Expert opinions shared at WAIC over the years

Over the past eight years, the World Artificial Intelligence Conference has brought together more than 8,100 top scholars, industry leaders, technical experts and practitioners from around the world. It serves not only as an annual benchmark for the global AI industry but also as a highland for the convergence of cutting-edge ideas and trend predictions.

Over the course of the past eight WAIC sessions, luminaries have made a series of AI-related observations and predictions concerning technology, computing power, industry and the global landscape. Many of these observations have developed into new reality. Their insights not only capture the spirit of the era but also delineate the developmental trajectory of China's AI journey.

2018

Thought: Don't compete with Google, Baidu and Microsoft in general AI; focus on the areas where you are already highly skilled.

Andrew Ng, founder of DeepLearning.AI

2019

Thought: Over time AI will make jobs kind of pointless. I would recommend studying engineering, physics or working on something where people just want to interact with other people.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX

2020

Thought: To ensure AI is used for good, it is essential to make artificial intelligence understandable, controllable and reliable.

Ma Huateng, chairman and CEO of Tencent

2021

Thought: How to achieve collaboration between artificial agents and human agents is a challenge that goes far beyond the scope of human-computer interaction.

Joseph Sifakis, Turing Award laureate

2022

Thought: Mathematics is the cornerstone of AI technology development, and conversely, the advancement of AI can also provide significant support for mathematical research.
Shing-Tung Yau, Fields Medal laureate and dean of Tsinghua's Qiuzhen College

2023

Thought: Today's large language models are not the path to AGI (artificial general intelligence); self-supervised learning is. Chat-GPT does not truly understand the real world, and world models are the next key direction.

Yann LeCun, Turing Award laureate

2024

Thought: Compared to existing foundation models, application models are not performing well enough. With the current computing power, our foundation models are not good enough. Compared to the existing power supply, our computing power is not sufficient. Therefore, there is no need to worry about power issues.

Wang Jian, academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering

2025

Thought: Major countries should build an international network to study how to train AI systems to be content with assisting humans — rather than replacing or destroying them — even if AI becomes vastly more intelligent than people.

Geoffrey Hinton, Turing Award and Nobel Prize in physics laureate