Friday Beyond Spotlights – Professor Guo Yike: AI The Next Frontier

Friday Beyond Spotlights is an informative yet light-hearted talk show airing every Friday at 8:30pm on Hong Kong International Business Channel (#76). The English language program features the most prominent guests who share their insights into current affairs, business, innovation and culture, as well as their ingenuity, passion and grit which forge their Lion Rock Spirit. The show is hosted by businessman and philanthropist Patrick Tsang On-yip, lawyer and lawmaker Nick Chan Hiu-fung, and seasoned business maverick Herman Hu Shao-ming.

Hosted by Nick Chan, episode 13 of Season 2 presents Professor Guo Yike, the new provost of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). Prof Guo has spent 33 years at the Imperial College London, where he founded the Data Science Institute, with his research area focusing on AI and data mining for large-scale scientific applications.

As ChatGPT has gone viral recently, there is increasing concern that fast-growing artificial intelligence (AI) programs are getting out of control and AI is surpassing human intelligence. As a world-renowned expert in the field, Prof Guo believes AI is one of the most amazing human technical advances in our human civilisation, and is definitely something good and not evil. “The technology itself is amazing, as we are in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the great thing now is that we have the chance to actually break up the boundary, with the human mind, the biology, physics all mixed together. It has never happened before, and is really the future.” He envisions that in the future, human intelligence and machine intelligence can communicate, appreciate and enjoy each other.

Prof Guo says Hong Kong enjoys a uniqueness in terms of technical innovation. For example, HKUST it is one of the leading science universities in the world and has an amazing achievement in its 30 years of history, including the creation of nine Unicorns (startup with a value of over US$1 billion) and 5 initial public offers (IPOs). “One thing they did very great is that, like DJI Technology Co Ltd, they make innovation here and use our advantage to face the world market, and they also use our great advantage of using Mainland China as a production base to build up a very efficient supply chain for innovation.”

The rapid advancement of AI in art is another amazing development, according to Prof Guo, who is leading a theme-based research project in Hong Kong with a grant of HK$52 million for machine and human co-creation of art work, ranging from music to paintings and performing arts.

“As we are now touching the point of human creativity, we want the machine not only to mimic, but also to create. Creativity is something very unique to humans, and we want AI to learn. I’m very happy to see many technical advances made in Hong Kong and in the Mainland along this direction,” he says.

Prof Guo shows audiences a portrait of former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping with the Victoria Harbour on the background. “This is the world’s first portrait of Deng Xiaoping created and printed by a machine which had spent three months learning all the features from many of his photos and portraits. We painted this portrait especially for the 25th Anniversary of Hong Kong’s Return to China.”

He says the portrait also has special significance to him because Deng is the person who has changed his life. “When I graduated from middle school in 1978, China just started to reform. Deng did one thing which changed the whole fate of our generation, which is to resume university education that was interrupted by the Cultural Revolution. Then I had a chance to enter the Tsinghua University to receive the best education. Then I became a scientist and have the chance to contribute back to my country from Hong Kong. These are all because of this man.”
During his PhD at Tsinghua University, Prof Guo was sent by the university to study at the Imperial College London. “At that time, the gap between China and the UK in scientific development and education was huge, and I only had very limited time to catch up. During the first term of my studies, I usually go to my office at 7:30am and get back at around 11:00pm. One day, I left my office early at 4:30pm to pick up something; I saw the sunshine and suddenly realised that I haven’t seen the sunshine for seven months! You may call this hard work, or the Lion Rock Spirt of overcoming any difficulties.”

Prof Guo says Hong Kong’s young generation are extremely fortunate because they are in a world-leading international city that is fully integrated to the world. “In this generation, you really should think about the whole human development rather than a specific knowledge. We emphasise on the whole human education. We teach you not only the knowledge, but also the skill of acquiring knowledge, which is the most important. This is the problem-solving ability and the soft skill that could deal with the fast-changing world.”

He believes Hong Kong has a bright future and will be the best international metropolitan city in five years’ time. “Our young generation is brighter than ever. What we really need to do is student development with a focus on sustainable development.”

To watch the video, visit Friday Everyday YouTube Channel – Friday Beyond Spotlights Season 2 Episode 13 l Prof Guo Yike

Episode 13: https://youtu.be/PMJOnbZtzWo