Fei-Fei Li, the Stanford researcher who also founded World Labs, was invited to the Grand Palais in Paris on Monday to give the opening speech at the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit which is taking place this week.
While she shared some of her talking points over the weekend, her stance on AI regulation and the AI ecosystem as a whole was interesting. She managed to appear both pro-business and anti-Big Tech/big AI labs at the same time.
“We need to invest in far healthier and more vibrant AI ecosystems where academia and the community can produce,” she told conference delegates. “Open-source communities and the public sector can all participate and play their critical role alongside big companies in driving this technology forward. If AI is going to change the world, we need everyone from all walks of life to have a role in shaping this change.”
“If these resources are concentrated in only a handful of companies, the AI ecosystem will suffer from the lack of curiosity-driven research, top educational talents, open-source efforts, and multidisciplinary explorations,” Fei-Fei added.
At the same time, she shared her concerns about AI regulation around the world. She didn’t single out any government or laws in particular — but called for a more pragmatic approach.
“For starters, it’s essential that we govern on the basis of science, not science fiction. So much of today’s AI conversations are covered by sensationalism and result in misleading policies of AI governance. Instead, we need to apply a much more scientific method in assessing and measuring AI’s capability and limitations, which can consensually lead to more precise, actionable policies around it in reality.”
She also warned against unnecessary restrictions on AI research.
“In turn, this brings me to the second point of embracing a pragmatic attitude instead of an ideological one when it comes to AI governance. AI is poised to be a powerful technology that can help us to live and work better if used well,” she said.
“So instead of hindering the upstream exploration of research of this still very young technology, we should put more focus on the practical applications so that we can ensure its benevolent usage to guard against harmful outcomes,” she added.
According to Fei-Fei, historians will look back at this period in time and call it the first true era of AI, which could have “civilizational consequences.”
But while she acknowledged that jobs are likely to be impacted by the progress of AI, she also said she believes that AI has the potential to “augment and empower us” — assuming, that is, policymakers, AI companies, and the research community make the right decisions.
Government leaders and tech CEOs are expected to sign and share a statement at the end of the AI Action Summit on Tuesday.
Romain Dillet is a Senior Reporter at TechCrunch. He has written over 3,000 articles on technology and tech startups and has established himself as an influential voice on the European tech scene. He has a deep background in startups, privacy, security, fintech, blockchain, mobile, social and media. With twelve years of experience at TechCrunch, he’s one of the familiar faces of the tech publication that obsessively covers Silicon Valley and the tech industry. In fact, his career started at TechCrunch when he was 21. Based in Paris, many people in the tech ecosystem consider him as the most knowledgeable tech journalist in town. Romain likes to spot important startups before anyone else. He was the first person to cover N26, Revolut and DigitalOcean. He has written scoops on large acquisitions from Apple, Microsoft and Snap. When he’s not writing, Romain is also a developer — he understands how the tech behind the tech works. He also has a deep historical knowledge of the computer industry for the past 50 years. He knows how to connect the dots between innovations and the effect on the fabric of our society. Romain graduated from Emlyon Business School, a leading French business school specialized in entrepreneurship. He has helped several non-profit organizations, such as StartHer, an organization that promotes education and empowerment of women in technology, and Techfugees, an organization that empowers displaced people with technology.