LexLab Hosts International Open AI and Policy Discussion

  • French Consul General Florian Cardinaux, seated wearing a suit, watches Tal Niv speak from a table with microphones.

    Professor and Director of Applied Innovation Tal Niv, right, addresses the crowd during An Evening of Open: Science, Software, & AI. The event featured remarks from Florian Cardinaux, consul general of France in San Francisco and was co-sponsored by the consulate general and GitHub.

  • Lexlab’s connections to international practitioners and policymakers and Bay Area technology leaders led to An Evening of Open: Science, Software, & AI coming to the UC Law SF campus.
  • The event brought together researchers, technologists, and policymakers to examine how making research available to all accelerates discovery and innovation and serves the public interest.

 

LexLab, GitHub, the Open Forum for AI, and the San Francisco French Consulate Office of Science and Technology co-hosted An Evening of Open: Science, Software, & AI, bringing dozens of researchers, technologists, and policymakers to the UC Law San Francisco campus. LexLab is UC Law SF’s center for technology law and lawyering.

A graphic with turquoise text advertising An Evening of Open: Science, Software, & AIThe Oct. 24 event celebrated and examined how open-source software, open science, and open-source AI work together to accelerate discovery and innovation. Attendees discussed how open science, or making scientific research accessible to all, can strengthen institutions and keep talent and standards in the public interest.

The evening featured remarks from Florian Cardinaux, consul general of France in San Francisco, and Tal Niv, professor and director of applied innovation at UC Law SF.

“For us as a law school, this work is core to training lawyers who understand technology, governance, and accountability so they can help build an open future instead of just reacting to it,” Niv said.

A post from the Consulate General’s Office underscored Cardinaux’s remarks, in which he discussed “France’s strong commitment to openness in research and innovation — a core principle of our National Strategy for Open Science. Through initiatives such as Choose France for Science, France aims to make scientific knowledge accessible to all and to foster international collaboration.”

The evening’s program showcased LexLab’s deep connections to the thought leaders, scholars, and practitioners tackling today’s biggest technological and legal challenges.

Emmanuelle Pauliac-Vaujour, attachée for the consulate’s Science & Technology Office, moderated a panel on “Powering the Future of Research.” It included:

  • Eva Maxfield Brown, Ph.D. candidate, University of Washington
  • Adam Hyde, CEO, Kotahi Foundation and founder, Coko Foundation
  • Quentin Gallouédec – research engineer, Hugging Face
  • Sewon Min – assistant professor, UC Berkeley and research scientist, Ai2

Margaret Tucker, GitHub public policy manager, moderated the “Law and Policy for an Open Future” panel, which included:

  • Pamela Chestek, principal, Chestek Legal
  • Joshua Levine, research fellow, Foundation for American Innovation
  • Timothy Vollmer, scholarly communication and copyright librarian, UC Berkeley Library
  • Peter Routhier – General Counsel, Internet Archive

Niv praised the event’s partners for elevating the conversation around an important policy topic.

“The French Consulate’s science and technology office is a bridge that moves knowledge across borders and into labs, startups, and public institutions and agencies, a visible champion of open science,” she said. “GitHub Policy is the policy voice of open source and software development, helping developers and institutions translate open practice into durable norms, good stewardship, and workable rules.”