The Yuan Global Talks on Generative AI and Human Creativity: (Talk II) Commercialization Landscape of Gen-AI 2024

Talk II: Commercialization Landscape of Gen-AI 2024
Monday, March 18, 2024
4:30 – 6:00 p.m. (PT)
Virtual/Zoom

General MCLE Credit Available

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Please join us for Talk II, a session dedicated to unraveling the emerging commercialization landscape of Gen-AI. This talk features insights from two vanguards in the field: Di Li, the visionary Founder and CEO of XiaoIce, Microsoft’s renowned AI spinoff, and Chlon Tang, the esteemed Founding / Managing Partner of Berkeley SkyDeck Fund. Together with Yuan, they will explore the transformative journey of Gen-AI from cutting-edge technological novelty to indispensable market solutions. As the initial excitement surrounding AI technologies gradually gives way to a demand for real value and comprehensive user experiences, our speakers will dissect the critical elements driving the success of Gen-AI ventures, delve into the emergence of killer applications, and share strategies for creating deep value that fosters active user engagement. This session aims to illuminate the path towards building enduring businesses and innovation in the Gen-AI ecosystem, highlighting the notable approaches and mindsets required to navigate this rapidly evolving commercial landscape. Hopefully, this talk will provide our audience with a deeper understanding of how Gen-AI is starting to reshape innovative and creative industries.

Series Description

After decades of bust and boom, the year 2023 witnessed a meteoric rise of Generative AI (“Gen-AI”). Distinct from its predecessor Analytical AI, Gen-AI’s capability to produce ostensibly creative content, including aesthetically appealing “art” pieces with human prompts and innovative technical solutions to well-defined problems, heralds a paradigm shift in human being’s creative process. As manifested by the recent cases globally, this paradigm shift starts to pose real-world challenges to the good old IP system that aims to incentivize and honor human creativity. Among the various doctrinal challenges, two stand out at the moment as particularly pressing: (1) should IP protect the outputs of such human + AI (“Centaur”) creative synergies, and (2) can proprietary data be “fair used” to train Gen-AI? In the long term, how IP system addresses these challenges may have profound implications on the evolution of the Gen-AI ecosystem, and more importantly, the future of human creativity. Finding the proper answers however, requires a perspective that spans beyond the confines of IP doctrines alone – it demands solid understanding of the rapidly evolving value chain and commercialization landscape, core regulatory principles in harmony with a human-centered approach, the concrete mechanisms IP system uses to facilitate diversity and equity in creation, as well as a philosophical contemplation on what human creativity means in the dawning “age of Gen-AI”.

Against this backdrop, Berkeley Asia IP and Competition Law Center (“BAIC”) at BCLT launches the “Yuan Global Talks on Generative AI and Human Creativity.” The series is named for the Chinese “Yuan” (元), echoing the beginning of a new epoch, and “Yuan” (圆), a circle symbolizing inclusivity, equality and productive discourse – principles that happen to resonate with the hostess’ name, Dr. Yuan Hao, Senior Fellow and Co-Director of BAIC, who co-taught a brand new course titled “IP and Human Creativity in the ‘AI Age’” in the autumn of 2023. This conversation series strides beyond national borders, aiming to foster a constructive exchange between voices from diverse spheres. It is an invitation to scholars, creators, entrepreneurs and policy makers, particularly from the US and Asia, to forge a collaborated path through the evolving narrative of Gen-AI assisting, rather than displacing human creativity.