AI tech learning to learn in Xi'an

As artificial intelligence is no longer a wild figment of the imagination or the stuff of science fiction, research into AI is becoming increasingly appealing to scientists.

For Zheng Nanning, director of the Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at Xi'an Jiaotong University, AI is the study of how to make machines "think" and act like human beings.

One of the primary frontiers of research in the field is how to develop AI that is able to process non-complete information, said Zheng, who is also an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

"'Robustness' refers to the AI's adaptability to users' errors, target deviation, error model and even non-modeling objects," he said.

Zheng, also a former president of Xi'an Jiaotong University from 2003 to 2014, started to establish the AI discipline in the school in 1985 after completing his studies in Japan.

AI tech learning to learn in Xi'an

"I went to Japan in 1981, when there was an upsurge in the development of artificial intelligence," Zheng recalled. "I was impressed by the progress in computer science and its widespread use in social life in the country."

After he returned to his homeland in 1985, China decided to develop AI technology as a priority in its seventh Five-Year Plan (1986-90). Zheng and Xuan Guorong, the first director of the institute, co-founded the Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics in 1986.

As the central government prioritized the development of information and computer science, Zheng's institute has embraced many opportunities for growth over the past 30 years - cognitive computing and computer vision.

In AI development, one of the major challenges facing scientists is how to enable machines to learn without help from human teachers, Zheng said. "Much of human learning is a logical reasoning process of mastering something new based on their previous knowledge," he said. "In contrast, no current AI systems have such an ability."

Every time an AI machine learns a new skill, it basically has to learn from the very beginning, which requires the participation of human beings to a large extent, he explained.

"To achieve human intelligence, the machine needs to have the ability to learn without human supervision and instruction, using previous knowledge to make richer inferences from a very small amount of training data."

Another challenge is to make machines perceive and understand the world as humans do, the senior scientist said.

"Perception is a key part of intelligence," he said. "If machines can be made to perceive and understand the world as humans do, it will prove that the chronic problems of planning and reasoning in AI research can be solved."

"While we are good at data collection and algorithm research and development, and it is no longer an obstacle in AI development to use machines to analyze collected data, such reasoning capabilities are relied on data, which indicates that there's still a long way to go before AI can perceive the real world," Zheng said.

It is a tough task to make machines understand and depict natural behavior, he noted.

AlphaGo, a Google-developed AI system, defeated Lee Se-dol, a South Korean professional Go player, in a series of games that hit headlines worldwide in March.

It is difficult to anticipate the most advantageous positions to move in the complicated Go games, yet it is much easier than capturing an accurate depiction of the sophisticated world, Zheng said/t will take decades or even longer to close the gap of such understanding between machines and human beings."

The toughest challenge in realizing human-like intelligence is to enable machines to have self-awareness, emotions and the ability to reflect on their own situation and behaviors, Zheng said.

But human beings also stand to benefit from development of AI technology. "Human cerebral cortex capacity is limited in physics," he said. "If intelligent machines can be linked to human brains, it will not only enhance human capacity, but also allow machines to be inspired."

It is a fascinating exploration into seeking self-awareness, emotions and reflective ability in machines, to scientists and philosophers alike, Zheng said.

However, AI research can be a "double-edged sword", he noted.

"We need to ensure that increasingly powerful AI systems remain completely under human control and watch out for AI's negative impact on human society and pay attention to the profound ethical issues brought up by its development," he said. "We need the AI that helps human beings rather than taking their place."

 

Jiaotong University experts build their vision for the future

When the new generation of medium carrier rocket named Long March VII was launched on June 25 in Wenchang, Hainan province, a group of people in Xi'an, Shaanxi province, shared in the celebration.

They are professors and experts working with the Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at Xi'an Jiaotong University, who designed and developed a visual measurement system, algorithm and software products for the Ao Long I aerobat, the main load of the Long March VII rocket.

The institute will celebrate its 30th anniversary on Saturday.

The school was founded in 1986. Its predecessor was the computer control teaching and research laboratory under the school's automatic control department.

It was one of the earliest professional research institutions to carry out research on artificial intelligence and robotics in China.

Xuan Guorong, the first director of the institute from 1986 to 1988, made great contributions to the research and development of AI.

Jiaotong University experts build their vision for the future

The 5,500-square-meter institute is a support unit of the National Engineering Laboratory for Visual Information Processing and Application and the Cognitive Science and Engineering Center for international studies.

In cooperation with globally-renowned scholars, the institute has made a range of achievements. With an edge in the disciplines of pattern recognition and intelligent systems, the school recruits more than 160 graduate students and post-doctoral assistants annually.

Under the leadership of Zheng Nanning, director of the institute and also an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the institute was among the first group of winners of funds from Foundation for Innovative Research Groups of the National Natural Science Foundation of China in 2000.

The institute focuses on the studies of visual signal statistical characteristics, primary visual models, computer graphics and machine vision information computing. Their work combines AI information processing based on computer vision and pattern recognition with the advanced developments of related sectors in the AI field.

It also specializes in the exploration and modeling of mathematical mechanisms of intelligent systems, ultralarge scale integrated circuit design for computing vision and images, intelligent control, recognition systems and various image processing methods and techniques.

In the field of visual information processing, the institute has a well-established and soundly-structured research team. They have undertaken 51 national science and technology projects, 21 provincial and ministerial level projects, 30 corporate commissioned projects and two other important research projects.

The institute has filed more than 100 applications for invention patents. Of them, 88 were granted, including three authorized abroad. It has also obtained 29 software copyrights.

It has won a series of awards, including one second-place prize from the National Awards for Technological Invention, two second-place prizes from the National Science and Technology Progress Awards, and four first-place prizes from provincial and ministerial level science and technology awards.

Two of its researchers were winners of the Chinese Youth Awards for Science and Technology.

(China Daily 09/23/2016 page16)

 

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