The Transformative Power of AI and Open Challenges

20 May 2024, 12:00, Birch Innovation Space
Speaker: Manish Gupta (Google)

Abstract#

We begin by presenting the recent advances in the area of artificial intelligence, and the high level ideas underlying the progressively narrower domains of machine learning, deep learning, and foundation models, which have emerged over time as dominant paradigms for artificial intelligence. We describe the tremendous progress of these models on problems ranging from understanding, prediction and creativity on one hand, and open technical challenges like safety, fairness and transparency on the other hand. These challenges are further amplified as we seek to advance Inclusive AI to tackle problems for billions of human beings in the context of the Global South. We present our work on multilingual models to democratize information access in a diverse set of Indian languages, on healthcare in environments where we lack data in digital form to begin with, and on analysis of satellite imagery to help transform agriculture and improve the lives of farmers. Through these examples, we hope to convey the excitement of the potential of AI to make a difference to the world, and also a fascinating set of open problems to tackle.

Speaker Bio#

Dr. Manish Gupta is the Director of Google Research India. He holds an additional appointment as Infosys Foundation Chair Professor at IIIT Bangalore. Previously, Manish has led VideoKen, a video technology startup, and the research centers for Xerox and IBM in India. As a Senior Manager at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, Manish led the team developing system software for the Blue Gene/L supercomputer. IBM was awarded a National Medal of Technology and Innovation for Blue Gene by US President Barack Obama in 2009. Manish holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. He has co-authored about 75 papers, with more than 7,000 citations in Google Scholar (and an h-index of 46), and has been granted 19 US patents. While at IBM, Manish received two Outstanding Technical Achievement Awards, an Outstanding Innovation Award and the Lou Gerstner Team Award for Client Excellence. Manish is a Fellow of ACM and the Indian National Academy of Engineering, and a recipient of a Distinguished Alumnus Award from IIT Delhi.
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