By MIKE MAGEE

His biography states, “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.”

He embraces the title “cross-disciplinary,” and yet his PhD thesis at UC Berkeley in 1980 “was one of the first to spur the paradigm shift toward machine learning based natural language processing technologies.” Credited with inventing and building “the world’s first global-scale online language translator that spawned Google Translate, Yahoo Translate, and Microsoft Bing Translator,” he is clearly a “connector” in a world currently consumed by “dividers.” In 2019, Google named De Kai as “one of eight inaugural members of its AI Ethics Council.”

The all encompassing challenge of our day, as he sees it, is relating to each other. As he says, “The biggest fear is fear itself – the way AI amplifies human fear exponentially…turning us upon ourselves through AI powered social media driving misinformation, divisiveness, polarization, hatred and paranoia.” The value system he embraces “stems from a liberal arts perspective emphasizing creativity in both technical and humanistic dimensions.”

Dr. De Kai is feeling especially urgent these days, which is a bit out of character.