Innovators Under 35
I11. Olga Russakovsky, 31
Princeton
University
Employed crowdsourcing to vastly
improve computer-vision system.
“It’s
hard to navigate a human environment without seeing,” says Olga Russakovsky, an
assistant professor at Princeton who is working to create
artificial-intelligence systems that have a better understanding of what
they’re looking at.
A
few years ago, machines were capable of spotting only about 20 objects—a list
that included people, airplanes, and chairs. Russakovsky devised a method,
based partly on crowdsourcing the identification of objects in photos, that has
led to AI systems capable of detecting 200 objects, including accordions and
waffle irons.
Russakovsky
ultimately expects AI to power robots or smart cameras that allow older people
to remain at home, or autonomous vehicles that can confidently detect a person
or a trash can in the road. “We’re not there yet,” she says, “and one of the
big reasons is because the vision technology is just not there yet.”
A
woman in a field dominated by men, Russakovsky started AI4ALL, a group that
pushes for greater diversity among those working in artificial intelligence.
While she wants greater ethnic and gender diversity, she also wants diversity
of thought. “We are bringing the same kind of people over and over into the
field,” she says. “And I think that’s actually going to harm us very seriously
down the line.”
If
robotics are to become integral and integrated into our lives, she reasons, why
shouldn’t there be people of varying professional backgrounds creating them,
and helping them become attuned to what all types of people need?
Russakovsky
took a rather conventional path from studying mathematics as an undergrad at
Stanford, where she also earned a PhD in computer science, to a postdoc at
Carnegie Mellon. But, she suggests, “We also need many others: biologists who
are maybe not great at coding but can bring that expertise. We need
psychologists—the diversity of thought really injects creativity into the field
and allows us to think very broadly about what we should be doing and what type
of problems we should be tackling, rather than just coming at it from one
particular angle.”
—Erika Beras
—Erika Beras
MIT TECHNOLOGY REVIEW
No comments:
Post a Comment