In a wide-ranging discussion with Abu Dhabi’s Department of Community Development, MBZUAI’s Eric Xing outlines the transformative potential of AI

University Professor and President of the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI), Eric Xing, outlined what he described as a new “RenAIssance’ on Wednesday in a wide-ranging talk that explored recent fast-paced developments in artificial intelligence (AI).

“Now is the right time to discuss the impact and repercussions of AI,” Professor Xing said, likening the impact of the new technology to previous epoch-defining inventions such as paper and the printing press, both of which had not only served to democratize access to knowledge but had also created new and unforeseen innovations, industries and jobs.

So too would the arrival of AI, explained Xing, which would also usher in a new ‘Age of Empowerment’ in which previously unimaginable discoveries in genetics, pharmaceuticals, and healthcare would now become a reality thanks to the awesome analytical power of AI.

“Now the question is not how to get knowledge – knowledge no longer exists in a bottleneck – it’s about how to use knowledge to solve interesting problems” the computer scientist explained. “Human intelligence is not a static thing. When we acquire new tools, human intelligence also evolves.”

Professor Xing was speaking at the invitation of H.E. Dr. Mugheer Khamis Al Khaili, Chairman of Abu Dhabi’s Department of Community Development, which was established to uphold Emirati values of sustainable growth and social development while improving the quality of life for all those who call Abu Dhabi home.

Recognizing that the media is increasingly full of stories about large language models (LLMs), chatbots, and generative pre-trained transformers, commonly known as GPTs, that have often caused consternation and concern amongst the broader public, Xing called for a continuation of the strategic thinking and openness to innovation and change that has enabled the UAE to quickly establish itself as an international leader in the sector.

“The UAE is an ambitious nation that has put astronauts into space and sent an orbiter to Mars and I think we will see something similar with AI, which is such a new science. It’s young, as is our university and as is the UAE,” said Xing, describing the successes that have made already MBZUAI an internationally recognized source of transformative AI research, computer scientists, and a hub for start-ups and high-tech innovation in just three years.

These have included the recent launch of Jais, an open-source, bilingual LLM that was developed by MBZUAI in collaboration with the Abu Dhabi-based AI enterprise, G42, and Cerebras, an AI hardware company from California.

Now available for download by Arabic speakers worldwide, Jais was designed to display a more accurate and nuanced understanding of the language and culture of the Arabic-speaking world than other available LLMs, most of which are trained on material that is Western or US-centric.

MBZUAI was also part of a global collaboration between researchers from UC Berkeley, CMU, Stanford, and UC San Diego that recently developed Vicuna, an open-source, lower-carbon chatbot that cost just US$300 to train when compared with ChatGPT, which is reported to have cost over four million US dollars and an estimated 500 tons of emitted carbon to develop.

“Because of our research expertise in the space of generative AI, as demonstrated above, we were also included by Meta as part of their pre-launch consortium in their recent release of Llama 2, which is by far the best open-source, large language model” Xing revealed.

While heralding the benefits that MBZUAI and Abu Dhabi have accrued from adopting a position in the vanguard of AI research, Professor Xing was also keen to stress the unique strategic decision that the nation made in deciding to establish a research university and its impact on his own decision to make Abu Dhabi his personal and professional home.

“There is a balance to be made when investing in education, capacity building and knowledge production that is very different from investing in a product or a start-up where you expect measurable and very quick returns,” he said. “Having domestic capability in R&D powered by a modern university is of essential importance because it allows us to stay in the game while growing independence and self-sufficiency in a very competitive field.”