Wed, 05 Nov 2025

Wed, 05 Nov 2025 AI 'godmother' Fei-Fei Li says she is 'proud to be different'

AI pioneer Professor Fei-Fei Li is set to receive a top engineering prize from the King for her contributions to the field.
The "godfathers" of AI, Prof Bengio, Dr Hinton and Dr LeCun, have been widely recognized for their work but only one person is referred to as the "godmother". Prof Li acknowledged that she has grown to accept this title, stating that it would be a missed opportunity for women in science if she rejected it. She believes her recognition will pave the way for other women in technology. Prof Li's own contributions to AI include developing the ImageNet project which enabled significant advancements in computer vision. This project created large-scale image recognition datasets that have become essential for many AI technologies. Prof Li believes the next major breakthrough in AI will come when it is able to interact with the world around it, a capability she thinks could "superpower" humans in various ways. There are differing opinions among the "godfathers" of AI on the dangers posed by AI technology. Dr Hinton has expressed concerns about the potential for extinction-level threats, while Prof LeCun has written that such warnings are overstated. Prof Li takes a more pragmatic approach and advocates for science-based communication and education. The Queen Elizabeth Prize is awarded annually to engineers who have made groundbreaking contributions to innovation with global benefits.
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