


I'm Cristian. I'm a member of the policy staff at the Artificial Intelligence Underwriting Company, trying to steer the emerging AI insurance market toward healthy outcomes. I'm a former Winter Fellow at the Centre for the Governance of AI and received my MA in Philosophy from the University of British Columbia.
I'm also a screenwriter and filmmaker. My short film Unperforming premiered at Dances With Films in 2024, and I'm developing a feature about a citizen's assembly debating AI and the future of society.
I love mulling on utopias, sociology, anthropology and macroeconomics, among other things. In my spare time I enjoy photography, hacking, bouldering, dancing, as well as playing and building video games!
Salutations!
Selected Research
Selected Blogs
Underwriting the Agent Economy: The Blueprint for an AI Insurance Stack
Preprint (2025)When Does Regulation by Insurance Work? The Case of Frontier AI
Preprint (2025)Liability and Insurance for Catastrophic Losses: the Nuclear Power Precedent and Lessons for AI
ICML (2024)Insuring Uninsurable Risks from AI: Government as Insurer of Last Resort
ICML (2024)Keeping Metaphysics Respectable: A Methodological Critique
Master's Thesis, UBC Open Collections (2021)Why Are Qualia So Mysterious? A Materialist’s Story
Undergraduate paper (2017)
Healthy Insurance Markets Will Be Critical for AI Governance
LawFare (2025)
Against Explosive Growth
Effective Altruism Forum (2024)How America’s Voting System Disempowers Voters — And How to Fix It
Medium (2022)For ELK truth is mostly a distraction
Alignment Forum (2022)
Unperforming
Music for Peace - "Passion Dance"
This is a recording of my drummer friend Jason Winikoff and his quartet, performing live at Tyrant Studios (Vancouver, BC). This was a three cameras, one man operation!
Videography

This is a studio recording of my singer friend Tze Liew performing a cover of the legendary Joe Hisaishi.
One Summer's Day


Short Film, 2024
Credits: writer, director, producer, editor, VFX lead
Awards: Best Music Video (New York City Independent Film Festival 2025)
This is a short film/music video my writer friend Byran Pham and I co-wrote, based on his original story. It tells of a gay man struggling to break free from an obsession over his social media image. More info here.
It premiered at Dances With Films: LA in 2024 and toured the U.S. festival circuit. It's now freely available online as the PSA it was always intended to be.
Live Performance, 2020
Credits: director, producer, editor
Music Video, 2020
Credits: director, editor
© Cristian Trout – 2025

