On July 8th, the 2021 World artificial Intelligence Congress opened in Shanghai.

Li Yanhong, founder of Baidu, Inc., said at the opening ceremony:

Artificial intelligence will affect the process of human development in the next 40 years. Today, such forces are constantly accumulating in various industries, such as transportation, finance, industry, energy, media, and so on. The application of artificial intelligence technology has also given new ideas and solutions for the digital upgrading of the industry, and even began to reshape the face of the whole industry, and then affect the future of human society.

The World artificial Intelligence Conference has been successfully held for three times since 2018. Artificial intelligence is one of the three leading industries in Shanghai to implement the national strategic plan and focus on development, and it is also an important driving force for urban digital transformation. In the past few years, the discussion on artificial intelligence has focused on two directions, one is the help of artificial intelligence to the future economic development and efficiency improvement, and the other is the possible risks and unpredictable changes of artificial intelligence to the future. or the ethical and moral issues related to artificial intelligence.

The social value of artificial intelligence is very worthy of attention, but the discussion in this aspect is relatively few.

For example, when we talk about intelligent transportation, most of the time, we focus on the improvement of traffic efficiency. For the growth of urban GDP, our estimate is that every 15% increase in traffic efficiency can correspond to 2.4% of GDP growth, but we ignore that traffic is actually a livelihood issue, which has obvious social, public and service attributes. According to institutional statistics, about 1.35 million people around the world lose their lives in traffic accidents every year, which means that an average of one person dies in traffic accidents every 20 seconds, while 94% of traffic accidents are caused by man-made causes. Dangerous driving is the first type of crime in our country, accounting for about 1 pound 4 of the total criminal offenses, which is a shocking figure.

At present, the global annual carbon emissions are about 51 billion tons, of which 16% come from the transportation industry. if we improve the efficiency of transportation, it means that we can reduce carbon emissions and protect human beings from climate disasters. Building an intelligent transportation system through smart cars and smart roads can not only significantly reduce the occurrence of traffic accidents and improve the efficiency of safe traffic, but also help people's yearning for a better life and make their travel more green and environmentally friendly.

The breakthrough of machine translation technology allows human beings to communicate freely through different natural languages, while the breakthrough of self-driving technology can make a car less like a car and more like a robot. Baidu, Inc. has also been exploring self-driving for many years. For example, not long ago, Baidu, Inc. launched a new generation of shared driverless cars, with the goal of making travel cheaper than today's online ride-hailing. In the next two to three years, Baidu, Inc. plans to extend the service of sharing unmanned cars to 30 cities across the country.

From a more macro point of view, intelligent transportation system is a microcosm of the operation of digital city in the future. Everyone is very familiar with the operator model of airport, high-speed railway and telecom network, but there is no operator of digital city at present. "I think the digital city operator model with the help of AI technology will be a good solution. Through AI's new infrastructure, we are confident that we will further contribute innovative solutions to the digital transformation of industry and cities.

Over the past few hundred years, resource-consuming industrial development has been regarded as the cornerstone guarantee of social progress, but in the next few hundred years, the progress of science and technology will be enough to support mankind's return to a low-carbon society, which is also the initial mode of getting along with nature. In this process, AI is helping mankind to make changes, and will create for economic development and social progress in more areas.

The change that artificial intelligence brings to the industry and society is ultimately to serve people. The value of artificial intelligence is to help people, teach people to learn and let people grow, rather than surpassing people and replacing people. Only when technology serves people and society, and produces more positive value and contribution, can it be really meaningful.

We have always regarded the exploration of artificial intelligence as a journey like the sea of stars. Today, we feel more and more that a new artificial intelligence society is coming. AI technology combines with different people and scenes in the physical world, making it inadvertently integrated into the context of society, and the convenience brought by artificial intelligence technology will eventually evolve into a "subconscious" of people and society. In this regard, I have always had firm confidence. As Alan Turing said, "this is just a prelude to the future and a shadow of the future."

Ma Huateng, chairman of the board of directors and CEO of Tencent Company, sent a speech by video:

The epidemic has not stopped the development of artificial intelligence in Shanghai. In the past few years, Shanghai has gathered talents, opened up scenes and built platforms, creating a good atmosphere.

Tencent and the National Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences jointly launched the Star Exploration Program, which uses AI to find pulsars and explore the universe. Artificial intelligence can not only go up to heaven, but also enter the factory and enter the life. At present, some professional manufacturing enterprises in Shanghai have used Tencent AI technology in quality inspection to reduce cost and increase efficiency. At the 2021 World artificial Intelligence Congress, Tencent also launched Arena of Valor's AI electronic competition to stimulate young people's interest in general AI research.

Over the past year, AI has brought more and more convenience to life in the areas of health care, urban governance, and contactless services, but people still know more about AI than they already know, so the pursuit of Tech for Good means promoting AI for good and making AI technology knowable, controllable, usable and reliable.

Tencent will further take root in Shanghai, focus on basic research and cutting-edge exploration, focus on being a digital assistant, help Shanghai's urban digital transformation, and look forward to Shanghai's contribution to global urban digitization.