Dr Lee Kai-fu shares insights into major AI trends and advice for HK Tech 300 AI teams
Dr Lee Kai-fu, an Honorary Doctor of Business Administration from City University of Hong Kong (CityU), a world-renowned AI expert, and Chairman and CEO of Sinovation Ventures, delivered a talk, titled “How AI will Transform the World”, in the latest CityU Distinguished Lecture Series on 16 July. After the talk, Dr Lee, together with other experts from academia and industry, gave some valuable advice to AI start-up teams supported by HK Tech 300, a large-scale flagship innovation and entrepreneurship programme recently launched by CityU.
The talk was held in live-stream and face-to-face formats. Owing to the overwhelming response and the need to comply with Covid-19 preventive measures to maintain social distancing, two additional lecture halls for the live broadcast were used. Over 150 CityU staff, students, alumni and invited guests participated onsite, and about 600 participants worldwide joined online.
AI will transform the world
In his welcome address, Professor Michael Yang Mengsu, Vice-President (Research and Technology) at CityU, said that Dr Lee had not only witnessed and experienced the technology revolution in the past 30 years, but had also been one of the key players in making this history and was a visionary in shaping the future of the technology.
Professor Yang described Dr Lee as a great friend, supporter, and alumnus of CityU. Dr Lee received an honorary doctorate from CityU in 2010 and is a member of the International Advisory Board for the Hong Kong Institute of Advanced Studies at CityU. This is the third Distinguished Lecture Dr Lee has delivered at CityU, following previous lectures in 2010 and 2015.
Dr Lee’s lecture focused on AI applications in various industries and sectors. He also discussed how China has become an AI superpower, with many outstanding technology entrepreneurs and young AI engineers, and strong support from national policies.
He inspired the participants by exploring how AI would reshape the world over the next 10 to 20 years and shared his insights on major future trends. He predicted there would be several mega trends in an AI- and tech-enabled economy. For example, AI will trigger smart, automated business intelligence innovations. As the “World’s Factory”, China will rapidly becoming automated and AI-powered. We will also see the rapid development of automated AI and improvement in production and transaction efficiency, a large reduction in the cost of materials and energy, and so forth, predicted Dr Lee.
The audience seized the opportunity to ask Dr Lee questions, such as how to equip students to cope with the challenges of the AI generation. Dr Lee said that not all students need to become AI engineers, but they need to be equipped with some basic knowledge of AI. He also suggested that everyone think about the things that AI technology cannot replace, such as creativity and empathy. He pointed out that technology will indeed replace some occupations, but he said he believes that AI technology will create new occupations and more development opportunities for young people, while having a more positive effect on our lives and health.
After the lecture, as the honourable advisor for HK Tech 300, Dr Lee joined Professor Joe Qin, Dean of CityU’s School of Data Science, Professor Wang Jianping, from the Department of Computer Science, Professor Caroline C. Wang, from the Business School of The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Dr Geng Yanhui, Director of Huawei Noah’s Ark Lab, and Mr Duncan Chiu, Managing Director of Radiant Venture Capital, to attend a sharing session with six HK Tech 300 AI start-up teams.
Valuable tips for the start-up teams
The six start-up teams were Dayta AI, MediConCen, MindAmp, Zeta Motion, AI Guided and AI Motion. The representatives of each team gave a presentation about their companies and responded to questions from Dr Lee and the other experts, focusing on the companies’ technological innovations, business models, and market potential.
In his concluding remarks, Dr Lee said that the start-up teams had applied exciting AI technology for specific application scenarios and some have achieved initial success.
He gave several suggestions to the start-up teams. First, the company’s development direction should focus on user benefits, and each team should think more about why users would pay for their products and what makes their products are better than others in the market.
Second, the business model should not be too complicated, because sometimes simple is the best solution. He cited an example at Google, “I discussed with engineers how to encourage users to enter more text when searching. Later, an engineer suggested simply making the search bar longer, and that succeeded!”
In addition, Dr Lee reminded the teams to set clear priorities for their company’s sales targets, “because the needs of different targets may contradict with each other”, and one product cannot suit all. Dr Lee also reminded the teams to pay attention to time control when giving presentations and to tailor-make the content of each presentation before practising. The presentation slides should only assist the explanation without too much text. “The listener should focus on you, not the slides,” he said.
As an investor, Dr Lee shared tips for presenting to investors: “You have to work hard to convince investors that once they inject capital, your company will reach the realistic milestones you set to make their investment worthwhile.”
Dr Lee Kai-fu: 30 years of experience in the AI industry
Dr Lee received a Bachelor’s in Computer Science from Columbia University in 1983 and received a PhD from Carnegie Mellon University. In 1988, he built “Othello”, one of the first game-playing programmes to defeat a world champion. While he was with Apple in the 90s, Dr Lee’s AI projects on speech and natural language were featured on the US TV show Good Morning America and on the front page of The Wall Street Journal.
In 1998 he joined Microsoft and founded Microsoft Research China, which was named the hottest research lab in the world by MIT Technology Review. The institute was later renamed Microsoft Research Asia. Dr Lee was subsequently the Vice President of Google, and President of Google China from 2005 to 2009.
In 2009, Dr Lee founded Sinovation Ventures, a leading venture capital firm for next-generation high-tech Chinese companies. He has also served as President of the Sinovation Ventures Artificial Intelligence Institute, which he founded in 2016 as a platform for using state-of-the-art technology to provide enterprises with AI products and solutions.
In 2013, TIME named Dr Lee one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He is Co-chair of the AI Council for the World Economic Forum Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. He holds Honorary Doctorates from CityU and Carnegie Mellon University, and he is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Dr Lee has been in the AI field for more than 30 years. His New York Times and The Wall Street Journal bestselling book AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order discusses US-China co-leadership in the age of AI, as well as the great societal impact of the AI technology revolution. His new co-authored book AI 2041 will be published in fall 2021, exploring how AI will change our world over the next 20 years, echoing the topic “How AI will Transform the World” covered in the latest CityU Distinguished Lecture Series. The Traditional Chinese version of the book was released in July.