Artificial Intelligence (AI) can serve as an instrument of humankind, rather than a threat, Aja Huang (黃士傑) — one of the key developers of Google’s AI program AlphaGo — said yesterday at the first Taiwan AI conference in Taipei.
Huang talked about the most impressive moments in the program’s evolution at the two-day conference hosted by Taiwan Data Science Foundation and Academia Sinica’s Institute of Information Science.
AlphaGo, a computer program developed by Google’s DeepMind Technologies, has revolutionized ideas about machine learning after it beat Lee Sedol, a South Korean professional 9 dan ranked player, 4-1 in March last year.
It claimed an even more significant victory when it defeated the world’s best go player since 2014, Ke Jie (柯潔), in May.
Its triumph over Lee is a small step for the team, but a giant step for humankind, Huang said yesterday, quoting Demis Hassabis, the founder and chief executive officer of DeepMind Technologies.
Recalling the game with Ke in Wuzhen, China, Huang said it turned out to be a pleasant and constructive experience.
“The two games in South Korea and in China are different, in that Ke Jie was smiling during the game,” Huang said. “In contrast, [the game with] Lee was extremely stressful, because he seemed to be fighting [the AI program] on behalf of humanity.”
While the original AlphaGo was developed by learning from human experiences, its more advanced version, AlphaGo Zero, which was launched last month, is said to have achieved superhuman proficiency based solely on reinforcement learning without the input of human data.
Their research was published in a paper titled “Mastering the game of Go without human knowledge” in the journal Nature on Oct. 18.
AlphaGo Zero has outsmarted all of its past learning, Huang said, adding: “It is a trend, and i cannot stop its growth.”
Nonetheless, AI is not being developed to combat humankind, but can serve as an instrument, Huang added.
Also speaking at yesterday’s conference, Minister of Science and Technology Chen Liang-gee (陳良基) said the ministry is to allocate NT$5 billion in five years to establish four AI innovative research centers at National Taiwan University, National Tsing Hua University, National Chiao Tung University and National Cheng Kung University, with the aim of cultivating about 3,000 researchers each year.
In addition to computers, self-driving cars, robots and data science are key application areas for AI, while the ministry is to build two AI robot maker spaces in Taichung and Tainan, he said.
It will also propose a bill on unmanned vehicles to the Legislative Yuan by the end of this year, he added.
Trend Micro Inc research and development department senior architect Daniel Cheng said he welcomes the government’s assistance in AI development, even though the company had started five or six years ago.
The government should provide businesses with more open data, which is essential to the development of AI, he said.
In related news, Academia Sinica has established a Taiwan AI Academy, with Harvard computer science professor Kung Hsiang-tsung (孔祥重) as president.
Application for the school is open for university graduates until Dec. 4.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the