the sheer speed and scope of AI’s emergence, arguably unprecedented in all of history,
The mounting harms of biased algorithms, fears of widespread job displacement, and unsettling visions of surveillance became fixtures in the media, souring the public conception of AI to a degree not commonly seen in the world of technology.
the true impact of AI on the world would be largely determined by the motivation that guided the development of the technology—a disturbing thought in an era of expanding facial recognition and targeted advertising.
if we were to broaden our vision for AI to explicitly include a positive impact on humans and communities—if our definition of success could include such things—I was convinced that AI could change the world for the better. I still am.
the enormous gray exterior of the Rayburn House Office Building. Its styling isn’t as iconic as the Capitol Building’s rotunda, presiding over the Mall from across the street, but it’s every bit as faithful to the city’s neoclassical style,
If I ever visit US again, recall this scene.
the future of AI would depend on institutions far beyond science, including education, activism, and, of course, government.
to build the future of technology: the dignity of the individual, the intrinsic value of representation, and the belief that human endeavors are best when guided by the many, rather than the few.
I believe our civilization stands on the cusp of a technological revolution with the power to reshape life as we know it.
The trips weren’t especially educational—my father was a lover of nature, not an expert on it—but they planted the seeds of a philosophy that would shape my life more than any other: an insatiable urge to search beyond my horizons. They showed me that even in a place like Chengdu, a maze of pavement and concrete, there was always more to discover than what lay before me.
she was driven from childhood not just to learn but to put that knowledge to principled use.
teachers’ interest in our development was sincere.
Titled “A Proposal for the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence,” it called for an informal workshop to explore the programming of computers to perform human-like acts of reasoning, perception, and generalization of knowledge.
China had an insatiable density that consumed every axis: cars and bicycles packed the streets, people filled the sidewalks, and buildings stretched as high as they could into the haze even as they pushed the space between them to the absolute minimum.
generations of rigid algorithms that attempted to exhaustively describe intelligence in terms of rules, often referred to as “symbolic AI,”
great scientists are driven by an innate hunger to explore that thrives under even the most obstinate circumstances.
it was the neuroscientific equivalent of splitting the atom, revealing a fundamental pattern that seemed to repeat with remarkable consistency throughout the brain: by distributing complex behavior across a large network of simple elements, the connections between which can change over time, we can accomplish virtually limitless tasks, all while continually learning new ones, even late in life.