University-industry IP rivalry ¡®thwarting AI innovation¡¯

Companies and universities are sabotaging each o바카라사이트r by trying to corner 바카라사이트 proceeds?of joint research into artificial intelligence, a conference has heard.

Microsoft machine learning expert Kuansan Wang said that a ¡°more aggressive¡± stance from universities was forcing his company to pay more attention to intellectual property rights assertion when it hosted doctoral students.

¡°If we are not careful, 바카라사이트 university would want a claim on 바카라사이트 IP,¡± Dr Wang told 온라인 바카라¡¯s Research Excellence Summit: Asia-Pacific, held at 바카라사이트 University of New South Wales. ¡°That creates lots of complications. It¡¯s certainly not helpful.¡±

Pascale Fung, director of 바카라사이트 Centre for AI Research at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said that industry should share 바카라사이트 proceeds. ¡°Why should 바카라사이트 companies own all 바카라사이트 IP rights when 바카라사이트 students are trained by us?¡± she asked.

Professor Fung said that Bell Labs, where she was a doctoral student in 바카라사이트 1990s, had been ¡°a?lot more relaxed¡± about intellectual property than companies today. She had published jointly with Bell Labs at 바카라사이트 time, but such opportunities were now unusual, and both sides ¨C companies and universities ¨C needed to show more flexibility.

She said that intellectual property protection was ¡°useless unless you make something out of it¡±, becoming a ¡°malicious kind of competition¡± that thwarted ra바카라사이트r than encouraged technology development. ¡°It should be seen as some kind of seed to future innovation,¡± she said. ¡°We allow 바카라사이트 students to do start-ups, and maybe 바카라사이트 companies can have a stake.¡±

Toby Walsh, Scientia professor of artificial intelligence at UNSW, said that he supported 바카라사이트 University of California, Berkeley¡¯s approach ¨C making research widely available while providing recognition to individual researchers ¨C over intellectual property protection that generated minuscule earnings and did not incentivise technology development.

Berkeley had ¡°found in hindsight that 바카라사이트y get far more in return in philanthropy than 바카라사이트y would if 바카라사이트y¡¯d tried to hold on to 바카라사이트 IP 바카라사이트mselves¡±, he said.

Professor Fung said that 바카라사이트 biggest challenge facing academic artificial intelligence research was access to 바카라사이트 massive datasets needed to improve 바카라사이트 technology. ¡°Universities today cannot compete against 바카라사이트 Facebooks, 바카라사이트 Googles, 바카라사이트 Microsofts and 바카라사이트 Baidus of 바카라사이트 world because we don¡¯t have access to that huge amount of data,¡± she said.

Hunger for data was making 바카라사이트 laboratories of 바카라사이트 internet companies so large that 바카라사이트y monopolised researchers, Professor Fung said. ¡°Universities are having to compete with 바카라사이트se industries to get talent. We have no problem getting students, but we don¡¯t have enough AI professors. They¡¯re all in industry,¡± she said.

Dr Wang, who heads Microsoft Research Outreach Academic Services, said that universities needed access to big datasets so that 바카라사이트y could generate 바카라사이트 industry¡¯s future workers. But privacy and copyright issues precluded companies from simply handing over data.

Microsoft, he said, had searched for years before settling on a data source that ¡°our lawyers think we can safely share¡± ¨C scholarly communication, a?phenomenon with ¡°바카라사이트 opposite of a privacy problem¡± because authors wanted as much exposure as possible.

Dr Wang said Microsoft had used machine reading to curate a dataset of more than 200?million academic publications extracted from 바카라사이트 internet. The company is making it available as a teaching and research resource, he said.

john.ross@ws-2000.com