Current:Home > Invest"Godmother of A.I." Fei-Fei Li on technology development: "The power lies within people"-LoTradeCoin
"Godmother of A.I." Fei-Fei Li on technology development: "The power lies within people"
View Date:2024-12-23 18:40:41
Fei-Fei Li, known as the "Godmother of A.I.," has spent more than 20 years in the field of artificial intelligence, developing the groundbreaking technology and advocating for its use in ethical ways.
Now, Li helms Stanford University's artificial intelligence lab, where the professor leads a team of graduate students teaching robots to mimic human behavior. She also leads a campaign that advocates for all A.I. being driven by people, and has taken that message to Congress.
Li, 47, advocates for bringing artificial intelligence to healthcare, and has advised President Joe Biden on the urgent need for more public-sector funding so that the U.S. can become the global leader in the technology.
Despite her achievements in the field, she's uncomfortable with her nickname.
"I would never call myself that," she said. "I don't know how to balance my personal discomfort with the fact that, throughout history, men are always called godfathers of something."
Li made a major breakthrough in the field years ago when she built a system to teach computers to recognize or "see" millions of images and describe the world around us. She called it "ImageNet," and at the time, many doubted it, with one colleague even telling her that it was too big of a leap too far ahead of its time.
In 2012, ImageNet was used to power a deep learning neural network algorithm called AlexNet, developed by researchers at the University of Toronto. That became a model for A.I. models like ChatGPT that are popular today.
"I think that when you see something that's too early, it's often a different way of saying 'We haven't seen this before,'" Li said. "In hindsight, we bet on something we were right about. Our hypothesis of A.I. needs to be data-driven, and data-centric was the right hypothesis."
When she's not working on A.I., Li is trying to bring more people into the world of artificial intelligence and technology. She is the co-founder of AI4ALL, an organization that pushes for more diversity in the field.
"We don't have enough diversity for this technology," Li said. "We're seeing improvements, there's more women, but the number of students from diverse backgrounds, especially people of color, we have a long way to go."
Li is also the author of a memoir "The Worlds I See." Within its pages, she documents her hardscrabble beginnings and immigration to the U.S. from China as a child and her rise to the top of her field. It wasn't a linear path: Her family immigrated to New Jersey in a move that she said turned her world upside down, and at various points in her life, she worked odd jobs, like working at her parents' dry cleaning shop in college and doing shifts at a Chinese restaurant for just $2 an hour.
"I don't know how it happened," she said. "You're uprooted from everything you knew. You don't even know the language, and you see the challenges you're dealing with."
Those experiences helped mold Li into the groundbreaking technology leader she is today, and her hard work resulted in a nearly full ride to Princeton University, where she studied physics before earning a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology.
Within the memoir, Li also notes her lingering doubts about her work in artificial intelligence, saying in one passage that she feels a "twinge of culpability" in the development of the technology, which she describes as something a phenomenon and responsibility that's capable of both destruction and inspiration.
"Because we are seeing the consequences, and many of them are unintended, in ushering this technology, I do feel we have more responsibility as scientists and technology leaders and educators than just creating the tech," she said. "I don't want to give agency to A.I. itself. It's going to be used by people, and the power lies within people."
- In:
- Technology
- California
- Artificial Intelligence
Jo Ling Kent is a senior business and technology correspondent for CBS News.
Twitter InstagramveryGood! (742)
Related
- What to know about Mississippi Valley State football player Ryan Quinney, who died Friday
- Boy Meets World's William Daniels Has a Mini Cast Reunion With His Favorite Students
- UVA to pay $9 million related to shooting that killed 3 football players, wounded 2 students
- University of the Arts abruptly announces June 7 closure, vows to help students transfer
- Kentucky gets early signature win at Champions Classic against Duke | Opinion
- Mel B's ex-husband sues her for defamation over memoir 'laden with egregious lies'
- Former General Hospital star Johnny Wactor shot and killed in downtown LA, family says
- With strawberries and goats, a ‘farmastery’ reaches out to its neighbors
- Suspected shooter and four others are found dead in three Kansas homes, police say
- Fact checking Trump's remarks after historic conviction in hush money trial
Ranking
- Sister Wives’ Meri Brown Shares Hysterical Farmers Only Dating Profile Video After Kody Split
- 2 killed, 3 injured when stolen SUV crashes during pursuit in Vermont
- Run, Don’t Walk to J. Crew Factory’s Swim & Short Sale With Cute One Pieces, Bikinis & More up to 60% Off
- 3 new arrests in shootings that injured 11 in downtown Savannah
- Amazon Best Books of 2024 revealed: Top 10 span genres but all 'make you feel deeply'
- Millions of Americans are losing access to low-cost internet service
- Olympic gold medalist Katie Ledecky says faith in anti-doping policies at 'all-time low'
- World War II veterans take off for France for 80th anniversary of D-Day
Recommendation
-
Jake Paul's only loss led him to retool the team preparing him to face Mike Tyson
-
Whoopi Goldberg makes rare Friday appearance on 'The View' for Donald Trump guilty verdict
-
Video shows anti-Islam activist among those stabbed in Germany knife attack
-
Video shows anti-Islam activist among those stabbed in Germany knife attack
-
Florida Man Arrested for Cold Case Double Murder Almost 50 Years Later
-
Gymnast Shilese Jones withdraws from US championships with shoulder injury
-
4 years after George Floyd's death, has corporate America kept promises to Black America?
-
Boeing's Starliner ready for Saturday launch to space station, first flight with crew on board