On October 23, at the Peking University New Engineering International Forum, Robin Li, an alumnus of Peking University and chairman and CEO of Baidu, delivered a speech entitled "Simplifying Complexity, From Scientific Thinking to Engineering Thinking". He said that Baidu and Tesla are using "engineering thinking" to do automatic driving, not waiting for the most advanced technology to practice the scientific thinking, but "turning difficult problems into simple problems, knowing compromises, knowing step by step." At present, Baidu's unmanned vehicles have served more than 400,000 people.
In the construction of new engineering disciplines and the cultivation of talents, Li Yanhong said that the new engineering department focuses on the engineering thinking of cultivating talents, simplifies complex problems, and integrates reality in a "compromise" step by step. At the same time, talents in the new engineering era must have the three major capabilities of innovation, cross-border and openness. He also suggested that it is necessary to strengthen the linkage between schools and enterprises, learn from each other and grow together.
In terms of industrial practice and technology landing, Robin Li took automatic driving as an example and proposed that Baidu and Tesla are both "engineering thinking".
"To do it with scientific thinking is to ascend to the sky one step at a time, to achieve L5 and then expand the scale and commercialize, Waymo is this way." But many Turing Award winners say that L5 is too difficult to achieve in a few decades. To do it with engineering thinking is to take it step by step, and first realize automatic driving in some scenarios. Tesla has taken such an approach, it first does L2, follow the car on the highway, change lanes, achieve automatic parking in the parking lot, and so on. This way is successful, the market is very accepting, the car is selling, every day countless people drive Tesla cars for them to collect all kinds of data for free, Tesla thus has an unparalleled super-large-scale autopilot-related data, so investors think that Tesla is more likely to make unmanned driving. At the same time, Tesla also made a lot of money by selling cars, forming a virtuous circle, and the automobile industry has also seen major changes that have not been encountered in a hundred years. Robin Li said.
Robin Li said that Baidu uses another way of gradient, that is, the gradient of the driving range of autonomous driving. "Now in any scenario of full unmanned driving can not be done, the country's 5 million kilometers of road, one step to the sky to achieve unmanned can not do, then can not start from the simplest 50,000 kilometers, 100,000 kilometers?" Technically, in places where there are fewer people and cars mixed, in places where everyone obeys traffic rules more, where traffic lights are set up more reasonably, it is possible to achieve full unmanned driving, we can run up in these places first, continue to learn in the process of actual operation, continuously improve, and gradually expand the geographical scope of unmanned vehicle services, so that we can also go to L5. Baidu has taken such a gradual approach, we have set up a special transportation company called Radish Run, to provide everyone with autonomous driving travel services. Today in Beijing Yizhuang, Guangzhou Huangpu, in Changsha, Cangzhou and many other places, ordinary users are able to hit the radish fast running unmanned car, and many times also free. Today, our driverless cars have received more than 400,000 visitors. ”
He pointed out the difference between scientific thinking and engineering thinking: "Knowing how to turn difficult problems into simple problems, knowing compromises, knowing how to take steps, I think is the main difference between engineering thinking and scientific thinking." We have more scientific thinking in education and less engineering thinking, and I hope that Peking University's new engineering department can pay more attention to this aspect and cultivate more talents with engineering thinking. ”
In terms of technology trends to promote a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial change, Robin Li believes that there will be eight key technologies in the field of artificial intelligence in the next decade, which will achieve quantitative to qualitative changes, namely autonomous driving, digital city operation, machine translation, biocomputing, deep learning framework, knowledge management, AI chips and personal intelligent assistants. Robin Li said: "The breakthrough of these eight technologies will extensively change people's production and lifestyle, which is something I firmly believe, and these eight technologies will also be the direction of Baidu's firm investment." ”
Li Yanhong said that china has the best soil to cultivate leading talents and strategic scientists, and stressed that in the next 5 years, Baidu will train 5 million AI talents for the society and continue to contribute to the construction of national strategic scientific and technological strength.
Text/Beijing Youth Daily reporter Wen Jing
Editor/Fan Hongwei