This article may contain an excessive amount of intricate detail that may interest only a particular audience.(October 2023) |
Tshilidzi Marwala | |
---|---|
7th Rector of the United Nations University | |
Assumed office 1 March 2023 | |
Deputy | Sawako Shirahase,Senior Vice-Rector,UNU |
Secretary-General | António Guterres |
Preceded by | David M. Malone |
Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Johannesburg | |
In office 1 January 2018 –28 February 2023 | |
Chancellor | Njabulo Ndebele Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka |
Preceded by | Ihron Rensburg |
Succeeded by | Letlhokwa George Mpedi |
Personal details | |
Spouse | Dr Jabulile Vuyiswa Manana (m. 2000,3 children) |
Alma mater | University of Cambridge Case Western Reserve University |
Known for | Rational counterfactuals,St. Petersburg paradox,bounded rationality,information asymmetry,efficient market hypothesis,Lewis turning point,finite element updating |
Website | www |
Tshilidzi Marwala (born 28 July 1971) is a South African artificial intelligence engineer,a computer scientist,a mechanical engineer and a university administrator. He is currently Rector of the United Nations University and UN Under-Secretary-General. [1] In August 2023 Marwala was appointed to the United Nations scientific advisory council. [2] [3]
Marwala was born at Duthuni Village in the Limpopo Province. He obtained a PhD in artificial intelligence from the University of Cambridge [4] and a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from Case Western Reserve University,graduating with a Magna Cum Laude. [5] He attended school at Mbilwi Secondary School and St. John's College in Johannesburg.
Marwala has been Rector of the United Nations University and UN Under-Secretary-General since 1 March 2023. [6] Marwala was previously a vice-chancellor and principal of the University of Johannesburg. He was previously the deputy vice chancellor for research and internationalization as well as the dean of engineering at the University of Johannesburg and a professor of electrical engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand. He was a post-doctoral fellow at Imperial College of Science,Technology and Medicine. He served as a trustee of the Nelson Mandela Foundation and on a board of Nedbank. [7]
One of the books he co-authored on modelling interstate conflict has been translated into Chinese by the National Defense Industry Press. [8] [9] His work and opinion have appeared in media such as New Scientist , [10] Time, [11] The Economist , [12] CNN, [13] [14] and BBC. [15] He has also given talks at Rhodes House, [16] Royal Society, [17] Cambridge Union, [18] Harvard's Berkman Klein Center for Internet &Society [19] and Oxford Union. [20] [21] In 2016 Tshilidzi Marwala delivered the Bernard Price Memorial Lecture in South Africa. With Stephen Hawking and Guy Laliberté he was a judge of the YouTube Space Lab competition. [22]
As Vice-Chancellor,Marwala developed and implemented the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) strategy. [23] To move the fourth industrial revolution,Marwala introduced a compulsory artificial intelligence course and an Africa Insights course for all students,irrespective of their majors. [24] Furthermore,he introduced Africa by Bus Project,where thousands of students travel by bus to various African countries to understand the African continent. [25]
Under his leadership,the University of Johannesburg was ranked first in Africa in the 2021 Times Higher Education (THE) University Impact Rankings on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and first globally for Decent Work and Economic Growth (SDG 8). In the 2023 Times Higher Education Impact Ranking,it was ranked first in Africa and globally for SDG 1 (no poverty). [26] From 2018 to 2022,the University of Johannesburg increased research output from sixth position to position first in South Africa. [27] [28] Furthermore,according to the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) ranking,UJ increased from being number 5 in Africa in 2021 (announced in 2020) to number 2 in Africa in 2023 (announced in 2022). [29]
Under his leadership,the University of Johannesburg increased its endowment from US$61 million to US$200 million from 2018 to 2022. [30] During his tenure,the University of Johannesburg purchased and financed two additional campuses,Devland Campus (US$10million) and Media 24 Park (US$20 million),and completed the Soweto Residence Complex (US$30million). Furthermore,the University of Johannesburg increased electricity consumption from solar energy from 0% to 15% from 2018 to 2022. [31]
Marwala established of the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study,UJ Press, [32] Johannesburg Business School, [33] Institute of Future Studies,with University of West Indies the Institute for Global African Affairs and Institute of Intelligent Systems. [34]
As the Rector of the United Nations University,Marwala has secured $65 million to establish the Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Big Data in Bologna,Italy. This Institute will be located near the supercomputing facility,including the Leonardo supercomputer. [35] [36] Marwala has also worked with the United Nations through agencies such as UNESCO,UNIDO,WHO,ITU,ILO,UNICEF,and WIPO. [37] [38] [39] [40] He was a member of the World Health Organization (WHO) committee that developed the ethical guidelines of using artificial intelligence in medicine. [41] Furthermore,he was a member of the committee that developed the international accord on open data for the International Council for Science (ICSU) in Paris. [42] [33] Institute of Future Studies,with University of West Indies the Institute for Global African Affairs and Institute of Intelligent Systems. [43]
Marwala has served globally and nationally on policymaking bodies. Most recently,he was the Deputy Chair of South Africa’s Presidential Commission on the Fourth Industrial Revolution (with the President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa serving as Chair). This committee developed the country’s fourth industrial revolution strategy. [44] Continentally,Marwala is the Chair of the International Scientific Advisory Board for the African Centre of Excellence in the Internet of Things (ACE-IoT) based in Rwanda. [45] The government of Namibia appointed him on the Fourth Industrial Revolution Task Team. [46]
Marwala is on the corporate board of Nedbank (2019-2023), [47] and is a trustee of the Nelson Mandela Foundation (2020-2023). [48]
Marwala has been a visiting fellow at Harvard University, [49] Wolfson College,Cambridge, [50] and University of California,Berkeley. [51] He is an honorary professor at the Nanjing Tech University as well as the Central South University in The People's Republic of China.
Marwala's research interests include the theory and application of artificial intelligence to engineering,computer science,finance,economics,social science and medicine. Marwala and Israeli researcher Daniel Muller studied the St. Peterburg paradox using the concept of the relative net utility. [52] Marwala and Bo Xing have also studied the relationship between blockchain and artificial intelligence. [53] With Evan Hurwitz,Marwala built software agents that can bluff on playing a game of poker. [54] [55]
Marwala has applied artificial intelligence in aeronautical engineering and an example of this is his work on using AI to detect faults in aerospace structures,which he published papers in journals of American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics such as AIAA Journal and Journal of Aircraft. [56] [57] [58]
Marwala has worked on the application of artificial intelligence to health care. For example,he has used AI to diagnose pulmonary embolism [59] and epileptic activity [60] as well as understand HIV [61] and Covid-19. [62] He was a co-inventor of the innovative methods of radiation imaging [63] and with Megan Jill Russell as well as David Rubin the artificial larynx. [64]
Marwala and Evan Hurwitz proposed that there is less information asymmetry between two artificial intelligent agents than between two human agents and that the more artificial intelligence there is in the market,the less the volume of trades in the market. [65] [66] Tshilidzi Marwala and Evan Hurwitz in their book [67] applied Lewis turning point theory to study the transition of the economy into automated production and identified an equilibrium point (Lewis turning point) where it does not make economic sense to move human labor to automated machines. Tshilidzi Marwala and Evan Hurwitz,in their book, [67] observed that the advent of intelligent online buying platforms such as Amazon and technologies such as flexible manufacturing offers the opportunity for individualized supply and demand curves to be produced. They observed that these reduce the degree of arbitrage in the market,permitting individualized pricing for the same product and bringing fairness and efficiency into the market. Furthermore,with Evan Hurwitz in their book, [67] they observed that decision-making and predicting machines that are executed using artificial intelligence and other machine learning techniques reduce the biases and variances of the errors on decision making and thus make decisions in a closer manner to the conclusions of rational expectations theory than human decision-makers. In his response to Bill Gates,Marwala has also brought to the attention the difficulty of taxing robots given the fact that a great deal of the devices that we use have robotics features. [68] He developed the concept of pseudo-modal energies,proposing the theory of rational counterfactual thinking,rational opportunity cost and the theory of flexibly bounded rationality. [69] Marwala also observed that the applicability of prospect theory depends on how much artificial intelligence is used to make a decision. He also observed that the more artificial intelligence is used for decision-making,the more efficient the markets become. For example,if artificially intelligent machines make all decisions,the markets will be fully rational. [70]
Tshilidzi Marwala has contributed to the application of artificial intelligence in political science,international relations,and interstate conflict. With Monica Lagazio,he has studied the effects of artificial intelligence on international relations,including the possibility of interstate conflict. In this regard,these researchers have discussed how AI can be used to predict and manage conflicts,as well as how it may alter the nature of diplomacy and international negotiations. This work involved analyzing data and predicting potential conflicts using machine learning algorithms. [71] Marwala and Bhaso Ndzendze have investigated how AI can be utilized in international relations decision-making procedures. He has discussed the potential for artificial intelligence to enhance decision-making by providing more precise forecasts and analyses. [72] [73]
Marwala is a member of The World Academy of Sciences, [74] American Academy of Arts and Sciences, [75] Chinese Academy of Sciences, [76] African Academy of Sciences, [77] and the Academy of Science of South Africa. [78] In high school he won the National Youth Science Olympiad and represented South Africa in the London International Youth Science Forum. [79] He is the recipient of the Order of Mapungubwe. In 2022,Marwala was awarded the IT Personality of the Year Award in South Africa for his work on the fourth Industrial Revolution, [80] and in 2020 the Science-for-Society Gold Medal from the Academy of Science of South Africa. [81] Marwala has received honorary doctorates from the Caucasus University in Tbilisi in Georgia, [82] the University of Venda. [83] and Tshwane University of Technology. [84]
Artificial intelligence (AI), in its broadest sense, is intelligence exhibited by machines, particularly computer systems. It is a field of research in computer science that develops and studies methods and software which enable machines to perceive their environment and uses learning and intelligence to take actions that maximize their chances of achieving defined goals. Such machines may be called AIs.
The United Nations University (UNU) is the think tank and academic arm of the United Nations. Headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan, with diplomatic status as a UN institution, its mission is to help resolve global issues related to human development and welfare through collaborative research and education.
Max Erik Tegmark is a Swedish-American physicist, machine learning researcher and author. He is best known for his book Life 3.0 about what the world might look like as artificial intelligence continues to improve. Tegmark is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the president of the Future of Life Institute.
Geoffrey Everest Hinton is a British-Canadian computer scientist and cognitive psychologist, most noted for his work on artificial neural networks. From 2013 to 2023, he divided his time working for Google and the University of Toronto, before publicly announcing his departure from Google in May 2023, citing concerns about the risks of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. In 2017, he co-founded and became the chief scientific advisor of the Vector Institute in Toronto.
The University of Johannesburg (UJ) is a public university located in Johannesburg, South Africa. The University of Johannesburg came into existence on 1 January 2005 as the result of a merger between the Rand Afrikaans University (RAU), the Technikon Witwatersrand (TWR) and the Soweto and East Rand campuses of Vista University. Prior to the merger, the Daveyton and Soweto campuses of the former Vista University had been incorporated into RAU. As a result of the merger of Rand Afrikaans University (RAU), it is common for alumni to refer to the university as RAU. The vice-chancellor and principal of UJ is Professor Letlhokwa George Mpedi who took office on 1 January 2023. Between 2018 and 2022, UJ's vice-chancellor and principal was Tshilidzi Marwala.
This is a timeline of artificial intelligence, sometimes alternatively called synthetic intelligence.
The ethics of artificial intelligence is the branch of the ethics of technology specific to artificial intelligence (AI) systems.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been used in applications throughout industry and academia. Similar to electricity or computers, AI serves as a general-purpose technology that has numerous applications. Its applications span language translation, image recognition, decision-making, credit scoring, e-commerce and various other domains.
Mbilwi Secondary School is a school in the town of Sibasa in Limpopo, South Africa.
The Lewis turning point is a situation in economic development where surplus rural labor is fully absorbed into the manufacturing sector. This typically causes agricultural and unskilled industrial real wages to rise. The term is named after economist W. Arthur Lewis. Shortly after the Lewis point, an economy requires balanced growth policies.
Existential risk from artificial general intelligence is the idea that substantial progress in artificial general intelligence (AGI) could result in human extinction or an irreversible global catastrophe.
The Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS), launched in 2015, is a collaborative initiative involving the University of Johannesburg (UJ) in South Africa and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore.
Fulufhelo Vincent Nelwamondo (OMS) is an electrical engineer by training, and holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of the Witwatersrand, in South Africa. He is the youngest recipient of the Harvard-South Africa Fellowship Programme amongst other honours. His research and practical experience has covered a wide spectrum of areas, including software engineering and computational intelligence. His interests include biometrics-based systems, data mining and machine learning tools.
Megan Jill Russell is a Biomedical and Electrical engineer based in Johannesburg, South Africa. She is popularly known for inventing an artificial larynx which was featured by MIT Technology Review, but perhaps more importantly, she is involved in the development of methods of Computer-assisted detection of Tuberculosis.
Rohinton P. Medhora is a Canadian economist. His fields of expertise are monetary and trade policy, international economic relations, and development economics. He is a Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) distinguished fellow, former president of CIGI and professor of practice at McGill University's Institute for the Study of International Development.
This article presents a detailed timeline of events in the history of computing from 2020 to the present. For narratives explaining the overall developments, see the history of computing.
James M. Manyika is a Zimbabwean-American academic, consultant, and business executive. He is known for his research and scholarship into the intersection of technology and the economy, including artificial intelligence, robotics automation, and the future of work. He is Google's first Senior Vice President of Technology and Society, reporting directly to Google CEO Sundar Pichai. He focuses on "shaping and sharing" the company's view on the way tech affects society, the economy, and the planet. In April 2023, his role was expanded to Senior Vice President for Research, Technology & Society and includes overseeing Google Research and Google Labs and focusing more broadly on helping advance Google’s most ambitious innovations in AI, Computing and Science responsibly. He is also Chairman Emeritus of the McKinsey Global Institute.
Meta AI is an artificial intelligence laboratory owned by Meta Platforms Inc.. Meta AI develops various forms of artificial intelligence, including augmented and artificial reality technologies. Meta AI is also an academic research laboratory focused on generating knowledge for the AI community. This is in contrast to Facebook's Applied Machine Learning (AML) team, which focuses on practical applications of its products.
Letlhokwa George Mpedi is a South African academic, who is Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Johannesburg, as of March 2023, succeeding Professor Tshilidzi Marwala.