News: Opening a new chapter of my work in AI (Andrew Ng)
Baidu’s Chief AI Scientist explains his departure, achievements and future interests
Assuming you’ve done a bit of reading on how to get started in AI, you’ve likely seen Andrew Ng mentioned. His online Stanford course, numerous deep learning speeches and his research achievements at Baidu have contributed significantly to the expansion of the AI community and the advancement of the field.
Yesterday, he resigned from his role at Baidu in a post that highlights his significant achievements there through 2017. If you’re interested in hearing about Baidu’s AI applications in a nutshell, Andrew succinctly outlines them for you in the first part of the piece. More interestingly, the post also speaks to his reasoning for the change and what he’s looking at next.
While this isn’t the ‘top highlight’ of his post, this excerpt reveals most about his reasoning for the change:
“As the founding lead of the Google Brain project, and more recently through my role at Baidu, I have played a role in the transformation of two leading technology companies into “AI companies.” But AI’s potential is far bigger than its impact on technology companies.”
Many technology companies would claim (and be right) that the impacts of their AI work and research extend far beyond their operations and profitability, and yet Andrew sees a higher-impact path for himself elsewhere. In many ways, it seems operating within Baidu became a net constraint on his impact rather than a net facilitator of it.
To arrive at the AI-powered future he envisions, he writes, “ this work cannot be done by any single company — it will be done by the global AI community of researchers and engineers.” I’m curious to see how he re-allocates his efforts to empower this community in a new way.
It’s hard to say whether this will start a trend among research scientists, but it seems in line with the increasing tone of altruism and benevolence in the AI community. The Partnership on AI (includes Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft and IBM) is a great example here, whose tenets reference “raising the quality of people’s lives…help[ing] humanity address important global challenges such as climate change, food, inequality, health, and education.” Note that Baidu is not among the partners listed.
My sense is that AI’s societal exposure and potential impact are reaching a threshold where Andrew and others can pursue progress in their chosen areas free of a profit-maximizing constraint. Leaders at Google and Facebook in particular seem to have the luxury of putting this constraint aside, with projects like DeepMind Health and the CZI’s Biohub. This DeepMind profile in FT published last week really underlines this paradigm shift:
It’s encouraging to see yet another leader prioritize doing good when they’re fortunate enough to have that opportunity.
Andrew has said he doesn’t know precisely what he’s going to do next, but his hit list of impact areas seems to include healthcare, education and transportation among others.
If you want to read more coverage on his transition check out these pieces in MIT Tech Review (he’s interviewed), South China Morning Post (for a local take):
