In anticipation of the Elevate festival, Alex Kirni reflects on the history of AI Canada and is not silent at the global stages.
How the technical community of Canada is collected Elevate Festival Starting on October 7, conversations around artificial intelligence occupy a central place.
An important place on this scene will be Alex Kerni. Kirni is an AI researcher associated with Deepmind, Twitter and Alberta University. She also develops a “behavioral engine” for a video game in an artificial agency that she became a co -founder.
Kernie will be on Elevate next week, talking about amazing and vital relationships Between games and studies of artificial intelligence. Other sessions of artificial intelligence in ReePate include politicians from Cohere and Openai, Meta Researcher Setotor Zilevu and Spotify Director David Nihan, among other key figures.
Betakit sat with Kirni to find out more about her journey from the Academy to create my own company. She reflected on long research of AI in Albert, how the games played a key role in this study, as well as the advantages and traps of launching a startup and Canada.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
Previously, you were a scientist with a deep link. Was this a difficult jump from the researcher to manage your own company AI?
This is definitely the transition, because the way you think about the problems and what you are concentrated on is different, but I found that it is really useful personally.
I spent more than 10 years, working on studies of artificial intelligence, both in industry and in scientific circles. But now I am focused on a completely different set of goals. This is actually just to deliver tools so that these designers can create completely new genres and games.
One of the most invigorating things for me is when we share the tools that we have developed with a new game designer or a new company, and just observe how people light this inspiration, at a time when they understand: “Oh, damn it, I can do what I didn’t even think about.”
It really makes me fire.
What prompted to focus on artificial intelligence agents for games compared to other categories?
The games have been a test layer for artificial intelligence agents for decades. Having obtained superhuman performance in something like Atari or in a game such as Starcraft, these were high watermarks from an academic point of view to show that we are creating competent systems.
The game is such a fundamental thing, right? This is part of the way we understand the world around us. This is how we learn, and this is also how we identify intelligence in many respects.
One of the things that I strongly feel is how the chat interacts, allowing us to see the potential of LLM as intellectual systems. Because you can naturally interact with these systems in a language that is universal: your own human language. I think that in games and games, we really will have that moment “aha” when the public can feel what intellect is similar in a systematic environment.
How do you see the AI industry developing in Edmonton, and how is this compared with Canada as a whole?
One of the things that often surprises people is the history of the AI ecosystem in Albert, and how far it goes. We were the research center of AI for more than a quarter century.
One of the things that I consider encouraging is that in our Alberta ecosystem we recognize that we have this rich tradition in the field of machine learning and reinforcement, and we are looking for ways to expand it throughout various academic disciplines.
Over the past few years, there have been a lot of truly exciting breakthroughs in this area in this area. And this is the trend that, I think, will continue, and I feel that the university and the province are really investing in this area.
What do you see as the advantages and traps of launching a startup AI in Canada?
I think there is something to do. At least in Albert there is a real innovative attitude to the risk that I find, personally, quite inspiring.
But there is also humility that is opposed to this. I feel that we are outside the bubble of noise, so to speak, built in Canada and, in particular, growing in Albert, and this contributes to the feeling of clarity that I really like.
However, in this humility there is a double -edged sword, and we are often not so loud. We do not celebrate our successes, even at the federal level, just like some of our global colleagues.
Therefore, I think that one thing in which we can become better is to celebrate our victories, and this is what festivals such as ReePate really help.
Do you see how events such as Reepate are just as important for the fight against a “brain leak” for the United States? Or even change the trend?
I think that attracting researchers, investors and innovators in the same room is important. And I think that the creation of a script in which you will see what other people create is important. Success gives rise to success, and the vision of positive examples in the ecosystem helps others think to yourself: “I can do it. This is possible. I could build here. I could attract capital here. ”
And therefore, in this case, it is important to have such types of celebrations of Canadian innovations and people under construction, because these evidence helps the next generation to see what is actually possible.
Betakit – partner Elevate Media.
