Andrew Ng resigns from Baidu to focus on helping AI impact more companies and industries. In his resignation post he mentions the impact AI is having, and will continue to have, on every part of life:
Just as electricity transformed many industries roughly 100 years ago, AI will also now change nearly every major industry — healthcare, transportation, entertainment, manufacturing — enriching the lives of countless people.
And:
The industrial revolution freed humanity from much repetitive physical drudgery; I now want AI to free humanity from repetitive mental drudgery, such as driving in traffic. This work cannot be done by any single company — it will be done by the global AI community of researchers and engineers.
This rings very similar to Kevin Kelly’s TED talk about the second industrial revolution being powered by AI which I linked to in December.
There are so many exciting things happening in science and technology; not the least of which is how quickly AI is improving at all levels. I think out of all the current mainstream implementations I’m most impatient for completely autonomous vehicles.