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De Kai          

Professor & Pioneer in AI Ethics and Policy; Founding Fellow of the Association for Computational Linguistics

De Kai is Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at HKUST, and Distinguished Research Scholar at Berkeley's International Computer Science Institute. Recognized for significant contributions to artificial intelligence as a Founding ACL Fellow by the Association for Computational Linguistics, he is celebrated for pioneering the machine translation and machine learning foundations of systems like the Google/Yahoo/Microsoft translators. His role as founding faculty at HKUST led him to establish the Human Language Technology Center, which launched the world's first web translator over twenty years ago.

His interdisciplinary work, which intersects music, language, intelligence, and culture, aims to facilitate intercultural understanding from a liberal arts perspective that values creativity across both technical and humanistic dimensions. This ethos is evident from his early career, having worked and traveled extensively in various global cities before his significant contributions at HKUST. His work in machine learning and cognitive relationships between languages has significantly shaped modern machine translation technology, with applications extending into computer music and computational musicology.

De Kai's academic journey began with his doctoral studies in cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and computational linguistics at Berkeley, where he engaged in formative projects on intelligent conversational dialog agents. His PhD dissertation introduced the use of maximum entropy to model human perception and interpretation of ambiguities, a pioneering approach that contributed to the current advanced statistical natural language processing technologies. In addition to his technical achievements, De Kai also holds an executive MBA from Kellogg (Northwestern University) and HKUST. He was named one of the 100 most influential figures of Hong Kong by Debrett's HK 100 in 2015 and in 2018, Google appointed him as one of the eight inaugural members of its AI Ethics council, ATEAC. Over the past decade, De Kai has been an active speaker at prominent venues including TEDx and the World Economic Forum, discussing the ethical, societal, and safety implications of AI.

Speech Topics


The Future of AI

In this riveting talk, AI pioneer De Kai shares where this technology is at today – and where it’s going next. Despite the media hype, today ‘AI’ stands for “artificial idiocy.” Our current language learning models (which power tools like ChatGPT) are barely on the cusp of what they’re capable of doing. De Kai shares the ‘next big thing’ in AI – which is neither ‘big’ nor about ‘things’. De Kai answers profound questions, such as: How will the real AI that’s coming very soon be small and smart, and how will that undermine current planning?

The Biggest Fear with AI is Fear Itself

In a million years of human evolution, we have never experienced conditions like those of the AI era. AI is undermining foundational assumptions upon which our current fear-based order is evolved, and causing us to ask big, existential questions about the future. Humanity’s survival depends on our ability to evolve away from fear – and toward possibility – how can AI help?

AI inventor and professor De Kai has been at the forefront of creating this new technology for decades, and brings a profound understand of the philosophy to compelling talks.

Algorithmic Censorship

Dozens of times a day, AIs determine not only what few hundred things you see (in your social media feed and in search results), but more importantly, what billions of things you don’t see. And since we don’t know what we don’t know – we have no idea how this is manipulating us. De Kai, the Statesman of AI, asks: What are the crucial existential question for society and democracy that keep getting swept under the rug, and how do we tackle them?

Why We Need Artificial Mindfulness

In the ongoing debates about new AI technologies – what they can be used for, who they will benefit, and how they will change society – there are many conflicting opinions. AI innovator De Kai illuminates the various points of view, challenging our assumptions, and reveals how AI can evolve to be both a more effective and a safe tool in the long-run.

Artificial Creativity

Today’s generative AI tools and products fool users into thinking they’ve become truly creative – producing visual art, content, writing, and more at breakneck speed. What are the tricks these AI tools are playing? What are the criteria we should be looking at instead? What kind of creative AI can we expect next?

In this revelatory talk, AI creator and professor De Kai breaks down how these tools work and what it means for our artists, the creative process, and society as a whole.

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