With the recent advancements in AI research and application, do you wish you were back in the industry?
I want to thank you for this question because it’s one I’ve asked myself in recent years now that I’m on the sidelines, as it were, watching those in industry leap into AI like I got sick of waiting for them to do back when I was out in it.There is one timeless answer to this for me, and one very timely answer.The timeless answer, is that it turns out teaching is a perfect fit for me. There’s something about learning to master teaching a subject to a room full of untrained minds that I find incredibly satisfying. I feel more in touch with my sense of awe/wonder/curiosity/creativity than I ever did in industry, and this along with the pressure of leading that room every day have helped me develop a level and type of confidence I’ve never had before. Becoming a teacher has truly allowed me to develop into more the type of person I had wanted to be, and as such, it’s worth it to me, even if I miss out on some opportunities I gaze wistfully at.The timely answer?I actually think I’m at the perfect place at the perfect time. Sure if I were in industry I’d be able to capitalize on some great opportunities. But as a teacher I get to think about society as a whole and what it needs in the face of the changes being caused by AI and automation.As part of this I’m now in the process of building a 3-year technology pathway that will culminate in a course providing a foundation in artificial intelligence. Among other things, I’m building my AI skills back up to speed with the tools now available online for remarkably low prices, and I’m marveling at how much easier it is to learn technical skills now than it was when the internet was younger.It’s easier to learn on Coursera now than it was to learn in the classroom back when I was in grad school, and that makes me think I can give high school students a tremendous leg up in these areas that have been seen as far beyond their capacity in the past…but the reality is that people without industry experience don’t have a basis for understanding that advantage the way someone with my background does.It’s a nice place to be.
Which country is more advanced in AI research?
China appears to be taking the lead. The Chinese government has announced their intention to become “a principal world center of artificial intelligence by 2030”.Research and application of AI will prove what country is leading AI development. The question of being more advanced is however an open question. What does more advanced mean?Does it mean better education/jobs, military, economically, socially productive or creating a better world in general? How AI plays out will determine those answers in any or every area. Another important question in any scientific/technological advancement is how research is shared and delivered.It might be a better question to ask how the world together will advance with AI? Is AI for the world or selective use? Will AI deliver more good than bad?The same question could be asked substituting computers for AI.My personal opinion perhaps not shared by everyone is by looking at present trends is that China will look to developing AI for its economy, United States will look to developing its military strength AI and Japan will look to develop social AI.Of course my opinions could well be completely wrong. Give it time. History will tell us what actually happened.
Is Google researching how to teach an advanced AI compassion?
Short answer, no.Long answer, no, no, no, no, definitely not. No.First, nobody would want to make an 'advanced AI', as you put it. No point. Either you make an intelligence that works out solutions to a specific problem, or you make an intelligence that's intended to model humans - in which case, it would have 'compassion' already.Second, Google has better things to do. Google focuses on improving human life (while gaining profit, of course) and optimizing AI creation wouldn't be something useful or profitable.Third, by the time we have a working, advanced AI, giving it 'compassion' will be something as easy as entering a command.
Good Topics For A Religion Research Paper?
I'm think of doing a research paper on either: Sciencetology Demonology Souls Chinese Zodiac these are just some, if you can think of any more can you let me know?
Who is leading in AI research among big players like IBM, Google, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft?
Well, I’m biased ;-)But I can say a few things:Apple is not a player in the AI research circuit because they have a very secretive culture. You simply cannot do leading-edge research in secret. If you can’t publish, it’s not research. At best, it’s technology development.Microsoft is doing some good work, but they are losing quite a lot of people to Facebook and Google. They did some good work on deep learning in speech (and on handwriting recognition back in the early 2000s before the current craze). But their recent efforts seem to have been less ambitious than at FAIR or DeepMind.Google (through Google Brain and other groups) is probably ahead in the deployment of deep learning in products and services, because they started earlier than everyone and because they are a very large company. They have done quite a lot of background work in infrastructure (e.g. TensorFlow, the Tensor Processing Unit hardware…). But much of it is focused on applications and product development rather than long-term AI research. A number of top researchers from Google Brain have left for DeepMind, OpenAI, or FAIR.DeepMind is doing very good work on learning-based AI. Their long-term research goals are somewhat similar to ours at FAIR, and many of the topics we are working on are similar: unsupervised/generative models, planning, RL, games, memory-augmented networks, differentiable programming, etc. They face the challenge of being geographically and organizationally separated from their largest internal customer within Alphabet (Google). It makes is more difficult for them to “pay their way” by generating revenue for their owners. But they seem to be doing OK.Facebook started FAIR 2.5 years ago and managed to establish itself as a leader in AI research in this very short time. I’m astounded by how many world-class researchers we’ve been able to attract (FAIR has about 60 researchers and engineers between New York, Menlo Park, Paris and Seattle right now). I’m also very impressed by the quality and impact of the research we’ve produced over the last 2.5 years. We are ambitious in our goals, we are here for the long run, and we have an impact on the company, which makes it easy for us to justify our existence. Crucially, we are very open: all of our researchers publish multiple papers per year. There is nothing more sobering than seeing a promising young researcher join a less-than-open company or a startup and disappear form the research circuit.