De Kai is the pioneering AI professor who invented and built the web’s first global online language translator that spawned Google Translate, Yahoo Translate, and Microsoft Bing Translator.
De Kai holds a joint appointment at HKUST’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering and at Berkeley’s International Computer Science Institute, and is Independent Director of AI ethics think tank The Future Society.
Subscribe free to preview Raising AI even before De Kai’s blockbuster book on AI and humanity from MIT Press is released June 3 via Penguin Random House, and keep updated with De Kai.
Geoffrey Hinton, Nobel laureate, godfather of deep learning: “It was stimulating for me to consider what De Kai has to say about the future of AI, particularly his idea that we have already lost our autonomy.”
MC Hammer, hip hop pioneer, tech entrepreneur: “De Kai’s weekly online deep dives on AI ethics — many of which I co-moderated — drew tens of thousands of followers and went into legendary lengths of 10, 25, and even 55 hours. We spent untold hours, in fact days, unpacking complex issues that have become crucial in our times. If you missed these sessions on Clubhouse, read this book. And if you caught these sessions, it’ll be a joy to read this book anyway.”
Order Raising AI, Amazon’s top June release in Social Impact of Technology, from MIT Press via Penguin Random House.
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De Kai is Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at HKUST, and Distinguished Research Scholar at Berkeley’s International Computer Science Institute. He is an independent director of AI ethics think tank The Future Society.
De Kai is among only 17 scientists worldwide named by the Association for Computational Linguistics as a Founding ACL Fellow, for his pioneering contributions to machine translation and machine learning foundations of systems like the Google/Yahoo/Microsoft translators.
Recruited as founding faculty of HKUST directly from UC Berkeley, where his PhD thesis was one of the first to spur the paradigm shift toward machine learning based natural language processing technologies, he founded HKUST’s internationally funded Human Language Technology Center which launched the world’s first web translator over twenty years ago.
De Kai’s cross-disciplinary work relating music, language, intelligence, and culture centers on enabling cultures to relate, and stems from a liberal arts perspective emphasizing creativity in both technical and humanistic dimensions.
A native of St Louis, De Kai worked and traveled extensively in San Francisco, New York, Germany, Spain, China, India and Canada before joining Hong Kong’s ambitious creation of Asia’s now top-ranked HKUST.
His pioneering contributions to machine learning of the cognitive relationships between different languages led to the foundations of modern machine translation technology, with broad applications in computer music and computational musicology as well as human language processing.
During his doctoral studies in cognitive science, artificial intelligence and computational linguistics at Berkeley, he worked on seminal projects on intelligent conversational dialog agents. His PhD dissertation employing maximum entropy to model human perception and interpretation of ambiguities was one of the first to spur the paradigm shift toward today’s state-of-the-art statistical natural language processing technologies.
De Kai also holds an executive MBA from Kellogg (Northwestern University) and HKUST. His undergraduate degree at UCSD was awarded cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, and won the liberal arts oriented Revelle College’s department award.
De Kai was named by Debrett’s HK 100 as one of the 100 most influential figures of Hong Kong. In 2019, Google named De Kai as one of eight inaugural members of its AI Ethics council, ATEAC (Advanced Technology External Advisory Council).
De Kai is Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at HKUST and Distinguished Research Scholar at Berkeley’s International Computer Science Institute. He is Independent Director of AI ethics think tank The Future Society, and was one of eight inaugural members of Google’s AI ethics council.
De Kai invented and built the world’s first global-scale online language translator that spawned Google Translate, Yahoo Translate, and Microsoft Bing Translator.
For his pioneering contributions in AI, natural language processing, and machine learning, De Kai was honored by the Association for Computational Linguistics as one of only seventeen Founding Fellows and by Debrett’s as one of the 100 most influential figures of Hong Kong.
Recruited as founding faculty of HKUST directly from UC Berkeley, where his PhD thesis was one of the first to spur the paradigm shift toward machine learning based natural language processing technologies, he founded HKUST’s internationally funded Human Language Technology Center which launched the world’s first web translator over twenty years ago.
He speaks to philosophical questions about the fears and possibilities of new technology and how we can be empowered to shape our future. His work to bridge cultures spans artificial intelligence, cognition, language, music, creativity, ethics, society, and policy.
Talks and media this year have included New York Times, Dun & Bradstreet, TEDx, global news channels like NDTV and i24 News, and dozens more.
