'There's a race between machines and humans'

Udacity founder and CEO Sebastian Thrun is a man who wears many hats. This Google Fellow and former VP once ran Google X, the secretive division tasked with moonshot initiatives like the Driverless Car project. Thrun, who is an authority on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics, is also a professor of robotics and AI at Stanford’s famed Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and a faculty at Singularity University.

In conversation with Deccan Herald’s Georgy S Thomas, he discusses the evolution of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), the driverless car project, and Singularity, which denotes the moment when machine intelligence overtakes that of humans.

Why did you change the model of Udacity? Have you given upon the dream of educating millions?
The dream to educate millions is still active. What we have learned since then is that education is more than a set of videos. The real learning is when students do projects and do something themselves. So we changed the model from a content model to a service model where we provide one-on-one services to students. Our students at Udacity get one-on-one feedback on their project work, mentorship, and interview training. And these services make a huge difference in, for example, the completion rate.
I will give you one data point: my own class on robotics as an open MOOC has a 2.1 per cent completion rate. As a Udacity course with Udacity mentors, it has a 91 per cent finishing rate.

Can everybody learn to code? Why is learning to code important?
Yes we believe so. Coding is a way of thinking and of communicating that is essential in the modern age.

Some very knowledgeable people have either dismissed Singularity happening or chosen to believe that it is something to be apprehensive about. Your take?
Singularity is happening right now in plain sight of everybody. And we see more and more examples where AI is transforming society and making people a thousand times effective than ever before. In almost every aspect of human life, we have AI systems as strong as humans are. But Singularity is not going to happen on a specific date. It is a process, supposed to take place over 20 years. We are right in the middle of it. But it is much less threatening than in the movies, though.

Are you planning to start a course in Udacity on Singularity?
No. I would not know what to teach. I want students to acquire skills that are relevant in the age of very rapid change.

Jaron Lanier says while there are some who are into Singularity at Microsoft, it is all pervasive at Google. “It would be hard for somebody to disagree with the religion and be at Google,” he says. Since Udacity has a tie-up with Google where students can hope for employment, can they disagree with Singularity and work at Google?
Every student should have an independent opinion. This is a hotly debated topic. Neither company makes this specific belief a criterion in hiring.

Ray Kurzweil at Google is working on AI software that can converse fully in human fashion. Is it possible to have such software?
Yes. The Loebner Prize has been claimed. Wait five more years and it will be hard to remember that computers could not communicate in natural language.

There is fear that AI-powered robots would likely be amoral and can simply destroy lives because they do not know that it is wrong to take life. Your thoughts?
No concern. We will make sure they don’t do this.

What is the takeaway for participants of the $12,000, one-week course at Singularity University. Has it ever led to any insights?
Yes. It is life transforming to many. And new relationships form. But it is also a lot of money. Udacity is much more cost-effective.

Google’s Driverless Project is making traditional automobile firms apprehensive?
I am not a Google spokesperson. But I really believe that we lose something like a million people every year in the roads in places like India and the US. To make driving safer is more important than anything else. I worry more about safety and people not being killed in traffic and not being hurt in traffic than over anything else.

Why are driverless cars (replacing human drivers) a better bet than the incremental changes the auto industry is trying to do aimed at making drivers better?
If you don’t aim high you won’t shoot high.

Why should anybody take a Nanodegree from Udacity?
Every person in India should now take the Nanodegree. There is a race going on today between machines and humans. What Udacity and Google are doing today is to empower people to be stronger. I think it is important that you don’t just sit on the sidelines and do nothing, but train our people with the necessary skills they need to be productive in a society that is even more AI than before.