Yoshua Bengio received the insignia of Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur de France on Monday afternoon to underline his scientific contribution and his humanitarian commitment. The Quebec-based researcher is considered one of the founding fathers of artificial intelligence alongside his compatriot Yann LeCun and Briton Geoffrey Hinton.
“I wasn’t expecting that one at all,” exclaimed to the Homework the lucky scientist shortly before the official ceremony. Professor and researcher at the University of Montreal since 2002, Yoshua Bengio obtained his doctorate in computer science from McGill University in 1991. He lived in France until the age of 12. “My parents emigrated from Morocco to study at university in France, and that’s where my brother and I were born,” he explains.
“We have to be careful that this kind of price does not go to our heads! jokes the distinguished professor. We can say that he has seen others. He has been recognized a few times for his pioneering role in artificial intelligence. This also earned him the 2018 AM Turing Prize, generally considered the Nobel Prize for computing, along with his colleagues Geoffrey Hinton and Yann LeCun. “The Turing is really big in the scientific community, but for the rest of the world, it’s the Legion of Honor that causes the most reaction. »
The common good
Of the three scientific stooges, only Mr. Bengio currently maintains a certain distance from the technological giants which are currently investing the most heavily in the development of artificial intelligence (AI). MM. LeCun and Hinton are respectively responsible for AI research for Meta (the ex-Facebook) and Alphabet (the parent company of Google).
Yoshua Bengio has instead been very actively involved over the past six years in the development of an entrepreneurial ecosystem based on software applications that can result from research in this sector: computer vision, automated interpretation of big data, language recognition, etc.
The professor in the Department of Computer Science and Operational Research at the University of Montreal is also the founder and scientific director of Mila, a Quebec institute for research in artificial intelligence. He is scientific director of the Montreal big data research center IVADO. He is Fellow of the Royal Society of London and the Royal Society of Canada in addition to being an Officer of the Order of Canada.
The French Ambassador to Canada, Kareen Rispal, who therefore presented what turns out to be the most important French distinction to Yoshua Bengio, especially wanted to emphasize the humanist side of her approach, which is based on technology in the service of good. community and sustainable development. Through his involvement in drafting what became the Franco-Canadian Declaration on Artificial Intelligence, Yoshua Bengio also contributed to strengthening the relationship between France and Canada, which is also recognized.
The best is yet to come
Such recognition often comes at the end of a career. The Montreal researcher clearly sees the one given to him as a stimulus for the rest of his own. In the tech sector, artificial intelligence has seemed a bit of a passing fad in recent years, much like cryptocurrencies are these days. It is quickly sweeping under the rug all the university research that continues to be done in this field, including in Quebec, according to him.
Already in 2016, Yoshua Bengio warned that the concrete results of all this research would not all come overnight. “AI is a long-term investment, it’s something the Quebec business community is perhaps a little cautious about. In fact, Canada and Quebec may have been wrong when it comes to AI, he adds.
The national strategy aimed to stimulate business creation when it could have done more for the discovery of new solutions aimed at making the health, education and environment sectors more efficient. The private sector does less research and development in these sectors which are costly for governments. Fostering innovation there could ultimately be more beneficial for the State and society than for companies.
These are three sectors where Mr. Bengio hopes to see major breakthroughs thanks to AI. This could in particular help to create antibiotics that overcome the most resistant bacteria, or to manufacture materials capable of capturing carbon in the atmosphere, he illustrates.
Faced with issues such as the climate and disease, “there is no panacea”, nuances the researcher, who nevertheless believes that the best is yet to come. Especially in artificial intelligence.
If he’s right, we’ll soon run out of accolades to congratulate him on!