“You have to be fearless in your curiosity.” AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li on how to succeed as an outsider

On LinkedIn’s video series, This is Working, I sit down with top figures from the world of business and beyond to surface what they've learned about solving particular problems.

My guest this week is computer scientist Dr. Fei-Fei Li, a celebrated AI pioneer.

Roughly 73% of American companies are already experimenting with AI — yet I don’t think anyone believes we’re anywhere but in the earliest stages here. AI is going to change how we work, where we work, what we work on. Learning how to leverage it and use it as a tool and partner will be a basic requirement for most leaders, I think.

So I was eager to talk with Fei-Fe Li about how she sees the AI roll out. Fei-Fei is hailed as the “godmother of AI.” She’s a computer science professor at Stanford University and is also the brains behind the school’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, which is teaching everyone from business leaders to journalists and government officials how to effectively use AI. 

Her main point: AI is not inevitable. We as humans are choosing to make this part of our lives and we can choose where and how we deploy it.

“We should recognize AI is a tool. Humans create tools with the intention to help humans, but we have that agency and we have that ownership of that tool,” she told me. “We need to recognize that. But tools are double-edged swords. And how do we ensure that we're using this tool in the right way?”

It’s easy for a business leader to get lost in AI's potential to streamline operations and boost efficiency, focusing on things you can measure — the amount of time you save working, how quickly you launch a project. Fei-Fei suggests visualizing our relationship with AI through three lenses: individual, community, and society. 

“What is its impact [on] individuals? For every individual? We talk about their dignity, their self respect, their productivity. Then we think about what the impact is to community. Especially communities that are traditionally overlooked, underserved — we have to have a keen awareness of that. And then the impact to the society, whether it's intended impact, like if I'm changing mobility and driving, that's an intended impact. But also unintended impact, for example, the disruption of jobs of truck drivers.”

Now is the time, she says, to make these kind of decisions and to put in the frameworks for bringing AI into your world. Many execs will turn to experts to help them introduce AI into their world (and, in fact, “AI consultant” was No. 8 in our just-released Jobs on the Rise list). But you shouldn’t just blindly follow these insiders and their tech visions. Your understanding of the world, your concerns, your hard questions all should shape how you introduce or embrace AI.

Fei-Fei talks about this as the power of the outsider, something she has experienced her whole life. In her new book, The Worlds I See: Curiosity, Exploration, and Discovery at the Dawn of AI, Fei-Fei beautifully details the challenges she experienced emigrating from China to New Jersey at the age of 15. She arrived speaking no English and had to learn how to navigate this strange new world. In school, she was lucky enough to find a teacher who would become a mentor the rest of her life and serve as a sherpa through all of her decisions. She helped her parents run their small dry cleaner while attending Princeton — an outsider experience in the ultimate insider university. And she was frequently an outsider trying to help her ailing mom through frequent interactions with the byzantine health care world.

Fei-Fei’s experience as an outsider has clearly instilled a deep sense of empathy in her work, which is evident in her humanistic and equitable approach to AI.

“You're exploring the unknown world,” Fei-Fei said. “The common thread is that unknownness and how do you navigate an unknown world? Whether it's as an immigrant or as a scientist, there's a few ingredients. One is curiosity.”

And the other? 

“Be fearless in your curiosity and your pursuit of ideas,” Fei-Fei says. 

Let me know in the comments if you're part of that 73% and, if so, how AI is already playing a role in your job. Any tips for implementing it?

Be sure to tune into the latest This is Working podcast. LinkedIn technology editor Tanya Dua and I will take a deeper dive into Fei-Fei’s research and how businesses can embrace AI.

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