Francesca Rossi Discusses AI’s Rapid Evolution
The field of artificial intelligence has seen dramatic changes in the two years since Francesca Rossi took on the role of president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI). With her term drawing to a close, Rossi, an IBM Fellow, sat down with Distinguished Research Scientist Murray Campbell to reflect on the transformations she’s witnessed in the field. The discussion provides a glimpse into the significant shifts in AI research and development.
One of the most notable developments, according to Rossi, is the increasing prominence of reasoning models. This includes a deeper examination of what it means for AI to reason, whether AI can truly reason like humans, and why these fundamental questions carry so much weight. From the earliest days, AI reasoning was implemented through hard-coded instructions. However, over the years these static lines of code have been superseded by AI’s emergent capabilities, to the point where it is causing us to re-evaluate the degree of autonomy we should give AI systems.
Rossi and Campbell also addressed several key questions:
- To what extent can AI perform introspection?
- How confident can AI be in its own answers?
- How can AI become more ethically aware?
To gain further insight into the conversation, here is the full discussion between Rossi and Campbell, encompassing their views on the new reasoning capabilities and what these advancements suggest about the direction of future AI research.
