Interview with Fei-Fei Li
In her new memoir, Stanford professor Fei-Fei Li tells her incredible life story while laying out a vision for peacefully coexisting with AI.
The Information
Nov. 4, 2023 6:00 AM PDT
In the most overheated technology debate of our time—the societal impact of artificial intelligence—Fei-Fei Li finds herself precariously balanced in the middle.
A Stanford University computer science professor and co-head of its Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, Li is neither a Geoffrey Hinton–esque doomer, fretting that the machines we’ve created will slaughter us, nor an unbridled techno-optimist (to use Marc Andreessen’s self-identifier), who equates regulating AI with impeding progress as we know it.
Li is instead an enthusiastic cheerleader for AI who sees the wisdom of restraint.
“This technology unleashes incredible potential in scientific discovery, in increasing productivity, in superpowering learning and teaching, in combating climate issues,” she told me last week with a typical double-shot of enthusiasm, chased with an inevitable caveat. “Yet not applied well, it brings a lot of harm.”
Li, 47, has earned her centrism.
(Continue here.)