417: C3.ai CEO Tom Seibel discusses how AI is going to impact commercial, industrial, and government systems. Tom believes that the global information technology market will jump from 3.5 trillion to 8.5 trillion in the next five years, mostly because of AI. This will be achieved by lowering the cost of production and delivering products and services with greater safety, greater cybersecurity, and lower environmental impact. That said, Tom recognizes the consequences of AI. He warns companies that if they do not adapt to new technologies, they will cease to be competitive, and he believes the U.S. will be in trouble if they do not win what he describes as a non-kinetic war over AI with China. We also Tom’s belief that large organizations have the advantage in the new generation of 21st-century technology, how Tom stays motivated after a long career of success, Tom’s view on the global rush at the boardroom and the CEO’s office to digitally transform their company, among other topics.
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375: MIT’s Max Tegmark, author of “Life 3.0″ and co-founder of the Future of Life Institute, asserts that the most important conversation in the world is the one about humanity’s future with artificial intelligence. Technology is a neutral force, and it is our responsibility to manage it wisely and steer it towards a beneficial future. As our technology becomes more powerful, so too do the positive and negative consequences. Max notes that we need to decide what type of future we want to have with AI so that its impact on society is beneficial, rather than harmful. We also discuss how governments, academia, and companies can help create a better future with AI, the comparisons between prior science advancements and today’s intelligence advancements, how Max became interested in AI, among other topics.
Kai-Fu is a prominent venture capitalist, technology executive, artificial intelligence expert, and author of the new book, “AI Superpowers. China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order.” Currently, Kai-Fu is the founding CEO of Sinovation Ventures, a Chinese venture capital firm with $2 billion under management, a third of which is in AI. He founded Sinovation Ventures after leading Google’s initial entry into China as the President of Google China. Prior to Google, he spent a number of years at Microsoft as a Corporate Vice President. While at Microsoft he established Microsoft Research Asia, which is widely considered one of the best computer science research labs in the world.
Kai-Fu began his career as an AI researcher, having obtained a Bachelors of Science in Computer Science from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon.
In this interview, Kai-Fu discusses his new book, “AI Superpowers,” in which he highlights the stunning, government-supported progress China’s technology sector has made in recent years. He goes on to argue that China is well positioned to surpass the US in AI prowess, and the reasons for that country’s gains. We also discuss the risk of job displacement, why US companies struggle to break into the Chinese market, and why the reverse is also true, what Sinovation Ventures looks for when identifying new opportunities, and a variety of other topics.
Among other topics, Yoshua discusses the following issues with Metis Strategy:
Yoshua Bengio, a pioneer of deep learning, is a Full Professor of the Department of Computer Science and Operations Research at the University of Montreal. Yoshua is also the Director of the Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms (MILA) and a Senior Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), where he co-directs its program on deep learning.
Yoshua serves as an adviser to a number of enterprises and is a co-founder of Element AI, a startup that helps organizations embrace AI.
Yoshua is a co-author of the book “Deep Learning” and more than 300 other publications. He currently serves as action editor for the Journal of Machine Learning Research, as an associate editor for the Neural Computation journal, and as an editor for the journal Foundations and Trends in Machine Learning.
Yoshua earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering, a master’s degree in Computer Science, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science, all from McGill University.
Among other topics, Andrew discusses the following issues with Metis Strategy:
Andrew W. Moore has served as the Dean of Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science since 2014. He was a professor of computer science and robotics at CMU before taking a leave of absence, in 2006, to become founding director of Google’s Pittsburgh engineering office.
Andrew received an undergraduate degree in Mathematics and Computer Science and a PhD in Computer Science from Cambridge University.
Andrew is a fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence.
Most recently, Andrew served as Corporate VP and Chief Scientist of Baidu. During his tenure at Baidu, Andrew spearheaded AI projects and developed new lines of business. Prior to joining Baidu, Andrew co-founded Coursera, a Massive Open Online Course platform. Andrew also founded and led the “Google Brain” deep learning project. Through his work with Chinese and American companies, he has made significant contributions to the growth of machine and deep learning in both countries.
Andrew has written or co-authored over 100 research papers and is an adjunct professor at Stanford University. Andrew continues to guide Coursera as Co-Chair of the board
Andrew holds a bachelor of science degree from Carnegie Mellon University and a Master of Science in Electrical and Chemical Engineering from MIT. He also earned a PhD in Computer Science from the University of California Berkeley
Among other topics, Mike discusses the following issues with Metis Strategy:
Mike Schroepfer’s Biography
Welcome to Metis Strategy’s Forum on World Class IT. I’m Peter High, and I’m pleased to welcome Mike Schroepfer to the broadcast. Mike is the Chief Technology Officer at Facebook. In that role, he leads the development of the technology strategies and teams that will enable Facebook to connect billions of people around the world and make significant breakthroughs in fields like artificial intelligence and virtual reality.
Before Facebook, Mike was the Vice President of Engineering at Mozilla Corporation, where he led the global and open product development process behind Firefox. Mike was formerly a distinguished engineer at Sun Microsystems, which acquired his company, CenterRun. He began his career working at various startups, including a digital effects software startup where he developed software that has been used in several major motion pictures.
Mike holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in computer science from Stanford University and has filed two U.S. patents.
I met with Mike in his office at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California last week, and our conversation covered Facebook’s ten-year plan, and the three innovation pillars that he leads. Examples of innovations that the organizations are working on in the near and long-term, the methods he uses to evaluate recruits and employees, the way in which Facebook has maintained its innovative edge despite its extraordinary growth, among a variety of other topics.
Among other topics, Jeff discusses the following issues with Metis Strategy:
Biography
Welcome to Metis Strategy’s Forum on World Class IT. I’m Peter High, and I’m pleased to welcome Jeff Dean to the broadcast. Jeff is a Google Senior Fellow, currently leading Google Brain, the search giant’s initiative to build large-scale artificial neural networks. Jeff also leads the development of TensorFlow, Google’s open-source library of machine learning algorithms.
Jeff joined Google in 1999 and had a leading role in building much of the core technology and infrastructure of the company
Jeff earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Washington, and graduated summa cum laude from the University of Minnesota where he studied Computer Science and Economics. In 2009, Jeff was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, and was also named a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS).
I recently caught up with Jeff by phone at his office in Mountain View, California. Our conversation covered World Class IT principle, one, People, as we discussed how Google continues to attract, retain, and train top engineering talent; principle three, Project & Portfolio Management, as we discussed Google’s process for productizing its AI research and bringing it to market, and principle four, IT & Business Partnerships, as we discussed how Jeff determines who to interact with inside and outside the company. We also discussed Google’s vision for the transition from the mobile first world, to an AI first world, and how Jeff and the Google Brain team are building the infrastructure to bring this vision to life.
Among other topics, Nick discusses the following issues with Metis Strategy:
Nick Bostrom’s Biography
Nick Bostrom is the author of Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, a book that explains the impending threats that artificial intelligence presents to the human civilization, and ways to co-exist with its presence. He gave a TED talk on the subject of machine intelligence in 2015. Nick is also a Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy at Oxford University and the Founding Director of the Future of Humanity Institute, a multidisciplinary research center at the University of Oxford whose mission is to enable leading researchers bring the tools of mathematics, philosophy and science to bear on big-picture questions about humanity and its prospects.
Nick received a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy, Mathematics, Mathematical Logic and Artificial Intelligence from the University of Gothenburg. He received his master’s degree in Philosophy and Physics at the University of Stockholm, a master’s degree in Computational Neuroscience at King’s College London, and a PhD in Philosophy from the London School of Economics.
Among other topics, Geoff discusses the following issues with Metis Strategy:
Geoff Hinton’s Biography
Geoff Hinton is a Distinguished Emeritus Professor at the University of Toronto and also works at Google, where he uses deep learning techniques to improve voice recognition, image tagging and other tools. He has worked part-time at Google since 2013, when his company DNNresearch Inc., was acquired.
Geoff is known for his work on artificial neural networks, and is an important figure in the “deep learning” community. He has authored over 200 publications in the area of leanring, memory, perception, and symbol processing, including pieces in Scientific American in 1992 and 1993.
Geoff received his Bachelor of Arts in experimental psychology from Kings College at Cambridge, and his PhD in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Edinburgh in 1977.
