Andrew Ng

AI has been making tremendous progress in machine translation, self-driving cars, etc. Basically, all the progress I see is in specialised intelligence. It might be hundreds or thousands of years or, if there is an unexpected breakthrough, decades.

It seemed really amazing that you could write a few lines of code and have it learn to do interesting things.

Most of the value of deep learning today is in narrow domains where you can get a lot of data. Here's one example of something it cannot do: have a meaningful conversation.

Imagine if we can just talk to our computers and have it understand, 'Please schedule a meeting with Bob for next week.' Or if each child could have a personalized tutor. Or if self-driving cars could save all of us hours of driving.

A single neuron in the brain is an incredibly complex machine that even today we don't understand. A single 'neuron' in a neural network is an incredibly simple mathematical function that captures a minuscule fraction of the complexity of a biological neuron.

None of us today know how to get computers to learn with the speed and flexibility of a child.

I've been to so many manufacturing plants. I've yet to walk into one where I did not think AI solutions wouldn't help.

When you go to Japan, there is such a talent shortage that the debate about AI taking jobs is almost non-existent. The debate is, how can we automate this so we can get all the work done?

I am always mission driven, and I always ask myself what I want to be working on, what project excites me the most. I figure that out and then find the best place to do that work.