- Professor of Business Law and Ethics; Associate Director for Law, Policy, and Ethics at the Machine Learning Center, Georgia Institute of Technology
Deven Desai is the Sue and John Staton Professor of Business Law and Ethics at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Scheller College of Business. He is also the Associate Director for Law, Policy, and Ethics for ML@GATECH. He was the first and, to date, only Academic Research Counsel at Google, Inc., and a Visiting Fellow at Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy. As an undergraduate at Berkeley, he studied rhetoric and then went to Yale Law School for his J.D.
Deven’s work as a professor draws in part on his experience as a litigator handing intellectual property and technology matters with Quinn, Emanuel, Urquhart, & Sullivan, LLP; in-house counsel for an idealab! Internet infrastructure company; and as part of the policy and fundraising teams on the 2002 Cory Booker for Mayor campaign.
Deven’s research focus on disruptive technologies’ effects on assumptions and equilibria in law and society. For example, he wrote some of the first work looking at how digital property affects privacy and inheritance law and the way 3D printing opens creativity while challenging core aspects of patent law. His most recent stream of research takes on critiques about fairness and bias in artificial intelligence and machine learning applying computer science theories such as information theory, network theory, and Rice’s Theorem to fashion viable law and policy solutions. He is also co-edited, with Mark Lemley, a special issue on Scarcity, Regulation, and the Abundance Society.
Experience
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–presentSue and John Staton Professor of Business Law and Ethics; Associate Director Law, Policy, and Ethics Machine Learning Center at GATECH, Georgia Institute of Technology
Education
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1997Yale Law School, J.D./Law
Publications
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2026Using Agency Law to Tame AI Agents, BERKELEY TECHNOLOGY LAW JOURNAL
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2025AI Agents and the Law, 2025 AAAI CONFERENCE ON AI, ETHICS, AND SOCIETY, MADRID
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2024Between Copyright and Computer Science: The Law and Ethics of Generative AI, NORTHWESTERN J. OF TECHNOLOGY AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
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2024The Likelihood of Generic Confusion, WISCONSIN LAW REVIEW
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2023Scarcity, Regulation, and the Abundance Society, FRONTIERS
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2023Using Algorithms to Tame Discrimination, U.C. DAVIS L. REV.
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2022Identifying Critical Infrastructure in a World with Supply Chain and Cross-Sectoral Cybersecurity Risk, JURIMETRICS
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2022Don't let Ricci v. DeStefano Hold You Back: A Bias-Aware Legal Solution to the Hiring Paradox, FACCT '22: 2022 ACM CONFERENCE ON FAIRNESS, ACCOUNTABILITY, AND TRANSPARENCY
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2019The Important, Justifiable, and Constrained Role of Nationality in Foreign Intelligence Surveillance, AEGIS SERIES
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2018The Role of Differential Privacy in GDPR Compliance, FATREC’18
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2017Trust But Verify: A Guide to Algorithms and the Law, HARVARD JOURNAL OF LAW AND TECHNOLOGY
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2015Exploration and Exploitation: An Essay on (Machine) Learning, Algorithms, and Information Provision, LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO LAW JOURNAL
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2015The Chicago School Trap in Trademark: On the Co-Evolution of Corporate, Antitrust, and Trademark Law , CARDOZO LAW REVIEW
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2014Patents, Meet Napster: The Disruptive Power of 3D Printing, GEORGETOWN LAW JOURNAL
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2014Bounded by Brands: An Information Network Approach to Brands, U.C. DAVIS LAW REVIEW
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2014The New Steam: On Digitization, Decentralization, and Disruption, HASTINGS LAW JOURNAL
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2014Constitutional Limits on Surveillance: Associational Freedom in the Age of Data Hoarding, NOTRE DAME LAW REVIEW
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2013Beyond Location: Data Security in the 21st Century, COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM
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2013Speech Citizenry and the Market: A Corporate Public Figure Doctrine , MINNESOTA LAW REVIEW
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2012From Trademarks to Brands, FLORIDA LAW REVIEW
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2012Response: An Information Approach to Trademarks, GEORGETOWN LAW JOURNAL
Contact Deven for
- General
- Media request
- Speaking request
- Consulting / Advising
- Research collaboration
- Research supervision
- Location: Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.
- Website
- Article Feed
- ORCID
- Joined
