But while China has a growing AI talent pool and home-grown success stories, the country has also lost a handful of leading figures in the crucial sector. The early deaths of these experts – due to accidents or illness – have raised concerns about the personal safety of those in the industry and the stressful research environment they face.
Chinese computer scientist Liu Shaoshan said that while AI researchers might earn huge salaries, they were also under intense pressure.
“The industry is developing too fast and the competition is very fierce,” Liu said, adding that by the time one researcher came up with an idea and made it halfway through an experiment, someone else might have already published on the same topic.
Liu added that practitioners also faced ethical pressures.
“AI can also have a big impact on society as its use spreads, and this unknown potential for a huge change in society can also put them under very high moral pressure,” he said.
The South China Morning Post has compiled a list of top AI scientists who died at a relatively young age, most of whom were in their scientific prime and had made discoveries in key areas such as computer vision, military artificial intelligence and medical AI.
