Hod Lipson (Photo/Sun Yuting)

Nov. 9 (NBD) -- The 2017 Tencent Global Partner Conference kicked off in Chengdu Wednesday, bringing together renowned AI experts from all over the world.

Hod Lipson, professor of Mechanical Engineering and Data Science at Columbia University in New York, and co-author of the award winning book "Fabricated: The New World of 3D printing", and "Driverless: Intelligent cars and the road ahead", accepted NBD's interview on the sideline of the event.

NBD：You know Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, and Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors, have very contradicted opinions on AI. Mark Zuckerberg says AI is gonna change our lives, doing good things to people. While Musk says AI is gonna cause world war Ⅲ. Whose opinion do you agree with and why?

Hod Lipson: I come to agree with Zuckerberg. It was positive. But I do believe that Elon Musk's warning must be a true warning that is a very powerful technology like fire. Fire can do a lot of great things, but it can also do a lot of damage. And it's up to us humans to make sure that we use this correctly. Not only that we use it. I think AI will create a world of abundance where everybody can have medical diagnoses that are so accurate. Everybody can have access to creativity. Everybody will have driverless cars and will be free of traffic accidents, all these great things! But we have to make sure that everybody has access to. That is not a technology that only a few people have and nobody else has. But everybody gets to benefit from that abundance. So it's up to us, the society to make sure that technology to be used properly.

NBD: As far as you know, do the potential advantages outweigh the potential disadvantages?

Hod Lipson: Absolutely, we can create a world where everybody has access to healthcare; where there are no more road accidents; where we have agriculture that has limited diseases so that you have more yield, and any area you can think of. You can have positive things, but we have to make sure that everybody gets to share that abundance because if not everybody shares it, there is gonna be lots of bad things to happen. So it's totally, it's exactly like fire. Is the discovery of fire a good thing? Absolutely! We did a lot of things. But you can do bad things with fire. You have to make sure that we minimize the negative things.

NBD: In terms of AI industry, China and U.S. are undoubtly two driving forces. Do you think China will sometime surpass US in AI industry?

Hod Lipson: It's a difficult thing that we talk about it right now. There are so many potential things to do with this AI. The question is just what not to do. There are so many options so many possibilities. There is room for everybody to win. You see what I mean. It's not like two things you can do, who's gonna be the first. There are just so many possibilities that it is an opportunity for everybody. But in terms of the discussion we have, I think China has been a super dominant force in AI. I don't know who is better. I know you want me to say who's better. But I am not gonna say who is better, but what I wanna say is winning competitions, incredible presence of conferences, and creating new applications that we haven't seen anywhere in the world. So again I think it's a level playing field. But I really do say what I keep emphasizing to my students, and I have half Chinese students and half American students and other places as well. By the way, I'm from Israel, not Chinese and not American, so I have no skin in this game. But there are so many opportunities, even if you are a student in high school, you can create a startup in AI that will beat even the best companies in the game because there are just so many opportunities. So it's a great thing that anybody can create the next generation.

NBD: As far as you know, what are essential conditions for our country as a whole to develop AI? What is China lack of and what is China good at? 

Hod Lipson: There are no conditions. You don't need capital investment. Data can flow freely and talent is everywhere. Software tools are you can download from anywhere on the planet and every company has them. So the technology to create new ideas, like infrastructure and investment, is very minimum. So I think China lacks nothing. The only thing you really need is the sort of the inspiration to do stuff. China has incredible energy in creating new things.

NBD: What do you think of the fact that companies like Tencent are drawing top talents in AI going back to China to help them develop their AI lab?

Hod Lipson: It used to be the case that we have great students from China, and the best ones stay in the U.S., and now the best ones go back to China. That's a good thing for China, but it also means that it's going to be challenging that the U.S. has to keep generating new talent formally brought from other places. This is not unique to China. People from Europe used to come to the U.S. and stay, not go back to Europe. Again, the world is becoming flat in terms of talent and software is particularly flat. Traditionally people in a rural area couldn't really compete but now if you are in the rural area, you can get a computer and you can develop an app, and you can create the next-generation software that is gonna to eat the lunch of some big companies. That's already happened many times. Uber to Airbnb are the examples in the U.S. and it's happening everywhere. So I think there's no excuses, and anybody can innovate when it comes to software.

NBD: Can you name one specific area or field that AI is applicable?

Hod Lipson: There is no area that AI is not applicable. In the short term, transportation is applicable, for example, driverless cars from Tesla. AI is not only going to transform transportation, but it's going to transform every aspect of life because of the transportation. If you think about the congestion of cities, and if you think about the beauty of rural communities which is only economically viable because they don't have to drive merchandize into the city and out. If you think about saving lives, or e-commerce that you don't need big trucks, and you can have small pots that can now deliver things. Everything changes because of the driverless cars and driverless cars are entirely happening because of AI.

Email: tanyuhan@nbd.com.cn; zhanglingxiao@nbd.com.cn