Jurgen Schmidhuber: What can artificial intelligence do for you?

In the 1980s, a young admirer of Einstein with a passion for science had a dream: to create an artificial scientist capable of solving the mysteries of the universe. At the time, everyone thought he was crazy. This young man was Jürgen Schmidhuber, a German computer scientist who is now considered "the father" of modern artificial intelligence. As he explains, "In the 1990s, we began the research that led to the development of AI, but back then, no one was interested in the topic." However, the algorithms he and his team developed during those years "are now in our smartphones, translators, ChatGPT, and countless applications that are part of our daily lives in the 21st century," he adds. His work has been internationally recognized, and he is considered one of the pioneers in deep learning. He is also the creator of the so-called "artificial neural networks" and a staunch advocate of the "Artificial General Intelligence" (AGI) approach, seeking to create systems that can learn and reason similarly to humans. Despite the suspicion and fear surrounding AI today, Schmidhuber defends its applications in fields such as medicine, language, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including combating climate change. "If used correctly, artificial intelligence can help prevent environmental disasters such as droughts and floods, improve global issues like air quality, and, in the field of medicine, help us prevent and detect diseases like cancer or cardiovascular conditions," he explains.