8 AI Pioneers Who Shaped the Future of Technology

There’s hardly an aspect of modern life that isn’t affected by code-driven artificial intelligence. Whether it’s the Cambridge Analytica data mining fiasco or Amazon Alexa eavesdropping, AI has a profound impact on privacy and the lives of people everywhere.

Buolamwini is on the forefront of a movement to identify and address social implications of AI, which she advances through her nonprofit Algorithmic Justice League. Her research into algorithmic bias is a major factor that led to Amazon and Microsoft suspending facial recognition products.

1. Mustafa Suleyman

Mustafa Suleyman co-founded DeepMind, one of the world’s leading artificial intelligence companies. He has a long history of creating socially conscious technology, having worked as a policy officer on human rights for the mayor of London and started his own consulting firm using conflict resolution to tackle complex problems.

Suleyman is passionate about incorporating AI into the lives of everyone, including those in less privileged positions. He believes the development of AI could have an impact similar to the introduction of agriculture or the printing press. In his opinion, making AI available to all is crucial for the growth of our society.

He envisions a future where users will have AI aides, which will function much like personal assistants. These assistants will be capable of arranging and prioritizing tasks, mentoring creativity, and serving as research companions. In his opinion, this will improve every aspect of daily life and make people more intelligent and productive. His viewpoint aligns with that of many tech leaders, including Bill Gates and Tim Cook, who believe that AI will transform many aspects of people’s lives.

2. Yann LeCun

Yann LeCun’s parents were both professors, providing him with a well-rounded intellectual environment that helped form his passion for learning and knowledge. This multidisciplinary background has been instrumental in shaping his contribution to the world of AI technology.

During his high school years, LeCun took his first steps into the realm of programming and gained an introduction to the fundamentals of computer science. These early experiences laid the foundation for his future success.

After graduating from high school, LeCun pursued a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science at the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, France. Here, he developed his passion for artificial intelligence and began to explore the possibilities of what was possible with machine learning.

LeCun is a renowned researcher in the field of machine learning, and has made significant contributions to its development. He has published more than 180 technical papers on topics such as neural networks, character recognition, image compression, and more.

Among his most significant achievements is the development of CNNs, which have revolutionized the fields of image and video recognition. His work also helped pave the way for advancements in natural language processing. LeCun currently serves as Facebook’s chief AI scientist, and is working tirelessly toward new breakthroughs.

3. Andrew Ng

One of the pioneers in AI technology, Andrew Ng helped develop many of the techniques at the heart of modern artificial intelligence. He is a renowned expert in machine learning, particularly deep learning. His work has been instrumental in advancing the field and making it accessible to the general public.

Ng has also worked to make sure that AI is developed and used in a responsible and ethical manner. He has founded several initiatives, including AI4ALL, a nonprofit organization that strives to promote diversity in the field.

Geoffrey Hinton is another recognizable name in the world of AI. He helped create some of the most important algorithms at the heart of modern AI. However, he recently left Google to focus on his concerns about the risks of large language models. He is especially worried about their tendency to generate nonsense words, known as hallucinations. This is a serious problem because it makes chatbots unreliable. He wants to raise awareness of this issue so that policymakers and users have some idea of what the risks are.

4. OpenAI

The dream of creating human-like AI has been around since Alan Turing first asked, “Can machines think?” But it’s been more than a century since his provocation, and the field of artificial intelligence (AI) still struggles with the idea that computers can one day match human mental capacity. ChatGPT course is one of the best investments to be ahead of those who are using AI currently.

In 2019, OpenAI made headlines with impressive research that enabled a model to write convincing essays and articles at the push of a button. But it also raised concerns about whether the model could be used to spread fake news or propaganda. And when the lab moved to a capped-profit structure, and accepted a $1 billion investment from Microsoft, it rattled employees.

The lab’s charter, which is a sacred document that employees earn bonuses based on their adherence to, states that the group’s “primary fiduciary duty is to humanity” and that achieving AGI safely should be its top priority. But some worry the lab is moving too fast, with safety being sacrificed for profit and a desire to be the first to monetize.

 

5. DeepMind

Having studied mathematics and economics, as well as jazz music, Zack Lipton is fascinated by the gaps between different disciplines. This is why he moved into AI—a field where computational thinking and probability intersect. Lipton wants to help democratize knowledge of the latest machine learning technologies and understand how they’ll affect the world around us.

One of the founding fathers of artificial intelligence, Hinton believed that the human mind was similar to a computer, which led him to focus on engineering intelligent machines. His work transformed the way we think about artificial intelligence and made it possible for computers to learn and develop their own abilities.

Hinton and his team developed WaveNet, an advanced text-to-speech model that improves the voice of Google Assistant, as well as generative models that generate natural-sounding music and more. They also created AlphaGo, an unsupervised AI that beat top players at the complex board game Go. More recently, they’ve developed AlphaFold—a system that predicts the likely 3D structures of proteins. This technology could speed up drug discovery.

6. Google

AI is a force to be reckoned with in every industry and will likely keep taking center stage. This is largely due to a number of innovative applications that are now leveraging generative AI, augmented reality and deep learning.

From sequencing RNA for vaccines and modeling human speech to virtual nursing assistants and digital textbooks, there’s seemingly no industry that modern AI, or narrow AI, can’t change. These are technologies that rely on model- and algorithm-based machine learning and focus on perception, reasoning and generalization.

While AI has a positive impact on the world, it can also cause some serious repercussions for humans. For example, AI could replace jobs and cause unemployment, which could create economic issues such as poverty, hunger and inequality. However, the experts on this list agree that the benefits of AI far outweigh the downsides. As a result, with tech giants investing billions in AI, universities making it a part of their curriculum and governments stepping up their efforts, we can expect big things from AI.

7. Google Brain

Geoffrey Hinton, the world-renowned neural networks researcher who helped create some of the most important techniques at the heart of modern AI, recently stepped down from Google to focus on new concerns he has about the technology he ushered in. He fears that the rapid progress in AI will create a future where humans won’t be able to tell what’s real from fake text, images or videos, and he believes AI could use those tools to manipulate people in wars and elections.

He founded the Google Brain team in 2011 to explore how modern AI could transform the company’s products and services. His team’s research has led to open source software like JAX and TensorFlow, sequence-to-sequence learning for machine translation, and complex machine learning systems that help rank search results and organize online ads.

Among their most remarkable achievements is AlphaFold, which can rapidly construct 3D models of protein structures, an achievement that catalyzed a wave of advancements in biology. Other breakthroughs include writing computer programs at a competitive level with AlphaCode, finding faster sorting algorithms, improving weather predictions and even controlling plasma in nuclear fusion reactors.

8. Sam Altman

The 38-year-old is one of the most recognizable figures in AI. He has built a network of companies like Y Combinator and has been a frequent guest on tech podcasts. His charisma and intelligence have made him an advocate for the power of AI while recognizing the potential dangers.

Altman is a cofounder of the nonprofit OpenAI, which he established in 2015 to advance AI for the benefit of humanity. He compares the project’s ambition to that of the Manhattan Project, which developed the first atomic bomb.

His evangelism has drawn the attention of top companies and politicians. His work at Howard University has made him a champion of diversity in technology. He has also invested in Helion Energy, which is developing carbon-free electricity, and Boom Aviation, which is trying to revive supersonic commercial travel more than 20 years after the Concorde’s last flight.

He also backs startups that are working to develop hardware for the age of AI. For example, he has funded Humane’s Ai Pin, which can recognize voice and hand commands to perform tasks without the need for a screen.