INFORMATIK 2021

Most of AI in use today falls under the categories of the first two waves of AI research. First wave AI systems follow clear rules, written by programmer, aiming to cover every eventuality. Second wave AI systems are the kind that use statistical learning to arrive at an answer for a certain type of problem. Think of image classification system. The third wave of AI envisions a future in which AI systems are more than just tools that execute human programmed rules or generalize from human-curated data sets. The systems will function as partners rather than as tools. They can acquire human-like communication and reasoning capabilities, with the ability to recognize new situations and to adapt to them. For example, a third wave AI system might note that a speed limit of 120 km/h does not make sense when entering a small village by car. In this talk I shall argue that it is time to usher in the third way of AI. We have deep models, even deep models that know when they do not know. We have the first models that combine learning and reasoning. We have machines that capture our moral compasses. We have machines that engage with us in order to be right for the right reasons.