With the theme, Innovating for a Better World, the 2024 Zhongguancun Forum was held in Beijing on April 25-29. On the sidelines of the forum, the Artificial General Intelligence Forum was held, on April 27. Focusing on the industrial innovation of artificial general intelligence (AGI), Dong Le, executive vice-director of the Beijing Institute for General Artificial Intelligence (BIGAI), participated in discussions with representatives from the AGI industry. 

Dong has been engaged in AI, pattern recognition, and autonomous robotics research for more than 10 years. She has both witnessed and experienced the development of AGI in China. 

Dong, who holds 30 patents in the field of AI, has contributed to scientific research, talent training and achievement transformation, and she has helped advance the development of AGI in Beijing.

Dong was named one of the most beautiful women strivers in the capital in 2022, and she was elected a delegate to the 13th National Women's Congress of China in 2023. 

A conference was held at China Soong Ching Ling Youth Science and Culture Exchange Center, in Beijing's Haidian District, on March 14, 2024, to honor 40 women role models, and 20 women's collectives, who have made achievements in their respective fields. Dong was one of the 40 role models. 

The conference inspired women to continue contributing to the high-quality development of the capital, in the new era, and to the building of a demonstration area highlighting the new quality productive forces in Haidian District.

Devoted to Sci-Tech Research 

Dong returned to China in 2009, after she obtained her Ph.D., in electrical engineering, from Queen Mary College and Westfield College, University of London. Since then, she has been a professor and doctoral supervisor with the School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, in Chengdu, in Southwest China's Sichuan Province. 

Dong has presided over and/or participated in more than 10 national- or provincial-level projects, and she has won several awards for her achievements in scientific and technological research. 

Dong joined BIGAI in 2020. BIGAI is an innovative non-profit, research-and-development organization affiliated with Peking University, Tsinghua University, and other leading academic institutions in China. 

As stated on its website, BIGAI is "dedicated to developing AGI through the ‘small data, big tasks' approach, inspired by findings from diverse subjects, such as cognitive science and developmental psychology." Its mission is "pursuing a unified theory of artificial intelligence to create general intelligent agents for lifting humanity." 

Dong says establishment of cognitive architecture and value-driven intelligence will be key development directions of AGI.

AI Empowering Productivity

In addition to conducting research, Dong has been focusing on cultivating talents in the field of AGI. As deputy director of a talent-cultivation program supported by China's Ministry of Education, she has cooperated with top universities in China to train talents in AGI through an interest-based, subject-and task-oriented mode. 

When asked about the positive influence of AI for human and social well-being, Dong says it is to use technology to break the unbalanced allocation of resources that may result in waste and loss, so the overall operating efficiency of society is intelligently improved. "We believe the collision and integration of AI and human civilization will inevitably occur in the future," Dong says. 

"We are now primarily doing research related to development of AI infrastructure. By combining embodied intelligence and humanoid robots, we hope to generate value in some of our country's key industries. At present, some applications are being used in transportation, logistics, homes and other fields, aimed at reducing costs and increasing efficiency, and improving people's experiences," Dong says. 

Dong has led her team in cooperating with leading and innovative companies to build general platforms for intelligent agents. As an important concept in AI, the development of intelligent agents has received wide attention from the public. 

Dong says BIGAI created the first virtual child-image figure, named Tong Tong, based on AGI technology. Tong Tong was trained using a learning and reasoning framework developed by BIGAI. The training equipped Tong Tong with vision, comprehension, communication, and many other attributes. 

"The creation of Tong Tong shows AI is moving in a more autonomous and human direction. In the future, Tong Tong is expected to be combined with humanoid robots to play a big role in education, health care, intelligent manufacturing and other strategic and emerging industries." Dong says. 

Dong says BIGAI has more than 60 women sci-tech researchers. Indomitable and fearless, they are dedicated to their work, and they make up an important force in scientific and technological innovation in the field of AGI. 

"Women have played a unique role in the field of sci-tech innovation. As a sci-tech worker in the AI field, I will continue to work hard, with my colleagues, to clear the bottlenecks in science and technology, and to contribute our strength to achieving sci-tech self-reliance and self-strengthening at higher levels," Dong says. 

Photos from Interviewee

(Women of China English Monthly May 2024)

Editor: Wang Shasha