Curriculum

2023 YSEALI Academy Technology & Innovation Seminar
CREATIVE AI AND CULTURAL INFLUENCE
April 24 – 28, 2023 
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam 
I - TIME AND LOCATION 
Application opening: February 8, 2023
Info-session webinar: February 17, 2023
Application deadline: February 28, 2023. 
Pre-seminar online sessions: April 17-20, 2023 (Zoom) 
Seminar dates: April 24-28, 2023 (Monday– Friday, in person) 
II - PARTICIPANTS 
About 35 YSEALI fellows who are young, creative professionals between the ages of 25-40, highly qualified and motivated, from all 11 ASEAN member states.  
Participants are required to commit at least 4 online hours for pre-seminar tasks (group assignments) from April 17-20, 2023, and at least 40 hours of in-person seminar activities in Vietnam from April 24-28, 2023 
Therefore, participants are highly recommended to arrange their work to be fully committed during the period to participate productively in and achieve the most from the seminar. 
III - OBJECTIVES AND LEARNING OUTCOME 
1. Objectives  
Equip the YSEALI fellows with skills in understanding new AI technologies, their implications for society and how these technologies could evolve in the future. 

Expand the fellows’ professional network with other Southeast Asian leaders and explore new ways to collaborate in innovating technologicasolutions to common challenges.  
2. Learning outcomes 
Upon graduation, fellows are expected learn about the latest developments in creative AI and how it relates to Southeast Asian culture, the future of work and education, and societal implications.  Fellows will ideate projects that use creative AI technologies and express technology solutions through intellectual property tools.
IV - THEME AND TOPICS 
1. Major theme  Creative AI and Cultural Influence 
2022 is widely regarded as the year of AI-generated art and text. Powerful tools that write essays, make art and compose music have emerged and are leading a new generation of AI technologies that are set to revolutionize creative work.  The seminar will explore creative AI and the role of culture, of which Southeast Asia has a broad diversity.  Artists, writers and musicians in Southeast Asia are molded in the local culture as well as in the digital culture.  It is important that our diverse cultures are properly represented and respected in building these AI systems.  The seminar also discusses the near-term disruptions and future implications of creative AI in Southeast Asia.  The fellows will collaborate in ideating new ways that creative AI can benefit the region, mitigate the risks and promote our cultural diversity.  Lastly, the seminar will generate awareness of intellectual property and why it is important for Southeast Asia. 

2. Seminar topics 
Topic 1 – AI creativity: Art, music and writing 
Generative AI tools were released in 2022 that are causing disruptions in how content is created.  Examples of these tools are OpenAI’s Dall-E2, Github Copilot and OpenAI’s ChatGPTIn this section, the basic capabilities of these tools will be discussed and how other companies are racing to create similar tools. 

Topic 2 – Southeast Asian culture and Creative A.I.: Representation, bias and respect  
One primary thesis of this seminar is the cultural diversity of Southeast Asia and how it influences creative AI.  One could also argue that the influence is in the other direction – that creative AI influences our culture, for better or for worse.  The new AI systems are trained on oceans of data on the internet, where our diverse cultures may be underrepresented or misrepresented.  Culturally appropriate use, addressing bias, proper attribution and respect are discussed as these creative AI systems rapidly develop and gain global adoption.  

Topic 3 – Law, ethics and societal implications of creative AI 
Creative AI has surprised our society to how well it is now able to write human-like essays and draw incredible art from a simple text “inspiration” prompt.  As with new disruptive technologies, our leaders have to carefully think about how it might evolve in the near-future and imagine its unanticipated consequences on different sectors of society. 

Topic 4 – The impact of creative AI on the future of work and education 
There is currently a raging debate on how the future of work will look likenow that creative AI is good enough to do many creative human tasks very fast and for almost no cost. There is also a debate on whether schools should allow creative AI tools to be used by students and researchers in academic environments.  The fellows will learn the issues in these debates and hopefully gain insights into how the future of work and education will look like. 

Topic 5 – Innovation and intellectual property in Southeast Asia 
What happens when creative AI trains on copyrighted material? Does copyright law cover the copying of style?  In this section, we will discuss the issues related to how creative AI systems crawl the internet and devour all kinds of intellectual property from artists and people groups.  Patents will also be discussed as an important intellectual property that can unlock innovation and wealth in Southeast Asia.  A group activity on patent writing will introduce the fellows to the documentation of new inventions. 
V - SEMINAR FORMAT AND STRUCTURE
1. Seminar format  
The seminar is conducted in diverse formats to maximize the engagement of participants, including lectures, debate, panel discussions, team projects (discussed below), and class discussions.  

Team project: Each team will be formed by six fellows from different countries.  The team will select a domain (ex. Education, government, media, healthcare, etc) and come up with a project that utilizes Creative AI as a useful tool.  From this project, the team will ideate an invention and write a basic patent document that describes this invention.  The project must be imagined as a solution that will be deployed across different countries in Southeast Asia.  The cultural aspects must be considered when training the AI and deploying it in different countries.  
2. Structure  
There are about 25 sessions in total over two weeks (Monday – Friday), 4 sessions/daywith each session of 90-105 minutes. There will be 11 lectures1 panel discussion1 debate, an art competition, 2 workshops for leadership and soft skills, 6 sessions for teamwork and team presentations1 welcoming session, 1 seminar review session and 1 closing session.