00:00You know, the joke we keep making within our computer science world, especially in the
00:03last few years is, look at AI, it's doing all this, I'm like, guys, come on, we've been
00:07doing AI for 50 years.
00:21My name is Khaled Harris, I'm a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University
00:25in Qatar.
00:26I'm also the senior associate dean for faculty there.
00:29My specialization is in systems, particularly networking, I teach different classes related
00:34to those areas.
00:36My expertise largely would be in terms of research, in terms of like wireless networking and communication,
00:42distributed systems, pervasive computing, I've been doing this for like 25 years so as you
00:47can imagine the kind of domains that you kind of work on with the different students, engineers
00:52and postdocs over the years evolve, but I would say it falls largely under systems.
00:57I like building things, I like building back-end systems that support technologies that you
01:01see today.
01:03AI is a very elastic term, let's agree on that, and the joke we keep making within our computer
01:09science world, especially in the last few years is, look at AI, it's doing all this, I'm like,
01:13guys, come on, we've been doing AI for 50 years.
01:16I took a course on neural networks in my undergraduate studies, so I think what happened is over the
01:24last few years you've seen massive applications that have come to light and of course huge breakthroughs
01:29in core AI algorithms.
01:32But to answer your original question, while I'm somebody who's focused a lot more on systems, AI becomes
01:40a very integrated component into what we're building and what we're using.
01:43So for someone like me in my area, AI is a very fundamental tool that I will use and leverage
01:49in
01:49my research in order for us to answer or solve systems related problems.
01:54In the world of core AI, they will focus a little bit more, for instance, on the optimization of the
02:00algorithms, of the core algorithms that help then support all of these other generic problems.
02:05How do you make those algorithms more accurate, more efficient, et cetera, et cetera.
02:12There is a lot of hype going on, not that it's unfounded or unreal.
02:18What we have experienced and what we are experiencing is definitely a major breakthrough,
02:22and a lot of change is expected to happen.
02:24I think the verdict is still out as to what is the real scale of change that we're about to
02:29witness.
02:33I am yet not there with the idea that we will replace people, but I think we will replace jobs.
02:40And people will have to find ways to complement those jobs with the skill set that they bring to the
02:46table that may be unique. It might be in the integration of uses of AI, it might be
02:52in more creative ways of leveraging AI to do other things that maybe AI in its own won't.
02:58I know now as I'm saying this and I'm talking to you, I know a lot of friends, because of
03:02course
03:02I work in this and I have a lot of contacts who will very strongly either disagree or agree with
03:09me.
03:10I think we've fallen into two camps, to be honest, at this point. And I always share with people that
03:18in order for me to talk about AI with folks, I think there are two, again, big camps. One, those
03:25who think that AI is going to replace all the jobs or most of the jobs. To those folks, my
03:33chat
03:33with them is, especially when they come to me and tell me, okay, you know, how do we educate people
03:37for a world like that? Or what are we going to change? Or what are we going to adapt? And
03:41in such
03:41scenarios for that camp, my answer is, if we really find ourselves there, what we do in education and
03:47how we do things will be the least of our problems. Because you are, if AI can indeed deliver at
03:55that
03:55scale and at that level, I think we're going to have to ask ourselves very different questions,
03:59as in, how do we continue evolving as a civilization? How do you revisit the whole ecosystem,
04:06from self-governance, to economics, to businesses, to the meaning of currency? Everything falls apart.
04:13Everything. You have to start from scratch. And that is something I can't wrap my head around.
04:20There are people who are starting to look at that. You hear glimpses of that when you hear about,
04:24you know, let's start taxing AI, right? Let's start treating an AI engine as an entity that can,
04:30what's going to happen when an AI makes a decision? Can we make it liable? Or the company that created,
04:35created it? Or, or? And those are just the tips of the iceberg, if you are in that camp.
04:42My discussion is more focused on camp two, where AI isn't really going to bring us there yet.
04:49And again, if we are, that's a whole other discussion. But in what I think is a much more,
04:56at least short term, we're starting to see reasonable expectation, is replace a lot of jobs,
05:03change how we're doing things. And how do we find ourselves in a situation now where human plus AI
05:09can do better than either one of them can do on their own?
05:17If you want to get to a place where you have this kind of digital technological sovereignty and
05:24independence, this, by the way, is not something new with AI. We always talk within ourselves how
05:31there's this mandate of how can we move this part of the world from being consumers of technology to
05:36green producers of technology. So there's nothing really new there, I think. And what is remarkable
05:41in my mind, and I genuinely mean this, maybe I'm a little biased because I've been part of the
05:45experiment, but when you think about what this country has done and what Qatar Foundation has done
05:49with all the branch campuses, I go back to that point I was trying to make in the beginning. What
05:54does it
05:54take to build that kind of independent, homegrown kind of innovation? You need resources, okay, you will have
06:04some of that in a financial sense. You need the right vision to invest in the right direction, which if
06:09you
06:09ask me is fundamentally in people, okay, first and foremost. And I don't think you will go around and find
06:17many places that have done along the lines of investing in people like what Qatar Foundation has done. Qatar
06:25Foundation has not only supported the building of the campuses or, you know, bringing in some academic campuses from
06:32the U.S. and other places. But when I tell the story, I've been here, you know, you and I
06:37were just
06:37talking, so I've been here about 18 years. I've lived most of this experiment. It's been an honor.
06:43When we tell this story, and you look at the vision ever since Her Highness started it with
06:50His Highness also the Father Amir, and you look at a full-fledged ecosystem that they are aiming for,
06:58all the way from K through 12. We want to start really early. They built, you know, the Qatar Academies,
07:04the model schools. They have a whole ecosystem around that. And then how do you take a pipeline
07:10from there and put them at top-notch universities? And now you have the branch campuses,
07:15various universities from the U.S., where amongst them they formed the first multiversity in the world.
07:21We can talk more later about why, you know, that is unique in itself. But when you think about it,
07:26this is the investment in the building of talent. Now the story doesn't start. Stop there.
07:31That is a pipeline that comes out. What are they going to do? How do they contribute to the society
07:35and community? So, well, QF also thought of that. How do we build large-scale national research centers
07:42that can start tackling national, regional, relevant problems? And those folks can start working here.
07:48Of course, we also invite folks from around the world to come, but it's kind of a two-way street,
07:54if you will. And you want people where this is home to actually work there, invest. And I can tell
08:00you
08:00of a lot of stories how our students over the years have become integral parts of those national research
08:06centers, producing a lot of the technologies you're hearing about today. And you have now a startup
08:12ecosystem of support, whether it's through QSDP, through others. So when you look at this big picture,
08:18you feel that there is a deliberate plan that, in my mind, goes all the way back to,
08:25how do I do my best to make this a place where we actually create and innovate and build technology,
08:32not just consume it? And it's something that takes decades, and you need the persistence and the
08:39patience. I think we're roughly in the third decade in that experiment, and so far it seems to be showing
08:45some positive signs.
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