From digital assistants capable of learning to piloted driving—relying on artificial intelligence (AI) will soon be a matter of course for many aspects of everyday life. Seven pioneers in the field of AI and their visions of tomorrow’s world.

Steffan Heuer (copy) & Boris Schmitz (illustration)

 

Sumang Liu
Sumang Liu

Simply say what you want in a normal conversational voice, and an invisible virtual assistant takes care of the rest—that’s how Sumang Liu envisions everyday life.

 

Jen-Hsung Huang
Jen-Hsung Huang

This man loves supercomputers and superlatives. And as CEO of graphics chip manufacturer Nvidia, Jen-Hsun Huang delivers them in the form of tech that runs AI in smart cars.

 

Fei-Fei Li
Fei-Fei Li

AI systems are like three-year-olds who see the world around them and try to understand it. If you give them the right training wheels, they can put together a perfect photo album entirely unaided, says Fei-Fei Lee.

 

Jürgen Schmidhuber
Jürgen Schmidhuber

Truly exceptional AI should literally rise above and outgrow its human creators to conquer space. At least, that’s what German computer scientist and artist Jürgen Schmidhuber believes.

 

Regina Dugan
Regina Dugan

Hearing with the skin and sending messages with the mind because machines understand the body: For many people, this sounds like little more than science fiction. But for Regina Dugan, such challengesare the science fact of her daily research work.

 

Andrew Ng
Andrew Ng

Andrew Ng wants AI to relieve people of the burden of repetitive drudgery—whether it’s dealing with traffic or managing a medical practice—freeing up mental resources to enjoy the things that make life exciting.

 

Yann LeCun
Yann LeCun

What if computers understood the world like people do, so they could complement us as partners by being able to predict things, asks Yann LeCun.

AI will redefine the relationship between human and computers.

“The industrial revolution freed humanity from much repetitive physical drudgery. I now want AI to free humanity from repetitive mental drudgery.” Researcher Andrew Ng is confident that machine intelligence will enrich people’s lives, giving them more time and personal freedom.

 

 

 

 

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a branch of computer science and a key technology for such fields as piloted driving. By simulating the mechanisms behind intelligent human behavior, computer programs are capable of assuming tasks usually performed by people and continuing to develop independently.

AI is a game changer in the car. Assistance systems are getting more intelligent all the time—parking on their own, automatically keeping a safe distance from other vehicles, using learned movement patterns to suggest the best route—thus forming the foundation for the forward-looking technology of piloted driving.