The PPT is wrong and irrelevant to the content Lu Qi: Already foreseeing the trend and trend of AI

Leifeng.com's AI technology commentary: On June 8, Baidu Group President and COO Lu Qi appeared at the iQiyi World Conference. This was also Lu Qi's first public appearance at a series of Baidu events. There was no fire, but because of a PPT error, the entire circle of friends was maxed out. Leifeng.com, as an attitude media, pays more attention to the content of the speech itself rather than PPT errors. In fact, the content of Lu Qi’s PPT speech has already had a framework in his mind half a year ago.

Judging from yesterday's live scene, the focus of the PPT speech is on:

• First, we are entering the era of artificial intelligence, and the current era is very similar to the industrial revolution. The first industrial revolution was mechanization, the second electrification, the third informationization, and the fourth intelligence. (This time the industrial revolution is far greater than the previous ones in terms of scale, breadth and depth of impact on everyone's life and the entire society, because the core of intelligence this time is to acquire knowledge through perception, which is The revolution of knowledge, through knowledge to achieve what we want to achieve.)

• Baidu is no longer an Internet company, Baidu is an artificial intelligence company. (And regard AI as Baidu's core competence, and think that in AI thinking, in AI thinking, the most important thing is data, which is the carrier of knowledge, and algorithm is the core ability to acquire knowledge. Data + algorithm brings new users experience, bring new business value, and the rapid iteration of the overall closed loop is the core of AI thinking.)

• Baidu is the company most capable of entering AI. This is definitely not an accident of history, because our core business is search.

• There are many business opportunities in the AI ​​era. The first is to transform traditional industries and turn data into knowledge. In addition, automation solutions also contain unlimited opportunities, affecting every industry. The second is to create new categories, such as dialogue AI-style platforms, equipment and services, automation equipment and systems, including smart homes, unmanned vehicles, robots, etc.; third, improve the IT industry and embed AI capabilities in existing equipment and services.

• Some of Baidu's new businesses in the field of artificial intelligence include intelligent cloud business, financial business, unmanned driving business, and human-computer interaction platform.

Outsiders may be surprised that when Lu Qi made his public appearance at a Baidu event for the first time, he issued a shocking view that Baidu "is no longer an Internet company, Baidu is an artificial intelligence company". To some extent, behind this view There must be a strong logical system to pave the way to support the entire content framework of today's talk. But sharp-eyed netizens immediately discovered that on November 17, 2016, a little over two months after Lu Qi left Microsoft, he wrote the following passage in his personal blog

Secular trends and megatrends

At the beginning of these few articles, I intend to write out my thoughts for a long time. It is the fundamental and intrinsic link between computing and human progress. In my view, our history is driving a long but inevitable wave of computing and digital society. The next big wave will be the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution. So far, computing power has completed the transformation of our society at a very high level, which can be summarized as "information flows at the fingertips", "PC occupies everyone's home and office" and "smartphone enters everyone's pocket". Likewise, the core essence of the next wave can be summed up as "knowledge is in every system, intelligence is in every interaction.  … To start this idea, I wrote an outline."

Leifeng.com randomly selected a few pages of the 46-page PPT outline, and found many shadows related to this speech.

1. The core of artificial intelligence is the knowledge revolution and intellectual revolution

From the perspective of the entire history, when human beings discover new knowledge and have new innovations, there will be huge opportunities for social and economic development. Today, the development of artificial intelligence has enabled machines to work with humans and help humans discover new knowledge. In theory, humanity will progress faster than at any point in history. In the scientific world, it is worth discussing how artificial intelligence can ignite the fire of the "Renaissance" in the scientific world. In education, artificial intelligence will give birth to a new generation of teaching methods, and personalized learning is the trend. After thousands of years of continuous attempts, human beings can finally rely on advanced technology to learn by themselves and educate future generations. In medicine, artificial intelligence will digitize the human body. For example, genomics can go far beyond the current diagnostic level, and will eventually evolve into personalized medicine. In terms of environmental protection, through more advanced sensing equipment, artificial intelligence and big data will help humans better protect the environment.

Lu Qi mentioned in the four industrial revolutions mentioned at the beginning of his speech--this time the industrial revolution is far greater than the previous ones in terms of scale, breadth and depth of impact on everyone's life and the entire society. Several times, because the core of intelligence this time is to acquire knowledge through perception, which is a revolution in knowledge, and achieve what we want to achieve through knowledge. Is it familiar?

2. Huge market opportunity

• New computing experience platform (with dialogue as the platform), such as dialogue robot, NL dialogue UI, personal assistant for generalized information and services.

• New computing device platforms (catalysis and warming up of artificial intelligence technology), such as Amazon's Echo speaker, Google's home device platform, virtual reality devices, mixed reality devices, and augmented reality devices.

• Future jobs supported by artificial intelligence: intelligent systems with professional functions, such as marketing sales, after-sales service, lawyers, analysts, doctors

• Future physical systems powered by artificial intelligence: smart homes, smart communities, smart factories, smart schools, smart cities, and more.

• Future AI-supported service platforms/ecosystems (structured SCS framework): business systems (eg, Microsoft 365), urban transportation systems (eg, Uber), logistics systems (eg, Amazon)

• Industries where AI will heat up in the future: Healthcare (e.g., diagnosing conditions through computational genomics), finance (better services through better data and models), manufacturing (advanced intelligent automation)

• AI will improve and enhance existing computing devices, applications/services and infrastructure. Make existing PCs, mobile phones, and applications more intelligent and convenient to connect. Make infrastructure smarter and more efficient.

• Artificial intelligence will advance the generation of new automatic computing systems, such as self-driving cars, self-driving drones, and self-driving ships. The robot industry will also be divided into more detailed, such as industrial robots, household robots, and special-purpose robots in special scenarios.

Lu Qi mentioned in the AI ​​era that there are many business opportunities -------- the first is to transform traditional industries and turn data into knowledge. In addition, automation solutions also contain unlimited opportunities, affecting every The second is to create new categories, such as conversational AI platforms, equipment and services, automation equipment and systems, including smart homes, unmanned vehicles, robots, etc.; Embed AI capabilities in services and services. Is it familiar?

3. How to turn these visions into reality

First, he argues that equity holders need to work together to create a favorable macro environment that fosters innovation. You should start from the following aspects:

Data and Data Access

• All data come from "data generation models and processes" that encapsulate knowledge that can be mined through learning and analysis.

• Data is a strategic asset for any organization, especially for governments, and policies to capture data and enable it to access more innovation (it can be seen as a new form of "nature resource").

• Certain data sets can have a lot of knowledge mining capacity, especially when it is combined with other data, making these data more accessible to businesses, entrepreneurs, researchers, which is an important factor to make it progress faster factor.

Tools and Platforms

• The AI ​​wave will require new silicon + software stacks. More importantly, making tools and building platforms, such as TensorFlow open source, can enable developers and innovators to access at an early stage.

•Moving forward requires continuous efforts to lower the barriers to participation and systematically provide more tools for all developers

Market conditions and policy regimes

•It is important to cultivate market conditions and policy systems in such a way that innovators can quickly create products for users, because the cycle of reform requires fast feedback, "data knowledge→smart experience→users→more data".

talents

• The above needs will naturally lead to the problem of talent shortage. Education and training more and more data scientists and people who can do machine learning algorithms is the key.

When talking about AI as Baidu’s core competence, Lu Qi mentioned that in AI thinking, the most important thing is data, which is the carrier of knowledge. Algorithms are the core ability to acquire knowledge. Data + algorithms bring new The core of AI thinking is the rapid iteration of the overall closed-loop. Is it familiar?

When Lu Qi talked about Baidu's talent system, he mentioned that we have a nationally leading artificial intelligence talent system, a global scale research institute, a nationally leading in-depth laboratory, and a first-class research institute in Silicon Valley, attracting Top talent around the world. Is it familiar?

4. Establish progress management for everything

In his view, it is very important to have structural patterns, systematically promote high performance goals, and an organized effort for a movement to seize the artificial intelligence revolution to make greater progress. Specifically, it can be divided into three steps:

• Setting direction (mission and vision; strategic blueprint)

• Achieve phase progress (block implementation: technology map, product map, business map, talent and other supporting function maps)

• Manage long-term goals (starting with management and corporate culture)

These contents are not what Lu Qi said on the spot, but as a new group president who has just come to Baidu for more than 100 days, he promoted Baidu's unmanned driving Apollo project in one go, DuerOS's attack in the entertainment scene, attended the iQiyi World Conference, and outlined Baidu's huge blueprint after transforming into an artificial intelligence company, this iron-fisted execution must be related to the PPT above. But what is more eye-catching about this PPT is that Lu Qi wrote in the preface on page 3:

I have a strong urge to write and share this, because in the past two decades, I have been lucky to have access to a wide variety of technologies, products, and businesses that were at the forefront of the industry at that time. I hope these thoughts of mine can help those who are chasing the next wave.

If you want to gain insight into what Lu Qi will do in Baidu in the future, if you want to understand this sonorous understanding of the potential of AI in the business field, I recommend you to read this 45-page PPT carefully.

Part of the above content comes from qilu.ai, edited and organized by Leifeng.com