Signals From the Future by Lee Kuczewski

This thesis visualizes AI-related patent filings by geographic region in the United States between 2016-2020 to better understand the landscape and asymmetries existing throughout regional clusters.

Inventions are signals from the future, as much as they are from the past. They provide us with a barometer for measuring the patterns of economic activity, policy direction, and competitive moat-building by international companies and governments across the world. These visual explorations will serve to connect policy makers, investors, entrepreneurs and academic commercialization offices with opportunities to make better decisions, bring ideas to market, and grow the economy sustainably within the United States.

Without mentioning the communities affected by the dispersion of AI technologies would be a great disservice. There is an even greater need for accelerating education within underrepresented communities; where patents are not being filed. I argue for an increasing need to create an international definition for AI-assisted inventions, and for the creation of an intellectual property commons, which is funded by corporate profitability of AI technologies in order to address the shorter-term inequalities which will result from the displacement due to skills-bias, and other labor demand asymmetries. Redistribution from gains within the short-term will help buffer the problems created by these technologies. I’m optimistic that the advances created by AI as seen through this patent landscape will be a net positive for more developed countries, and there needs to be a framework established to help developing nations and underrepresented communities to benefit in the long-term as well.