00:00Randall Lane, we're here back at Davos, the World Economic Forum.
00:03We're at Imagination in Action, talking about AI all day.
00:06And we have Derek Haoyang Li from Squirrel,
00:10who was just, Squirrel Learning, just off stage.
00:13I will say, Derek, the crowd was very interested and intrigued
00:17when we pointed out that you were the only speaker from China,
00:20and the moderator asked,
00:22should China be part of the conversation, the entire room raised their hand.
00:25First, let's talk about AI as a global phenomenon.
00:28Everybody seems to be talking about it like,
00:30oh, this country can regulate it, that country can regulate it.
00:33I don't think enough people are appreciating
00:35just the global nature of the technology.
00:38Maybe you could impart wisdom there.
00:41Okay, I think because Chinese have a very good tradition
00:46of learning math very hard,
00:48so I think the Chinese people are very good at AI
00:53and the hard technology.
00:56And also, we all call that Chinese people have a much more subtle feeling,
01:01so we could detect what the consumers, their needs, their feelings,
01:08so we can perfect the product better and better.
01:12So in recent years, actually,
01:15Chinese companies go international more and more,
01:19and better and better.
01:21It's not like BAT time,
01:24they just copied from the US,
01:27and now the Chinese companies have more innovation,
01:32and like Square AI,
01:34we have more than 100 patents already acquired,
01:37and we in some way lead the new technology
01:43and new product function of AI education,
01:46so that I became the chair of the AI education IEEE.
01:52So I think it's more and more opportunity,
01:55and everybody are international now.
01:58Yeah, is China feeling,
02:00like you walk around here and you see,
02:02especially with the Americans, some Europeans,
02:06in the tech community,
02:07it's just an absolute fever right now.
02:09Is that same way in China?
02:12Yeah, in China,
02:14I think everybody accept AI very quickly,
02:19and Chinese people are not care so much
02:22about the privacies and US and Europe,
02:26so the users give a lot of allowance for the companies
02:33so that we could train the model very well
02:38and benefit more for the public.
02:41For example, we donate the account
02:44for the 20% poorest families,
02:48so that I think AI could do a lot of good.
02:51And in China, I think it's like the high-speed train.
02:55The AI is going much faster.
02:58Yes, yes, it's the high-speed train right now.
03:01Yeah, you've experienced that.
03:02Of where all the,
03:04certainly where all the tech investing is.
03:05All right, so tell us specifically
03:07what Squirrel AI Learning does.
03:09You mentioned, of course,
03:10China being very open to innovations,
03:13and also famously being open
03:15to rethinking the education system.
03:17So what does Squirrel do?
03:19First, where did the name Squirrel come from?
03:21Oh, Squirrel is one of the top 10 smartest animals.
03:26I did not know that.
03:27You did not know that, yeah, yeah, yeah.
03:30And also, Squirrel could crack the hardest nuts.
03:34Oh, that's true.
03:35Yeah, yeah, so we want to help the kids
03:37to crack the difficulties in their learning.
03:41And we have a lot of poor kids
03:44who are not good at learning
03:47to become very fast learners.
03:51So tell us what it does.
03:54We build a virtual AI teacher
03:57that interacts directly with the student
04:00without any other teacher's instruction.
04:03So it's kind of like level five autonomous driving.
04:07Most other AI education companies,
04:10they are building AI tool for the school teacher.
04:14So it's like level two, level five technology.
04:17So now we are the only one
04:19who do the fully virtual tutor.
04:22And we have 24 million students already.
04:26And our annual compound growth
04:28in the past three years are more than 100%.
04:31Wow, now is it meant to be a supplement to teachers,
04:35like your own private tutor,
04:37or is the idea you evolved that it becomes a teacher?
04:42I think it's the primary teacher.
04:44I think teacher's role will change dramatically
04:47in the future 10 years.
04:50Teaching knowledge and teaching fundamental textbooks
04:55are not important for them.
04:56They have to change into data analyst
05:00or maybe they will feel very hard in the future.
05:05Because AI could teach a student by their own
05:09and with a more efficient way
05:13because we have a lot of efficacy studies
05:16shows that a student could learn 30% much better results
05:23than the best human teachers.
05:25So what you're talking about is AI becoming the teacher
05:30of kind of the more, the rote information
05:33where the teacher then is teaching people
05:35how to think or how to be a human.
05:39Yeah, actually the school AI virtual tutor
05:42could provoke more thinking for the student.
05:48It's better than teacher.
05:50It's like Da Vinci plus Einstein
05:56plus every super masters together with the kids.
06:01I think if our kids learn with AI super master
06:05from like three years old,
06:07everybody could be 10 times smarter than we are.
06:10Yes.
06:11Well, you mentioned on stage just now on the big stage
06:15how you were arguing that humans' brains
06:19just like our bodies
06:21we're not all working in the fields anymore
06:23or in the factories that we're all as knowledge workers
06:25that humans have gotten weaker.
06:27You made a very, it was a very strong comment
06:31that got the room buzzing about humans' brains shrinking
06:34because AI is doing a lot of thinking.
06:36Tell us more about that.
06:38I think 90% of the human brain will shrink
06:42because before all the technology
06:47make the product that to replace all the human body work.
06:54Yes.
06:54But in the future, in 20 or 50 years,
06:58AI will replace all the human's brain work.
07:01Yes.
07:02So-
07:02So they know what humans do.
07:03Yeah, we do not need wisdom actually,
07:07but we need a brain gym to train our brain
07:12or we will be idiot actually.
07:15But I think I build school AI with a spirit
07:20that knowledge is not important
07:23because knowledge is everywhere
07:24and we can get it, yeah.
07:26Knowledge is a commodity.
07:27Presumably how to think is the value added, right?
07:30Yeah, yeah.
07:30So how to think,
07:33how to, you know, the learning ability,
07:36learning new things.
07:38So I think we have to change dramatically
07:43our education system
07:45because kids are already using chat GPT
07:50to do the homework.
07:51It's kind of like when you go to the sport,
07:55you just use all kinds of, you know,
07:58tools to help you.
08:01That's not right.
08:03When you want to train the kids to run,
08:05you will not want them to ride a bicycle or car, right?
08:09So we have to train the kids how to run,
08:12how to jump, how to do things.
08:14So it should be a big issue,
08:17but nobody noticed that.
08:19That's a big look in the future.
08:21All right, last question.
08:22Where do you see both Squirrel and AI in general
08:26a year from now?
08:27How fast is this all moving?
08:32We are entering the international market
08:34and I think the speed will be very, very sharp.
08:39It's, for example, our growth curve
08:43in the past four years is like this.
08:46The AI makes sense.
08:47How many customers do you have now?
08:49Revenue, you know, give us some metrics.
08:51Oh yeah, we have 24 million customers
08:56and more than 1 million paid customers.
09:01And last year we have 3 billion RMB revenue.
09:07And also I think there's kind of like a big danger
09:14that people are not aware of that.
09:17For example, like you asked me,
09:19if we can do the teaching all along without a teacher.
09:24And also I think that job loss in teacher,
09:30in lawyers, in doctors,
09:32and in all of the other careers
09:35that AI may replace in 10 years
09:38is coming faster and faster.
09:40It's like five years before when AlphaGo came,
09:44we are just like talking jokes about this.
09:48But recently with a large model and the technique
09:53and the AI company in different industry,
09:58I think it's coming very soon.
10:01So I think all of us should think
10:04of how to deal with that,
10:06how to re-skill the people
10:08to make the teacher become like,
10:11they can give emotion, comfort to the kids.
10:16They can analyze the data.
10:19They have to change from carrier driver
10:22to airplane pilot.
10:24Yes. All right.
10:26That's a view from the future.
10:28Some very provocative stuff.
10:29Thank you, Derek.
10:30Good luck.
10:30Good luck with everything you're doing.
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