As artificial intelligence creeps deeper into each and every industry vertical, demand for experienced technical talent only continues to increase. Now online education tools like Udacity and Coursera are being thrust into the spotlight as potential solutions to the problem. But even as course enrollment in AI classes balloons, Fortune 2000 companies are still paying an unsustainable premium for data scientists.
We’re excited to showcase this ecosystem at Disrupt SF.
Both Udacity’s Sebastian Thrun and Coursera’s Andrew Ng understand the potential repercussions of this trend intimately. Each continues to contribute to AI research while working with their respective startups. Join us as we chat with Thrun and Ng about the impact of the AI skills gap. Joined by Google’s John Giannandrea, we will have a wholesome discussion about the future of employment and the necessary ingredients for crafting an AI-first company.
And within the world of venture, we will be looking to this trio to shed light on some of the highest-profile investments made in AI, including Yoshua Bengio’s Element AI studio, Oliver Cameron’s Voyage self-driving car and Thrun’s own Kitty Hawk flying car.
All three engineers have touched Google over the years — Ng as founder of Google’s Brain Team, Thrun as founder of Google X and Giannandrea as the current leader of Google’s search and AI efforts. Ng and Thrun have been evangelizing AI for years, so it will be interesting to hear their take on the unquestionable prominence of deep learning.
Giannandrea’s recent assent to the top of Google’s AI roster comes after years of work in the field for Google, Netscape and Metaweb. He should be able to shed some light on the company’s current AI strategy and why so many teams at Google have an interest in interfacing with AI startups.
If you’re interested in hearing more about the future of artificial intelligence and how some of the smartest minds in the field are working to educate the next generation of data scientists, get yourself a ticket to Disrupt SF 2017. We might just get lucky enough to nab some additional details on Andrew Ng’s latest project, Deeplearning.ai and his new $150 million AI fund.