Digital Event Horizon
Creating a more inclusive AI ecosystem requires the establishment of new institutions dedicated to collaborative research and development. Prof. Timothy Baldwin's journey to MBZUAI highlights the importance of fostering an environment that encourages collaboration across disciplines and linguistic communities, ensuring that AI benefits everyone worldwide.
The world of artificial intelligence is on the cusp of a revolution that promises to transform industries, societies, and individual lives. The rewards of AI development are increasingly concentrated in the hands of a select few countries, highlighting the need for rethinking traditional models of innovation and collaboration. Large language models (LLMs) perform poorly with languages other than English, Chinese, and a handful of European languages, exacerbating the linguistic diversity gap. The establishment of new institutions dedicated to collaborative research and development is crucial to address the needs of diverse linguistic communities. MBZUAI's interdisciplinary approach, attracting top researchers from diverse backgrounds, fosters exchange, understanding, and innovation. The university's emphasis on collaboration across disciplines and linguistic communities pushes the boundaries of AI research and development. Initiatives like the Institute of Foundational Models and collaborations with tech companies aim to make AI development truly inclusive.
The world of artificial intelligence (AI) is on the cusp of a revolution, one that promises to transform industries, societies, and individual lives. However, as the rewards of AI development are increasingly concentrated in the hands of a select few countries, it has become imperative to rethink the traditional models of innovation and collaboration. The advent of large language models (LLMs) is a stark reminder of this disparity, with many of the most popular multilingual LLMs performing poorly with languages other than English, Chinese, and a handful of other European languages.
The situation is even more poignant when considering the vast linguistic diversity of our global community. Approximately 6,000 languages are spoken today, with many of them in communities in Africa, Asia, and South America. Arabic alone is spoken by almost 400 million people, while Hindi has 575 million speakers around the world. The fact that LLaMA 2 performs up to 50% better in English compared to Arabic highlights the significant gap in AI development between these regions.
In this context, it is more crucial than ever to create new institutions dedicated to collaborative research and development, specifically tailored to address the needs of diverse linguistic communities. This is precisely what Prof. Timothy Baldwin has done by joining the Mohammed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) in Abu Dhabi, a world-first research university focused entirely on AI.
The history of Silicon Valley, once known as Santa Clara Valley and home to prune farms, serves as a fascinating case study. The region's reputation as a hub for technological innovation was catalyzed by Stanford University, which had built a reputation as one of the best places in the world to study electrical engineering. Through government-led investment and focused research, the university birthed countless inventions that advanced computing and created a culture of entrepreneurship.
Today, we have an opportunity to build a new technology hub centered around a university, drawing inspiration from MBZUAI's predecessor in Santa Clara Valley. This new institution is not only a reflection of our commitment to inclusive AI development but also a testament to the power of collaboration across disciplines. By attracting top researchers from diverse backgrounds and fostering an interdisciplinary approach, we can create a community that truly pushes the boundaries of AI research and development.
MBZUAI's student body comprises individuals from more than 50 different countries around the globe, creating a unique ecosystem that fosters exchange, understanding, and innovation. The university has attracted renowned researchers such as Monojit Choudhury from Microsoft, Elizabeth Churchill from Google, Ted Briscoe from the University of Cambridge, Sami Haddin from the Technical University of Munich, and Yoshihiko Nakamura from the University of Tokyo.
These scientists have found a common purpose at MBZUAI through our interdisciplinary nature, relentless focus on making AI a force for global progress, and emphasis on collaboration across disciplines such as robotics, NLP, machine learning, and computer vision. The university has also built departments in sibling areas that contribute to and benefit from AI, including human computer interaction, statistics and data science, and computational biology.
One of the most significant initiatives undertaken by MBZUAI is its Institute of Foundational Models, which has created LLM360, an initiative designed to level the playing field of large model research and development. By publishing fully open-source models and datasets that are competitive with closed-source or open-weight models available from tech companies in North America or China, we can ensure that AI development is truly inclusive.
The collaboration between MBZUAI and Abu Dhabi-based tech company G42 on Jais, an Arabic-centric LLM that is the highest-performing open-weight Arabic LLM, is a shining example of this commitment to inclusivity. Similarly, the university's partnership with NANDA on advanced Hindi LLM demonstrates its dedication to bridging the language gap in AI development.
In conclusion, the establishment of MBZUAI represents a bold step towards creating new institutions dedicated to collaborative research and development. By fostering an inclusive environment that encourages collaboration across disciplines and linguistic communities, we can unlock the full potential of AI to transform industries, societies, and individual lives for the better.
Related Information:
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/10/29/1106130/cultivating-the-next-generation-of-ai-innovators-in-a-global-tech-hub/
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/07/how-to-build-the-next-generation-of-artificial-intelligence-talent/
Published: Tue Oct 29 10:10:10 2024 by llama3.2 3B Q4_K_M
