Why This Moment in AI is Similar to the Invention of the Camera | Jade Q. Wang, Artist & Investor

Jade Q. Wang is an artist, investor, scientist, and founder. A Stanford grad with a PhD in neuroscience, she retired roughly a year ago from a career in tech to pursue art and angel investing full time.Amrit Rao, General Partner at Village Global, sits down with Jade to trace her path from a childhood spent training to be a concert pianist in Shanghai, through a hard pivot into computer science and neuroscience, to her current work building interactive, AI-native poetry that treats Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini as collaborators rather than tools. Jade draws a striking parallel between the invention of photography and the current moment in AI, arguing that just as photography didn't destroy art but unlocked entirely new movements like Impressionism, AI may do the same for literature and poetry. She walks through her multi-phase art project, from a poetry collection structured like a codebase to a planned museum installation involving AI mirrors that roast and compliment visitors and a "computerized confessional," and explains why different AI models have developed distinct, consistent taste in which of her poems they find most powerful. The conversation also gets into her approach to angel investing and what she actually looks for in founders, plus the surreal story of discovering she'd become the unwitting subject of a viral AI-generated fan fiction universe.Thanks for listening. If you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.com or get in touch with us on X @villageglobal. Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We'll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.com/signup