China News Service, Beijing, March 6 (Xinhua) -- Zhang Yunquan: How can "artificial intelligence" empower new productivity?
China News Service reporter Ma Shuaisha.
Deepening the R&D and application of artificial intelligence and carrying out "artificial intelligence" actions, in this year's ** work report, artificial intelligence (AI) related expressions have attracted attention. In recent years, large models represented by ChatGPT and SORA have emerged in an endless stream, setting off a boom in artificial intelligence, and some industry insiders believe that the era of general artificial intelligence is accelerating.
How will AI empower new levels of productivity? How to understand "artificial intelligence+"? How can China seize the opportunity of the new AI boom? Zhang Yunquan, a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and a researcher at the Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was interviewed by a reporter from China News Service during the National People's Congress and the National People's Congress and the National People's Political Consultative Conference.
At present, artificial intelligence is regarded as an important engine for the formation of new qualitative productivity. Zhang Yunquan pointed out that compared with the previous round of artificial intelligence boom benefiting from deep learning, generative artificial intelligence, as a new production tool, has more comprehensive skills and a wider range of applications, which can replace part of the mental work, land in all walks of life, especially in industries with labor shortages, and transform into real productivity.
On July 6, 2023, the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) opened in Shanghai. Photo by China News Service reporter Tang Yanjun.
The liberation of productivity by AI has left some people worried about their jobs being replaced. In this regard, Zhang Yunquan said that from a historical point of view, productivity innovation can greatly promote social development, and it will bring a certain impact in the short term, but we can prepare in advance to mitigate its possible negative impact, such as popularizing artificial intelligence literacy education, so that people can learn to "deal with" artificial intelligence.
For the first time in the work report, the word "artificial intelligence +" was mentioned, Zhang Yunquan said that the proposal of the new concept reflects the country's emphasis on the popularization and application of artificial intelligence in the future, and will promote the rapid development of the artificial intelligence industry.
He believes that "artificial intelligence +" is mainly based on large models, big data, and large computing power technologies to realize the application of artificial intelligence in all walks of life, so as to improve the level of industrial automation, reduce costs and increase efficiency, and promote the digital economy to a new level.
In the face of the broad application prospects of artificial intelligence, how can China better seize the opportunities of artificial intelligence development? "For China, we need to break through the bottleneck of computing power and find opportunities for innovation in this wave. Zhang Yunquan said that the current large-scale model technology is not the same as the path that China has studied in the past, and this new track has higher requirements for computing power.
Zhang Yunquan suggested that on the one hand, continue to develop domestic GPUs, and on the other hand, take advantage of China's advantages in the field of supercomputing to apply supercomputing technology to the field of AI, although the operating cost is higher, but it can shorten the gap with the international advanced level faster.
On August 26, 2023, China's first artificial intelligence-themed dance drama "Deep AI You" was staged at the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing. Photo by China News Service reporter Jia Tianyong.
Talking about the imagination of the future world of artificial intelligence, Zhang Yunquan said that in the past few decades, the artificial intelligence industry has experienced many ups and downs, with cheers and doubts. The large models that have emerged in the past two years have greatly improved the level of intelligence, "It can be said that we are the closest to general artificial intelligence." ”
What will the era of artificial general intelligence look like? Zhang Yunquan said that compared with weak artificial intelligence that only has specific functions such as playing chess and drawing, general artificial intelligence will have the same intelligence as humans, or even surpass human intelligence, and can think like humans and pass various tests.
For a long time, there has been a lot of attention on the topic of whether artificial intelligence, which can think like humans, will appear. Zhang Yunquan believes that the current emergence of generative AI mainly relies on big data training to simulate human behavior. In order to achieve real general artificial intelligence, it is necessary to understand the fundamental issues such as how human consciousness and emotions are generated, SORA, GEMMA and other artificial intelligence will be pushed to a higher level, and it is difficult to conclude whether general artificial intelligence will surpass humans in the future, and further research and development is needed.
Although it is still difficult to see when the era of general artificial intelligence will come, the research direction of the next wave of general artificial intelligence has formed a consensus in the scientific community, that is, concrete artificial intelligence. "Now it's about the brain, and in the future it's about the hands and feet, washing the dishes, sweeping the floor, taking care of ......These are all things that robots can do in the future. Zhang Yunquan said. (ENDS).