AI for 2030 and What We Are Doing to Support Its Growth

[Music] good afternoon everyone and uh for those who have remain thank you uh this is going to be the best session of the afternoon so I'm glad you're here um my name is pressure no pressure my name is Yassin biti I'm senior director here at adgm Academy um it gives me great pleasure in welcoming and introducing uh our special guest who's flown over with his team all the way from uh from from the USA uh to be here and to support this session today on AI for 2030 and what are we doing to support its growth it gives me great pleasure to introduce Professor Demetrius bertis Simas who is the vice Provost for open learning at MIT Professor comes to MIT open learning from the MIT SL SLO School of Management where he is an associate Dean for the master of business anal atics program and a professor of operations research Professor has been at the faculty Institute since 1988 after completing his PhD in operation research and Applied Mathematics from MIT so welcome Professor once again it's lovely to have you here mit's Universal ambition goal of training one billion people in AI including the future Workforce and schools within the short modular learning Fields the discovery of growth and world-class opportunities Professor Universal AI aims to democratize education in artificial intelligence what inspired this ambitious vision and how do you see it reshaping the global landscape of opportunity first of all nice to be here um so what uh motivated me so well I've have been first of all an educator all my life 40 years is a long time so um I started in 2013 this is during the area of the muks uh one of the very early muks that was available at the time it was called the analytics Edge this was a class that started using uh real world data applications and so forth uh we launched the class and over a period of a 10 years from then until now it attract about a million people um and uh I I saw the transformative effect I have witnessed by speaking for example a young fellow in New Delhi who approached me thanking me for uh uh taking the class uh he moves from the slums to a job in the IT industry a young lady in Rome uh two years later a mother who has uh uh finished a PhD and then had children stayed home for 10 years and then took the class and found a job in Luxembourg this is just anecdotal evidence but I saw the the the the effect the transformative effect of Education that was one influence the second influence is the the Revolutionary developments in AI today we heard AI almost in every session and um it's no secret that it's changing the landscape so what we have decided this is the major reason I actually accepted the job when I started you know I'm a newcomer I'm not a newcomer to my team I'm a newcomer to this job is to to uh you know we succeeded in a million maybe we can try a billion now uh and the idea would be to educate on the fundamentals using modules sort of horizontal modules where the audience is universal meaning that they are biologist and uh finan you know Finance majors and economic majors and law students so forth and then verticals AI plus X where X is music art uh biology and so forth and all of this aided by uh tutors that are geni has also made significant progress to to support this effort with Gen AI tutors so the combination of this horizontal vertical and tutors for a universal audience I be our aspiration is of course we don't know the future our aspiration is that going to affect the world n MIT being a global institution uh has aspirations to to affect the world more globally excellent thank you so you talk about aspirations then let's come on to accessibility because it's a key pillar so accessibility is a key pillar for Universal AI be be Beyond providing foundational content and knowledge what strategies are you thinking of employing or are employing to make these learning modules more inclusive and effective for Learners especially when we come from diverse backgrounds especially within this region as well y so the idea would be that the we are used to classes you know but that's not the module here these are four lectures is one module uh these are easier to maintain because AI is a very growing field so if a a professor my col the busier colleagues that we have at M are the guys they are huge amounts of uh work that they do so the idea would be to have smaller modules that can be updated as the as the field changes this that's the first strategy the second strategy is to work with institutions okay so as opposed to uh to individual Learners so for example with a university with a financial institution with the hospital and so forth this will give the opportunity through the institutions to to reach a lot of people and finally with a the component of direct uh discussion with the Gen system that you have an immediate uh response uh we feel that the combination will able to achieve its goals and bring it together that's right so there's been a lot of discussion today uh and over the last couple of days and they will be carrying on throughout this week about Ai and and the way it works but also that also uh allows a increase in concerns about Job displacement is AI going to replace me as a functional human being how does Universal AI address these challenges and prepare learners for the future of work and I think Robert from from myyu talked about the future of work Readiness in the earlier session um and how how do you plan on that in not scaring people with the value and what AI can do I don't objective is the exact opposite good is to to educate think about what happened the in the um 100 years ago when machines change change the job environment manual work was not was not useful anymore uh significant things change in society AI will there not independent of what we do AI will will make it has already made a difference it will make it even hard even even jobs will not be so relevant anymore but if you educate the the workforce the young people and so forth in so that AI pumps Parts becomes part of their lives I I can only see good things happening in that they now adapt you know in the financial services which is a topic I I know something about I mean uh understanding for example fraud as you know using AI methods uh accelerating uh the legal contracts using generative AI methods even though I I'm not I do not believe that this will replace what they will do is that they will need different types of people who using Ai and their traditional skills will move their career and their lives and the overall Prof their profession forward so you see it more as an aid as opposed to a disruptor indeed yeah excellent so looking ahead Professor uh what are the biggest obstacles you foresee in the achieving of this Universal AI mission that you have and how will you leverage collaborations and alliances throughout Partnerships to overcome them and ensure that longterm sustainability is this initiative that you're trying to create 1 billion people to educate is 15% of the world's population is not exactly a modest objective some of my colleagues tell me I'm a little bit of a crazy man some of your colleagues are there I mean my colle are they nodding right now or they are they disagreeing with you they are very supportive I would say say but uh you know some of my old friends for 40 years say oh Dimitri says all right but now have moved in the long is that a generational thing or is that something I'm not certain but but you know think about that suppose I tell you you our objective and might his objective is to educate a billion people it sounds a little bit on the crazy side so clearly the the aspiration is high my my view in life is that if you set up a goal to to beat the world record even if you don't beat it but you win the world medal the let's say the Olympics medal it's more permanent actually it's pretty okay yeah so so how do we sustain it so my Fe you know first of all you the The Motto ad might is quality you know the reason we reached a million people before because we build something of quality you know the lady the lady from Singapore mentioned some some characteristics namely uh you know it has to be quality and obviously you you with a seasoned high quality investor obviously you try to do that the asynchronous character is also so that people can can uh access this material at any point and so forth I recognize the the the message the the music but we're going to we're going to carry on because I think I owe that to you for you know we we'll carry on so um so I hope you can hear me in addition to the music but uh the the asynchronous character the quality of the material the idea that you have an immediate response with an AI tutor you know we have already built something it's not perfect yet but every month that passes using the knowledge it's improving I mean at the moment I I have experienced it myself uh I have observed that it can give you very good advice on the topics in question the combination of this the fact that the entire it has about 1100 faculty you know so far we have uh I have uh convinced about 15 20 of my colleagues MIT people are intelligent people okay so are intelligent people my hope would be as as this becomes bigger and bigger more people would come with us and also the the role of Institutions we have dialogues ourselves I mean my belief and clearly I see the aspirations here you you guys have high aspirations as well this is one of my objectives to what is the the nature you try to understand me I try to understand you well we me we talked about that yeserday as in a collaboration in two ways I I feel institutions uh especially highly aspiring institutions uh are capable to um to especially with high quality programs adaptable and so so forth I mean this is where the beted is you know we we are launching we hope in may we have partner institutions we hope um UAE would be one of our partners uh and uh I hope and expect by the way and um we are optimistic I'm an entrepreneur right entrepreneurs are optimistic people of course I believe I will succeed I have succeeded in everything I've done it's not the time to start failing excellent no inshallah you won't so Professor just uh uh something that we it's not scripted but just from your own experience of being here for the last 24 sort of 48 Hours your experience F1 included um in terms of the whole topic of AI and where you see this region where you see the UAE moving forward and what you've heard what excites you right now so my I have to admit my knowledge of a place is limited I've been to a fancy event with Formula 1 a fancy event here I've seen the festivities so to speak but but I have observed the F you came at the right time then okay but I have observed I mean I have white hair no I have so I have observed a country that is highly aspiring yeah and particular the institution that you represent is aspiring to help and educate people that's definitely I I also see the the pares you announced a very high quality investor a country I have worked with Singapore I have five of my students are professors in Singapore so it's similar in a way so I see high aspiration I see resources uh dedication these are very good we also have I have experience I mean my my colleagues at MIT have experience with uh doing joint work with you everything very positive so my suspicion is if not here where else I mean you know I I expect that this would be one of our flagships uh flag programs and and to be honest I have Singapore in mind also well on that note I mean there are many many questions and I'd love to open up this to to the the people within the audience but I know I can't but what we will have tomorrow within adgm Academy is a session with Professor so you are more than welcome to attend come ask meet engage with the professor um to understand a little bit more about that meet with any of the academy team we can tell you further details about that but one of the things I'd like to tell you now is that we are so excited as M as adjm Academy to announce that adjm Academy and MIT XPR will be signing a strategic Alliance today um this is the first of its kind in the region that's why we're so excited to have professor and his team here in supporting this initiative we're immensely proud of this and I thank the uh their excellencies our board welcoming this promoting this hammed our chairman saw our CEO as well in driving this so we'd all like to welcome you and invite you to the signing of this Anor it's at what time 4:00 5:00 inshah 5:00 outside but Professor thank you it's been wonderful talking to you and thank you very much your excellencies thank you [Music]