Associate General Counsel, Japan

About the Team

OpenAI's Legal team plays a crucial role in furthering OpenAI's mission by tackling innovative, fundamental legal issues in AI. If you're passionate about doing significant and unique work as a technology lawyer, this team is for you. The team comprises professionals from diverse fields, including technology, AI, privacy, IP, competition, corporate, employment, tax law, regulatory, and litigation.

About the Role

We’re seeking an Associate General Counsel to help navigate the increasing AI legislative and regulatory landscape in Japan and the broader Asia Pacific region. We’re looking for a legal self-starter, who is comfortable jumping into a deep dive of laws applicable to AI, as well as a broad range of AI regulatory issues that will help shape AI policy going forward and for which there is little precedent. This role reports to our Head of Legal, APAC.

This role is based in Tokyo.

In this role, you will:

• Analyze laws and regulations in Japan and APAC concerning AI to understand their impact on OpenAI and the broader AI community.

• Develop policy positions on pending legislation.

• Provide legal analysis and advice to the Global Affairs team and other internal stakeholders.

• Contribute to our ongoing improvements to AI governance as regulations come into force.

• Monitor and keep the team updated on emerging legislative and regulatory developments related to AI in Japan.

You might thrive in this role if you have:

• 12+ years of legal experience.

• Strong leadership and ability to influence.

• Combination of an in-house company, government/institution, or law firm experience.

• Strong background in technology laws.

• Experience and familiarity with AI or a demonstrated interest in AI laws and regulations.

• Knowledge and experience with intellectual property laws.

• Create clear and concise written and verbal communication, distilling complex concepts into simple, explainable, and persuasive ideas.

• Experience analyzing complex legislation.

• Cross-border experience, particularly in the countries in the APAC region.

• Experience engaging with regulators and/or policymakers.

About OpenAI

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity.

We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.

For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement.

Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for US-based candidates. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.

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