AI researcher: „Understand current learning systems better, instead of developing new fancy algorithms“
Ramin Hasani is one of the leading AI researchers in Austria. He has completed a bsc at Ferdowsi univ of mashhad, Iran, an MSc in Politecnico di milano and now finishing a phd at TU Wien. He has also been a visiting research scholar at MIT. In Vienna, he is developing interpretable machine-learning algorithms.
On October 20th, he will do a talk at the sold out TEDx Vienna conference. Trending Topics spoke with Hasani about his work, how AI will impact education, healthcare and medicine and what researchers and companies should focus in in the European Union right now.
Trending Topics: Your research focus is on developing interpretable machine-learning algorithms. What should these algorithms be able to do?
AI is used today in several digital products. What is the best usecase so far in your opinion?
In the future, which are the areas where AI will be most important?
Recently the AMS announced that algorithms will rate the potential of jobless people. Will that work?
Yes. That is possible, assuming one has access to proper and fair data in that specific domain.
A lot of companies claim to work with AI. What is real AI, and what should not be called AI?
Europe seems to fall behind after the US and China in terms of AI development. Should European developers and companies focus on a special area of AI?
Which role can Austria play in the future development of AI?
The first step would be national interdisciplinary collaborations. In Austria, we have so many pioneer research groups in computer science, neuroscience, math and physics, that could gather together to discuss fundamental AI questions. Such environments can presumably result in reciprocal benefits with industrial partners, too. The second step is to internationally collaborate with governments with the aim of designing new structures for education, especially lifelong learning, enhancing people’s digital skills, development of fair AI, and to promote AI for good.
There are a lot of ethical questions around AI. What should AI never be allowed to do?
Do you think that the algorithms that work with AI should be made transparent to the users?
