Yejin Choi is a computer scientist leveraging her expertise in natural language processing (NLP) to develop artificial intelligence-based systems that can perform commonsense reasoning. The ability to reason, or make inferences, is beyond the reach of existing AI systems because it requires implicit knowledge about how the world works. Choi recognized that rules-based models, such as logic or conditional probabilities, are too rigid to encompass the complexity of commonsense knowledge and thinking. Instead, she uses computational methods for understanding language, or NLP, to develop commonsense knowledge and reasoning models.
The New York Times interviews Yejin Choi, an AI Pioneer, a 2022 recipient of the prestigious MacArthur “genius” grant. She has been doing groundbreaking research on developing common sense and ethical reasoning in A.I. “There is a bit of hype around A.I. potential, as well as A.I. fear,” admits Choi. Which isn’t to say the story of humans and A.I. will be without its surprises. “It has the feeling of adventure,” Choi says about her work. “You’re exploring this unknown territory. You see something unexpected, and then you feel like, I want to find out what else is out there!”
The NY Times questions include topics such as people’s misconceptions, sentient artificial intelligence, how to teach A.I. to make moral decisions, and more.
Yejin Choi, Computer Scientist, 2022 MacArthur Fellow
