Speakers representing various fields introduced newly developed AI algorithms, as well as innovative AI solutions that can benefit our lives in the future. Samsung Electronics livestreamed this year’s forum on its YouTube channel and offered participants – which included engineers, researchers and students in the field of AI – the opportunity to interact with experts during a Q&A session.

Read on for Samsung Newsroom’s recap of the presentations and key topics that took center stage during the two-day event.

Samsung AI Forum Day One

Developing AI That Addresses Common Problems

Hosted by the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT), Samsung’s R&D hub dedicated to cutting-edge future technologies, day one of the Samsung AI Forum began with opening remarks from Dr. Kinam Kim, Vice Chairman and CEO of Samsung Electronics. “Digital transformation has been accelerated in every industry, to which data science and machine learning are essential,” said Dr. Kim. “We at Samsung are open to discussing how to tackle important, common problems with researchers from all over the world, and we hope that the Samsung AI Forum can help facilitate that goal.”

This was followed by a keynote speech from Professor Yoshua Bengio of the University of Montreal, the co-chair of the Samsung AI Forum and a Samsung AI Professor. During his speech, Professor Bengio introduced a new machine learning tool called GFlowNets.

After explaining how the algorithms could be applied to the development of new drugs, he emphasized how “We find that [the model] converges to good solutions faster than other methods, and in addition, it finds a more diverse set of solutions. So this is very encouraging, and we are very excited about the potential applications in discovery in general.” After finishing his speech, the professor discussed ways to apply the algorithms during a Q&A session that featured scientists from around the world.

The keynote was followed by three technology sessions entitled “Scalable & Sustainable AI Computing”, “AI for Scientific Discovery” and “Trustworthy Computer Vision”. During these sessions, leading academics and startups spoke alongside some of Samsung’s top researchers.

Professors Kunle Olukotun of Stanford University, Gerbrand Ceder of the University of California – Berkeley and Antonio Torralba of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shared key findings in their respective areas of AI research. Founders of startups based in Silicon Valley, including Andrew Feldman, CEO of Cerebras Systems, Bryce Meredig, CSO of Citrine Informatics and Daniel Bibireata, Vice President of Landing AI, presented insights on business models for various areas of AI research, as well as future business strategies. Representing Samsung were multiple leading researchers, including Changkyu Choi, Senior Vice President and Head of SAIT’s AI & SW Research Center, who introduced the company’s vision for AI and summarized the progress it has made through its research in the field.

The event also showcased rising talents and researchers in the field of AI. Samsung revealed this year’s five winners of the Samsung AI Researcher of the Year award, which was launched last year to recognize promising global AI researchers.

“I’m especially thankful to my students, whose work is really what’s being rewarded here,” said Professor Phillip Isola of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who received the award. “We’re trying to make progress to make AI systems that are closer to [reaching] human-like [and] animal-like abilities,” he added, describing natural intelligence.

“My research lies at the intersection of computer vision and machine learning, and my overall goal is to create vision systems that are reliable and accessible for everyone,” added Professor Judy Hoffman of the Georgia Institute of Technology.

For the Coexistence of Humans and AI

Day one of the forum closed with a panel discussion in which academics engaged in lively conversations and shared their insights. The panel’s moderator, Youngsang Choi, Vice President of SAIT, introduced topics related to each panelist’s area of expertise. After the discussion, participants were given free rein to ask the panelists questions.

One participant asked the panelists if they believed that it would be possible for AI algorithms to achieve human-level data efficiency in training, to which Professor Antonio Torralba said yes.

“When we think about the data that humans have, it’s not just visual data. They really sense the world through a lot of different mechanisms,” Professor Torralba explained. “Also, humans actually are not passive observers of the world. They are actually interacting with the world and performing all kinds of experiments. I think, in order to achieve [a human-like] level of efficiency, we need to incorporate all of these things and make them really like the main characters of the movie that AI is playing now.”

The panel discussion also offered an opportunity for students majoring in AI-related fields to share their concerns with the experts and receive advice. In the field of AI natural language processing (NLP), for example, the number of parameters is continuously increasing, which means that the costs required to train a model are too. Considering these circumstances, participants discussed which way academic research should be heading.

Professor Bengio concluded the panel discussion by offering some insightful advice to young AI researchers and students. “Don’t be afraid to go in directions that are very different from what has been established as state of the art,” said the professor. “Brain power is the thing that’s really behind innovation and [the] amazing progress that science brings us. So don’t be afraid to try things [and] don’t be afraid to question what has been apparently established for years or decades. That’s how we are all going to make progress.”

Samsung AI Forum Day Two

The Latest AI Research, All in One Place

Day two of the forum was hosted by Samsung Research, Samsung Electronics’ advanced R&D hub, which leads the development of future technologies for its Consumer Electronics and IT & Mobile Communications divisions. Dr. Sebastian Seung, President and Head of Samsung Research, emphasized that “AI is a technology that makes people’s lives better,” and offered an overview of the various AI-related projects that Samsung Research was engaged in, including those related to smartphone cameras, on-device AI, Open Source AI System Software, Machine Translation, and AI technologies for robots. “I’m really looking forward to today’s lectures by leading researchers in AI,” said Dr. Seung, heightening viewers’ expectations.

The day began with a keynote from Professor Leslie Valiant of Harvard University, who offered details on how to augment supervised learning with reasoning. “To make AI work, it takes several components,” Professor Valiant explained. “The first component is identifying which phenomenon or functionality you want to realize.”

Next came lectures delivered by academics who have been actively leading AI research. These include Professor Felix Heide of Princeton University, Research Scientist Been Kim of Google Brain and Professor Max Welling, a research chair in machine learning at the University of Amsterdam and a Distinguished Scientist at Microsoft Research.

AI’s Evolution Into a Tool for Gaining Insights

Day two’s panel discussion saw experts share their opinions on how AI technology will impact people’s lives in the future. The panel’s moderator, Dr. Daniel D. Lee, Executive Vice President and Head of Samsung Research’s Global AI Center, kicked off the discussion with a question.

“The first time AI came into presence, there was a lot of emphasis at that time on logical reasoning,” Dr. Lee explained. “But now, data-driven approaches such as deep neural networks are rising. And what we just heard from Leslie’s talk was [about] how we can actually use the logic [now] in combination with these more advanced neural network techniques. What would be the big advantage of doing that kind of return, in some sense, to logic with neural networks?”

“The idea that both learning and logic are important has been understood for a long time, [albeit separately],” Professor Valiant explained. “We are in a good position because I think the position of learning is now very much advanced. So, we have reason to be confident that there’s a lot of competence that we have as far as learning, and it’s a good basis on which to build logic.”

Researcher Efi Tsamoura of the Samsung AI Center in Cambridge added that “An increasing number of applications for many different areas, from computer vision to natural language processing, are taking advantage of background knowledge in order to build more robust and simpler models. Why is that? It’s because logic provides us with the ability to [complement] missing labels and to use the missing labels in order to train the model.” Tsamoura also pointed out that “An increasing number of researchers from different fields, mostly applied fields, are realizing the potential of logic.”

The discussion also touched on scientific discoveries that have been made with machine learning. “I think it’s worth noting that with the advent of 5G and with 6G coming down the pipe, communication networks have gone from being extremely complicated to super-extremely complicated… and I think the opportunities to optimize and manage the systems to make them even more efficient are vast. So I think there is a great chance to bring machine learning and AI tools to bear on the structure and operation of these communication networks to make them more efficient,” said Gregory Dudek, Head of the Samsung AI Center in Montreal. “We’ve had some very nice success in Montreal in adapting the tools that exist to these relatively new problems for that domain, and [have] actually significantly moved the needle to increase the performance of these systems.”

In order to commercialize machine learning for use in various areas, continuous simulations must be conducted. How then can the gap between simulation results and real-world phenomena be narrowed? Professor Welling shared his thoughts: “[Since simulations do not actually reflect all the complexities of the world,] I think probably the solution is some hybrid solution where you would simulate as much as you can, but you also identify where your system is uncertain about its predictions. And at that point, sort of in an active sense, you are then going to acquire data for that particular problem. So, active sensing might be an interesting solution.”

At the Lightning Talks session, employees from Samsung Research’s Global AI Centers presented some of their latest research including Adaptive Sharpness-Aware Minimization(ASAM), which is a deep learning optimizer developed by Samsung Research, and Named Entity Correction for Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR).

The thoughts and findings that were shared at the Samsung AI Forum indicate that a world in which AI is merged seamlessly with our daily lives may not be that far off. Full replays of both days of the Samsung AI Forum 2021, through which viewers can learn more about the current status of AI technology, its applications, and what the future may hold, can be viewed on the event’s official website and on Samsung Electronics’ YouTube channel.

The second day of the event, hosted by Samsung Research, the advanced R&D hub of the company that leads the development of future technologies for Samsung Electronics’ Consumer Electronics division and IT & Mobile Communications division, facilitated discussion around how industry experts and academics alike can further research into AI technologies that directly impact and enhance the lives of all people. It was livestreamed on Samsung Electronics’ YouTube channel, providing opportunities for researchers and students in the AI field around the world to interact with world-renowned academics through Live Panel Discussions.

AI Forum Day 2: Exploring ‘AI’ in a Human World

Dr. Sebastian Seung, President and Head of Samsung Research, began his opening speech by emphasizing that “Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing every single R&D area of Samsung Research. AI technology was thought impossible, but is now becoming a reality and makes people’s lives better.”

During his speech, which introduced Samsung Research’s various areas of AI research, Dr. Seung explained how on-device AI technology is enabling smartphone cameras to offer users new ways to express their creativity and manage other devices such as TVs and air conditioners. He also provided insights into other applications for AI technology, which includes enabling robot vacuums to automatically create indoor 3D maps, detect obstacles and clean a space accordingly.

Dr. Seung concluded his speech by describing his excitement to see what Samsung’s researchers would be presenting and inviting participants to follow Samsung Research’s Twitter account to learn more about the innovative research that the R&D hub is conducting.

Seung’s speech was followed by presentations from world-renowned AI experts who are leading research in their respective fields.

First, Professor Leslie Valiant of Harvard University, the recipient of the 2010 Turing Award – often referred to as the Nobel Prize of computing – delivered the day’s keynote lecture, entitled “How to Augment Supervised Learning with Reasoning”. Using robust logic as an example, Professor Valiant emphasized that combining supervised learning and reasoning should be a key focus for the next generation of machine learning technology.

Professor Valiant’s keynote was followed by a presentation from Professor Felix Heide of Princeton University. Professor Heide’s presentation, entitled “The Differentiable Camera”, discussed the camera technology that utilizes deep learning to enhance image quality.

Next, research scientist Been Kim of Google Brain delivered a presentation entitled “Interpretability for Skeptical Minds”, in which she shared the latest advancements in interpretable machine learning and proposed directions that this cutting-edge technology should be heading.

The last session of the day was led by Professor Max Welling, a research chair in machine learning at the University of Amsterdam and a Distinguished Scientist at Microsoft Research. During his presentation, entitled “Understanding Matter With Deep Learning”, Professor Welling shared why he is so excited about the scientific breakthroughs that will come from utilizing deep learning in molecular simulation.

Other highlights of Day 2 included a Lightning Talks session, which saw engineers from Samsung Research’s Global AI Center present some of their latest research, and a live panel discussion that was moderated by Dr. Daniel Lee, Executive Vice President and Head of Samsung Research Global AI Center.

In case you missed it, you can watch a full replay of day two of the Samsung AI Forum 2021 by heading to Samsung Electronics’ YouTube channel.

Now in its fifth year, Samsung AI Forum serves as a platform that gathers leading experts to exchange the latest technology trends and research findings. The two-day event held on 1 and 2 November (KST) enabled participants to discuss applications of AI that will make a practical contribution to people’s daily lives. In this year’s AI Forum livestreamed on Samsung Electronics’ YouTube channel, there were opportunities for researchers and students in the AI field around the world to interact with world-renowned academics and experts through Q&A sessions.

Day 1 of Samsung AI Forum was hosted by Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT), Samsung’s R&D hub dedicated to cutting-edge future technologies, under the theme, “AI Research for Tomorrow”.

Day 1 started with opening remarks from Dr. Kinam Kim, Vice Chairman & CEO of Device Solutions at Samsung Electronics, who spoke about the wide-reaching capability of AI to address pressing global issues.

“The advancement of AI is going beyond the electronics industry and expanding to various fields, such as basic science. We expect AI to provide solutions to social issues such as climate change and environmental pollution in the future, but there are still many challenges to tackle to make this possible,” said Dr. Kim.

He also shared his optimism that Samsung AI Forum will be a key venue for experts across the industry to start conversations and collaborate on AI as a means to help humanity on various fronts.

Shining a Spotlight on AI Leaders

Also on Day 1 of Samsung AI Forum, the company announced this year’s winners of the ‘Samsung AI Researcher of the Year’ awards. The awards were launched last year to discover rising AI researchers globally. The awards were presented by Dr. Gyoyoung Jin, President and Head of SAIT, who served as the co-chair for Samsung AI Forum.

This year’s awards went to Professor Diyi Yang (Georgia Tech), Professor Jacob Andreas (MIT), Professor Judy Hoffman (Georgia Tech), Professor Phillip Isola (MIT) and Professor Yarin Gal (Oxford).

“It’s an honor for me to receive the award presented by Samsung to young researchers in the AI field,” said Professor Phillip Isola of MIT. “I’ll put more effort to further develop the current AI system to realize AI that is close to natural intelligence,” he said. Professor Isola is one of the most prominent researchers in computer vision.

Expert Highlights: Keynote Speeches

The keynote on the first day of Samsung AI Forum was given by Professor Yoshua Bengio of University of Montreal, who also served as a co-chair of Samsung AI Forum and is a Samsung AI Professor. In his keynote, entitled GFlowNets for Scientific Discovery, Professor Bengio introduced AI algorithms used within scientific fields such as physics, chemistry and biology. He presented a new algorithm called GFlowNets, which is used to increase the prediction accuracy of experiment and test data.

The keynote lecture was followed by three technology sessions entitled Scalable & Sustainable AI Computing, AI for Scientific Discovery and Trustworthy Computer Vision. In these sessions, leading academics and startups spoke alongside some of Samsung’s top researchers.

Professor Kunle Olukotun of Stanford University in the U.S., who is the co-founder of a promising AI startup called SambaNova Systems, shared his insights on ultra-low power AI computing through an effective data flow architecture in his lecture, Accelerating AI with Dataflow Computing.

Professor Gerbrand Ceder of University of California – Berkeley, who is the founding director of the U.S. federal government-led Material Genome Initiative, which began ten years ago, gave his lecture on AI/Machine Learning in Material Research and the Laboratory of the Future. Professor Antonio Torralba of MIT in Massachusetts, U.S., gave his lecture, Learning to See.

From Samsung, multiple leading researchers, including Changkyu Choi, Senior Vice President and Head of SAIT’s AI & SW Research Center presented the progress and vision regarding Samsung’s research in the AI field. The speakers introduced various AI learning model developments and their applications, and suggested the memory-powered computing architecture, including engineering ultra-low power AI computing for processing AI models and big data.

In addition, founders of startups based in Silicon Valley, including Cerebras Systems shared their insights on business models for different AI research areas and future business strategies.

‘Samsung AI Forum 2021′ can be viewed again on Samsung Electronics’ YouTube channel, and Day 2 AI forum will be held on 2 November.

Stay tuned to Samsung Newsroom for more information on the Samsung AI Forum 2021.

The expert interviewed for the series is Ratnakar Rao V R, who heads the Beyond 5G Team at Samsung R&D Institute India – Bangalore (SRI-B). Rao is soon to complete a decade at SRI-B, and the bulk of his experience has been in the research and development of wireless communication technologies like 4G and 5G. Check out the interview below to find out more about the promising technologies Rao and his team have been working on.

Q: Advanced system software plays a crucial role in activating all kinds of technologies developed to provide better user experiences. How has research into applied AI been factoring into your work within the communications field?

Traditionally, all cellular communication systems were implemented using mathematical models and were strictly rule-based. However, this is now changing in the 5G era due to a few key factors.

Firstly, since a single network has to cater to a number of diverse use cases simultaneously, such systems cannot operate to the best of their capabilities if implemented based only on traditional modeling. Secondly, advances in computation algorithms and processor architectures are making it easier to run AI and machine learning models on a wider range of devices. Thirdly, wireless networks are being virtualized and are getting split into micro-services that run in the cloud. On-Device AI capabilities are also being added to wireless terminals. From 5G onwards, networks will be closely integrated with applications, making it necessary for them to be more contextually aware of users and applications in order to deliver personalized network experiences to all.

All these factors enable and necessitate broader use of AI and machine learning in next-generation wireless networks and terminals.

Q: Can you please briefly introduce SRI-B and the kind of work that goes on there?

The Samsung R&D Institute in Bangalore (SRI-B) has established five Centers of Excellence (CoEs) with the focus areas of Communication, Camera and Multimedia, On-Device AI, IoT and Services. SRI-B has experience executing projects from the research to market stage in each of these areas, and makes impactful contributions to Samsung product lines on the backs of these CoEs every year.

At the Communication CoE, SRI-B has dedicated teams working on mobile terminals, network RAN/core development and wireless standards. Strong synergy between these teams has resulted in the establishment of end-to-end domain expertise. In addition to this, we have recently seeded advanced communication research in a bid to make impactful contributions to Beyond 5G and 6G evolution.

Q: What kind of communication-related work are you and your team engaged in now?

Firstly, our team specializes in radio, data networking protocols and embedded modem system software. We craft the 5G radio experience for different markets around the world. Our team is engaged in the product development of 5G mobile terminals for a range of world-wide markets.

Secondly, we are engaged in advanced research and development surrounding communication protocols. Some of this work makes it into Samsung products as differentiating features and solutions. The rest of our work is aimed at creating standards and implementation IP (intellectual property) pertaining to Beyond 5G and 6G systems.

Q: How do you expect the Beyond 5G era to change the way users interact with technology in their day-to-day lives?

The early launches of non-standalone 5G have unlocked a lot of hitherto unused spectrum in mid and high bands and also enabled the re-farming of the existing 4G spectrum for use with 5G. Thus, the transition to a very high-capacity communication system is underway.

This massive addition of capacity will enable more users to connect more devices to the internet and bring the benefits of connectivity to the masses who live in rural areas. For regular users, these benefits will be evident in terms of very high-resolution streaming, faster downloads and uploads and real-time interactive gaming. They will also see mixed-reality experiences in video streaming and video calls.

The subsequent enhancements to 5G in the coming years will unlock consumer infotainment and a lot of other use cases. For example, the low-power, low-bandwidth features of IoT devices will help public services, the agricultural industry and factories automate for better efficiency. Likewise, satellite-based 5G will provide ubiquitous coverage all over the globe. The highly reliable, low-latency optimizations applied to 5G networks will also enable better remote delivery of services like healthcare and education.

Q: Which of SRI-B’s achievements in the communications field are you most proud of?

We at SRI-B are proud to have played a critical role in the launch of the world’s first 3G, 4G and 5G smartphones. Recently, SRI-B has enabled standalone 5G and 5G carrier aggregation in mobile terminals for commercial use, developed 4G and 5G network software and helped establish MC-PTT (Mission Critical Push to Talk) capabilities.

SRI-B has also been an IP powerhouse for several years. Every year, a number of IPs are created by SRI-B engineers from across the various domains. We have created more than 200 implementation IPs in the area of wireless communication, and more than 100 standard essential IPs in the areas of 4G and 5G.

Q: How does collaborating with other institutes like Samsung Research America, Samsung R&D Institute UK and Samsung Research in Korea complement your work and research capabilities?

We have worked closely with Samsung Research on early technology development and realization of 5G, and are now collaborating on nascent 6G technology development. I strongly believe that a lot of potentials can be unlocked by further collaboration between SRI-B and the teams at Samsung Research America and Samsung R&D Institute UK.

SRI-B has a very large pool of communication engineers, including innovators and domain experts. It is therefore possible to build high-quality teams and execute research promptly. We are actively exploring these possibilities by interacting with R&D leaders at global research centers to enable breakthrough innovations.

Q: How are AI and machine learning being applied to Beyond 5G and 6G wireless communication technology? How do you expect these technology combinations to evolve going forward?

It is widely agreed that AI and machine learning will have a significant influence on network management and radio resource management for Beyond 5G and 6G networks. We envisage AI and machine learning applications being present in block-level AI, procedural AI and system software AI, and are actively researching along these lines.

• • Block-level AI: A specific block in the terminal or network could be added with AI/machine learning without impacting the rest of the system, resulting in performance improvements and/or computation savings. For example, a channel decoder could decide to terminate the decoder iterations early if it is able to predict whether the block decoding will eventually pass or fail.
  • Procedural AI: This is where at least two entities in the end-to-end system exchange information to enable accurate use of AI and machine learning techniques. For example, meta-data needs to be exchanged between the terminal and network for an auto encoder or decoder to work within a margin of error. Another example is mobility management for terminals.
  • System software AI: Most entities in next-gen communication systems will have to operate in several modes. The embedded system software should be able to scale up or scale down system resources very dynamically. AI-assisted embedded system software is expected to learn context-specific requirements and adapt accordingly.

Q: You are a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). What kind of activities are you involved with in this role? How does your position in the IEEE inform your other work?

In this role, I deliver invited lectures and talks on various technology topics for the student communities and teach fraternities at regional engineering colleges. The role has also enabled me to seed new study items internally, allowing us to initiate new collaborations with student communities and faculties from reputed universities.

The aim is to influence as many people as possible to improve their domain expertise and pursue advanced research in the communications field. I also represent Samsung in various talks and discussions with industry, government and academia. My interactions help me stay in touch with the latest trends in various areas adjacent to my area of expertise.

I also encourage my team members to publish their results in outstanding conferences and journals. This year and last year, we have published more than 20 papers in various outstanding forums.

This November 2 and 3, experts, researchers and interested viewers alike convened virtually to share the latest developments in AI research and discussed some of the most pressing and relevant issues facing AI research today.

Making the Best Use of AI in a Rapidly Changing World

AI technologies have developed remarkably in recent years, thanks in no small part to the hard work and diverse research projects being done by academic and corporate researchers alike all around the world. But given the rapid and significant changes brought on by the recent global pandemic, attention has recently been turning to how AI can be used to help solve real-life problems, and what methods might be most effective in order to create such solutions.

The first day of the forum, organized by the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT), was opened with a keynote speech by Dr. Kinam Kim, Vice Chairman and CEO of Device Solutions at Samsung Electronics, who acknowledged the importance of the discussions set to take place at this year’s AI Forum around the past, present and future of the role of AI. Dr. Kim also affirmed Samsung Electronics’ dedication to working with global researchers in order to develop products and services with meaningful real-world impact.

The first day of the Forum then continued with a series of fascinating invited talks given by several global leading academics and professionals. Professor Yoshua Bengio of University of Montreal, Professor Yann LeCun of New York University and Professor Chelsea Finn of Stanford University were the first three to present, following which the Samsung AI Researcher of the Year awards were presented. After this ceremony, SAIT Fellow Professor Donhee Ham of Harvard University, Dr. Tara Sainath of Google Research and Dr. Jennifer Wortman Vaughan of Microsoft Research gave their talks.

Taking AI to the Next Phases of its Development

The first day’s invited talks were followed by a virtual live panel discussion, moderated by Young Sang Choi, Vice President of Samsung Electronics, and attended by Professor Bengio, Professor LeCun, Professor Finn, Dr. Sainath, Dr. Wortman Vaughan and Dr. Inyup Kang, President of Samsung Electronics’ System LSI business. “It is my great pleasure to join this Forum,” noted Dr. Kang. “I feel as if I am standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Questions were given to the panel that invited the experts to discuss the ways in which computational bottlenecks can be overcome in order to take AI systems to the next level and be developed to possess the same intelligibility as the human brain. The panelists weighed the benefits of scaling neural nets as opposed to searching for new algorithms, with Dr. Kang noting that, “We have to try both. Given the scale of human synapses, I doubt that we can achieve the human level of intelligibility using just current technologies. Eventually we will get there, but we definitely need new algorithms, too.”

Professor LeCun noted how AI research is not just constrained by current scaling methods. “We are missing some major pieces to being able to reach human-level intelligence, or even just animal-level intelligence,” he said, adding that perhaps, in the near future, we might be able to develop machines that can at least reach the scale of an animal such as a cat. Professor Finn concurred with Professor LeCun. “We still don’t even have the AI capabilities to make a bowl of cereal,” she noted. “Such basic things are still beyond what our current algorithms are capable of.”

Building on the topic of his invited talk, Professor Bengio added that, in order for future systems to have intelligence comparable to that of the way humans learn as children, a world model will need to be developed that is based on unsupervised learning. “Our models need to act like human babies in order to go after knowledge in an active way,” he explained.

The panel discussion then moved on to the ways in which the community can bridge the gaps between current technologies and future, human-intelligence level technologies, with all the experts agreeing that there is still much work to be done in developing systems that mimic the way human synapses work. “A lot of current research directions are trying to address these gaps,” reassured Professor Bengio.

Next, the panel shared their thoughts on how to make AI ‘fairer’ given the inherent biases possessed by today’s societies, with the experts debating the balance that needs to be struck between systems development reform, institutional regulation and corporate interest. Dr. Wortman Vaughan made the case for introducing a diversity of viewpoints across all parts of the system building process. “I would like to see regulation around processes for people to follow when designing machine learning systems rather than trying to make everyone meet the same outcomes.”

The final question given to the panel asked for their thoughts on which field will be the next successful application area for end-to-end models. “End-to-end models changed the field of speech recognition by reducing latency and removing the need for internet connection,” noted Dr. Sainath. “Thanks to this breakthrough, going forward, you’re going to see applications of end-to-end models for such purposes as long meeting transcriptions. We always speak of having ‘one model to rule them all’, and this is a challenging and interesting research area that has been expanded by the possibilities of end-to-end models as we look to develop a model capable of recognizing all the languages in the world.”

Enhancing Human Experience through AI

The second day of the AI Forum 2020 was hosted by Samsung Research, the advanced R&D hub of Samsung Electronics that leads the development of future technologies for the company’s end-product business.

In his opening keynote speech, Dr. Sebastian Seung, President and Head of Samsung Research, outlined the areas in which Samsung has been accelerating its AI research to the end of providing real-world benefits to their users, including more traditional AI fields (vision and graphics, speech and language, robotics), on-device AI and the health and wellness field.

After showcasing a range of Samsung products bolstered with AI technologies, Dr. Seung affirmed that, in order to best extend the capabilities of AI to truly help people in meaningful ways, academic researchers and corporations need to come together to find best-practice solutions.

Putting the Future of AI into Perspective

Following Dr. Seung’s speech, the second day of the Forum proceeded with a series of invited talks around the theme of ‘Human-Centric AI’ by Professor Christopher Manning of Stanford University, Professor Devi Parikh of the Georgia Institute of Technology, Professor Subbarao Kambhampati of Arizona State University and Executive Vice President of Samsung Research Daniel D. Lee, Head of Samsung’s AI Center in New York and Professor at Cornell Tech.

The expert talks were followed by a live panel discussion, moderated by Dr. Seung and joined by Professor Manning, Professor Parikh, Professor Kambhampati and EVP Lee. Dr. Seung kicked off the discussion with a question about a topic raised in Professor Kambhampati’s speech around the potential issues that could lead to the risk of data manipulation as AI develops. “As AI technology continues to develop, it is important that we stay vigilant about the potential for manipulation and work to solve the issues of any AI systems’ inadvertent data manipulations,” explained Professor Kambhampati.

Dr. Seung then posed a much-requested viewer question to the panel. Given that one of the most practical concerns in AI research is the obtaining of data, the experts were asked whether they believe that companies or academic researchers need to develop new means of handling and managing data. Acknowledging that academics often struggle to secure data while companies possess alleviated data shortage problems yet elevated restraints around the usage of their data, Professor Parikh made a case for the need of new research methods that can be modeled with insufficient data or with cooperation between academia and industry, including open research methods. “In many areas, there are big public data sets available,” she noted. “Researchers outside of companies are able to access and use these. But further to this, some of the most interesting fields in AI today are the ones where we don’t have much data – these represent some of the most cutting-edge problems and approaches.”

The final question took the panel back to the theme of the AI Forum’s second day, ‘Human-Centered AI’, wherein the panelists were asked whether or not they believe that AI will be capable of equaling human intelligence in the next 70 years, since that is the period of time it has taken us to get to where we are today in the field of AI research. EVP Lee reasoned that AI still has a way to go – but that 70 years is a long time. “I am optimistic,” noted EVP Lee, “but there are lots of hard problems in the way. We need to have academics and companies working on a goal like this together.”

“We are currently reaching the limits of the range of problems we can solve using just lots of data,” summarized Professor Manning. “Before we see AI developments like this on a large scale, an area that we should emphasize is the production of AI systems that work for regular people, not just huge corporations,” he concluded.

The Samsung AI Forum 2020 ended with a warm thanks to all the esteemed experts who had taken part in the two-day Forum and a shared hope to hold next year’s Forum offline. All the sessions and invited talks from the AI Forum 2020 are available to watch on the official Samsung YouTube channel.

Samsung Electronics announced today that it will hold the Samsung AI Forum 2020 online via its YouTube channel for two days from November 2nd to 3rd. Marking its fourth anniversary this year, the forum gathers world-renowned academics and industry experts on artificial intelligence (AI) and serves as a platform for exchanging ideas, insights and latest research findings, as well as a platform to discuss the future of AI.

Day 1: AI Technologies for Changes in the Real World

On Day 1, which will be hosted by Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT), Samsung’s R&D hub dedicated to cutting-edge future technologies, Dr. Kinam Kim, Vice Chairman & CEO of Device Solutions at Samsung Electronics will deliver opening remarks. Renowned AI experts will subsequently give presentations under the theme “AI Technologies for Changes in the Real World.”

This year, Dr. Inyup Kang, President of System LSI Business at Samsung Electronics will join the panel discussion with the presenters. Topics for in-depth discussions include: challenges that need to be overcome on a global level through AI technologies over the next decade; limitations that AI faces in tackling real-world issues such as a pandemic or climate change; and whether humans need human-level AI, among other topics.

Day 1 Sessions:

• “Towards Discovering Causal Representations” by Prof. Yoshua Bengio, the University of Montreal
• “Self-Supervised Learning” by Prof. Yann LeCun, New York University
• “Meta-Learning: From Few-Shot Adaptation to Uncovering Symmetries” by Prof. Chelsea Finn, Stanford University
• “Reconstruction of the Brain” by Prof. Donhee Ham, Fellow at the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, Professor at Harvard University
• “Intelligibility Throughout the Machine Learning Life Cycle” by Dr. Jennifer Wortman Vaughan, Microsoft Research
• “End-To-End Models for Speech Recognition” by Dr. Tara Sainath, Google Research

Professor Yoshua Bengio, the winner of the 2018 Turing Award, often referred to as “the Nobel Prize in computing,” is assuming co-chairmanship for the forum, and the newly established “Samsung AI Researcher of the Year” award will be presented at the event.

The awardee of the “Researcher of the Year” honor is selected among global AI researchers under the age of 35 through extensive evaluations and assessments made by AI experts at both Samsung Electronics and renowned academic institutions. On the first day of the forum, the award ceremony will be held to present the USD 30,000 prize and the awardee will give a presentation.

Additionally, Samsung has named Professor Yoshua Bengio as “Samsung AI Professor.” As the co-chair of the forum with Dr. Sungwoo Hwang, President and Head of SAIT, Professor Bengio will utilize his wide networks and expertise in the field of deep learning to broaden cooperation for expanding the boundaries of AI research at Samsung Electronics.

“We have an outstanding set of speakers and discussion topics which promise to shed light on both the limitations of current AI technologies, which raise both practical and theoretical questions, and research directions aimed at reaching human-level intelligence,” said Professor Yoshua Bengio.

Day 2: Human-Centered AI

Day 2 sessions will be hosted by Samsung Research, the advanced R&D hub of the company that leads the development of future technologies for Samsung Electronics’ SET (end-products) Business. Under the theme “Human-Centered AI,” Dr. Sebastian Seung, President and Head of Samsung Research, will deliver the keynote speech, and AI experts who have been actively engaging in AI research activities worldwide will share their insights.

Day 2 Sessions:

• “Natural Language Processing” by Prof. Christopher Manning, Stanford University
• “Vision” by Prof. Devi Parikh, the Georgia Institute of Technology
• “Human Robot Interaction” by Prof. Subbarao Kambhampati, Arizona State University
• “Robotics” by Prof. Daniel D. Lee, Cornell Tech, Executive Vice President at Samsung Research and Head of Samsung AI Center-New York

Professor Christopher Manning, a renowned expert in natural language processing (NLP), will speak on the current status and future of NLP technologies required for Human-Centered AI. He previously delivered the keynote speech at the first Samsung AI Forum in 2017 on the development of neural network-based natural language understanding technology. Samsung has been working with Professor Manning on Q&A and dialogue modeling and will continue to collaborate with him on the overall development of NLP technologies.

After the presentations, Sebastian Seung, a pioneer in AI research based on neuroscience, will preside over an in-depth panel discussion with the four speakers regarding the prospects and future direction of Human-Centered AI.

“We hope that Samsung AI Forum 2020 will contribute to enhanced understanding of AI technology developments and its applications that can bring positive impact to human lives,” said Seung. “Especially since this year’s forum will be held online, I hope that the event will be an opportunity for greater participation of those interested in AI technologies.”

The event will be open to pre-registered attendees. Registration is available through the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology website and the Samsung Research website starting October 6.