VinFuture scientist brings idea of ​​developing AI as smart as humans

At the seminar "Deploying AI in practice" within the framework of VinFuture Science and Technology Week 2024, Prof. Yann LeCun, Director of Artificial Intelligence Science at Meta, presented the idea of ​​developing AI as intelligent as humans.

"AI has not yet reached the intelligence of a cat" This statement by Professor Yann LeCun first appeared in a debate with billionaire Elon Musk to refute the Tesla boss's prediction that AI could be smarter than humans in the next 5 years. He reiterated this again at the discussion "AI Implementation in Reality" held on the afternoon of December 4.

Yann LeCun is one of the pioneers of deep learning and convolutional neural networks (CNN).

According to Professor LeCun, in the next few years, AI will be very different, much better. However, the possibility of AI achieving human-level intelligence is still a distant future. Because currently, AI does not have the ability to think and reason. LeCun cited that large language models (LLM) are only capable of guessing words and are completely "helpless" when it comes to guessing images. For example, when given a video and asked AI to predict the next image, AI made completely wrong predictions. This comes from the fact that AI does not have a worldview to understand how things and events operate. From this reality, Professor LeCun and his colleagues at Meta came up with an idea of ​​teaching AI how the world works. Specifically, with the same video, instead of asking AI to guess the next image based on the initial image provided, teach AI to observe the sequence of actions to create those images. This chain of actions is always logical, reflecting the way of thinking and reasoning based on relevant knowledge and experience. According to Professor LeCun, just as a newborn baby has a great ability to perceive the world in the first 2 months of life just by observing, if AI is taught to observe, it will also form a worldview and achieve human-level intelligence.

The VinFuture talk series always closely follows urgent global issues.

However, the "father" of AI also reassured when talking about the concern that the intelligent AI generation will replace humans, even the prospect of a world dominated by AI: "There is nothing to worry about. If AI is as smart as humans, that is a very good thing." The "Godfather of AI" argued that with the current knowledge base of humanity, if a person spends 12 hours a day reading, it will take them thousands of years to read it all. But if there is AI, they have a great assistant to help them effectively use this knowledge base without having to spend their whole life reading. The barrier of AI is humans. The speakers participating in the discussion organized by the VinFuture Foundation all shared the view that the development of AI in reality today faces many challenges and obstacles. The biggest obstacle is humans. "One side sees many advantages of AI. The other side is worried: 'Will I be replaced by AI in a few years?' The problem for AI researchers like us is that there are many opposing opinions and we have to see which school will prevail," Professor LeCun said humorously.

VinFuture is increasingly affirming its reputation and international stature by gathering the world's most outstanding minds in each field.

Mr. Do Ngoc Minh - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, USA) and VinUni University (Vietnam) - said that, no matter how controversial, it is an undeniable fact that AI is increasingly involved in the fields of medicine and education, creating breakthrough results, bringing great benefits to humans. Minh cited the fact that thanks to AI, medical laboratories can study cancer cells in an industrial system. Cancer cell samples taken from the patient's body are cultured in a 3D environment, which can be easily observed, monitored and easily cultured thousands of samples at the same time. From there, doctors can analyze and predict the direction of tumor development and make better treatment decisions for patients. Another example is the use of AI in rehabilitation. This is the method of modeling the patient's musculoskeletal system to observe how this system works on the machine. For patients after a stroke or surgery, when doctors observe how the musculoskeletal system moves after an injury, it will help patients recover more effectively. Mr. Bui Hai Hung, General Director of VinAI, Vietnam, mentioned another challenge: privacy. One of the psychological barriers for users is the fear of losing personal information. Therefore, the development of AI needs to go hand in hand with the development of privacy protection techniques.

VinFuture is considered a bridge between Vietnamese and world scientists.

This is also what VinAI is doing. Dr. Hung's research team is developing an application called MiE, which has the function of "storing memories" of users. This application is installed on the phone with the function of searching for any image, text, email or link that the owner has ever searched for and interpreting it into meaningful information. Thanks to that, the phone owner does not have to waste time manually searching through overloaded data drives but only needs to activate "artificial memory". Notably, MiE does not export "memories" from the phone, ensuring that everything is always on a single device. When asked about when AI can act on behalf of humans, Professor Leslie Gabriel Valiant, Harvard University (USA), the "father" of machine learning theory, said that we should not rush to let AI act, including seemingly simple actions such as operating machines or driving. "AI should only be used as an intermediary application to help people do better at what they are doing. AI increases human capabilities in different fields and that is the most important purpose," said Professor Leslie.

VinFuture Science and Technology Week takes place in Hanoi from December 4 to 7, with the highlight being the 4th VinFuture Awards Ceremony, taking place on the evening of December 6 at the Hoan Kiem Theater (Hanoi). The program will be broadcast live from 8:10 p.m. on VTV1 - Vietnam Television and online on many major e-newspapers and social networking platforms. Source: https://dantri.com.vn/khoa-hoc-cong-nghe/nha-khoa-hoc-vinfuture-dua-y-tuong-phat-trien-ai-thong-minh-nhu-con-nguoi-20241204200819927.htm