Exploring the future of AI with Sasha Przybylski, Activator, The Knowledge Society (TKS)

Ahead of World Summit AI Americas (24th-24th April 2024, Palais de congrès de Montréal, Montréal), we asked Sasha Przybylski, Activator at The Knowledge Society (TKS), her thoughts on the future of AI.

If you could solve any global problem in the world with AI, what would it be and why?

I would want to solve the problem of battery waste. In particular, I think AI has a lot of potential for dynamic cell balancing within an EV battery pack. This can help to optimize battery function, and can also make second life batteries more feasible. The main issue right now is that the batteries degrade at different rates, and so we need really complicated algorithms to be able to use those batteries in a second life. I think AI can help with a lot of different BMS functionalities, which would serve to help us navigate the fine line between battery failure and maximum performance.

What do you think are the 3 most important things for businesses in relation to AI at the moment?
  

I'd argue that most business who don't adopt AI will be out-competed. With the aid of AI, things can be done so much faster, meaning competition will become even more intense. I would also say it's important for businesses to secure proper datasets - the companies with data to train these models will get better results. And then for the final thing, I would say data privacy - if companies are collecting user data, they will need to make sure that data is secure.

 

 

What do you think are the 3 most important things for humanity in relation to AI at the moment?

 

AI safety, explainable AI, and computation. AI safety is crucial because if we mess this up, it could be dire. Explainable AI is important because a lot of AI appears to be a "black box," and so we don't actually understand where the outputs came from, preventing us from catching errors or learning. And computation because these algorithms will demand more and more energy and storage as they become more complex. If we don't improve upon semiconductor technology, computational time will start to grow.

 

 

How do you think AI will make its biggest mark in the next 5, 10, 20 years?

  

I've seen so many different articles and videos talking about the impact of AI. To me at least, it still seems quite uncertain. I think that AI and hardware will become an interesting area, as most software solutions seem to have already integrated AI. Whether that be robotics, chemical simulations, or something I couldn't even imagine. I think this will also help reduce the amount of repetitive manual work being done. I could see that being a large field in 5/10 years, as for the next 20 years, I think it would be interesting if we could use AI to help make decisions with a ton of factors - things that are affected by socioeconomic and political factors. Things like poverty, climate change, etc - I could see us making algorithms that could help create completely novel solutions to these massive problems.

 

Which 2 people do you admire most in the world of AI in terms of their work?

  

Brooke Joseph, she is working on Federated Learning for Data Privacy. Also, Alishba Imran, she is working in Machine Learning, and currently working in Computational Chemistry at Berkeley.

 

What are you most excited about taking part in the WSAI Series?

 

Meeting interesting people working in AI, and learning more about the forefront of the field. Artificial Intelligence is going to be (and already is!) huge, and I'm so grateful for this opportunity to learn from industry experts.

 

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Follow Sasha on X, and connect with her on LinkedIn

 

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