanur referenced the statement and spoke against "infighting" among AI experts driven by a "zero-sum view of AI governance."

In another interview with political commentator Anand Giridharadas, Revanur discussed the dangers AI might pose in the 2024 election year and to humanity more broadly, saying, "I don't want us to have to wait for an A.I. Chernobyl to start taking this seriously on a political level".

In 2023, Revanur was the youngest individual named to TIME's inaugural list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence.

She was also the youngest individual named to Mozilla's inaugural list of the 25 rising stars shaping the digital future.

In a video recognizing Responsible Technology Youth Power Fund grant recipients, including Encode Justice, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and Meghan, said to Revanur: "Thank you for doing everything that you do. Our kids especially are incredibly grateful ... They don't know it yet, but they will!"

Revanur founded Encode Justice in July 2020, at age fifteen, after coming across California Proposition 25, a ballot measure that would have replaced the use of cash bail statewide with pretrial risk assessment algorithms.