Intending to pursue Mathematics, becoming an artificial intelligence scientist was a big turning point for Dr. Luong Minh Thang, a senior expert at Google DeepMind, Google's artificial intelligence (AI) research division. For nearly 10 years, Dr. Thang has participated in building a series of AI chatbots, including Meena - the world's best-rated chatbot in 2020, which later became Bard and is now Gemini.
From a surprise turn to the "architect" of future AI
Born in 1987 in Dong Nai , Luong Minh Thang is a former student of the Math class at the Gifted High School (Ho Chi Minh City National University). With a passion for Mathematics, when participating in the selection round of the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), Thang dreamed of winning an IMO medal, following in the footsteps of legends such as Professor Le Ba Khanh Trinh and Professor Tran Nam Dung.
However, the path of education took an unexpected turn. "I failed the selection round and started to turn to information technology. I consider this a milestone that changed my life," Dr. Thang shared. That unexpected turn did not discourage the young man, but on the contrary, opened up a new horizon, a path that would later leave a strong mark on the world AI map.
In 2006, Luong Minh Thang received a prestigious full scholarship from the National University of Singapore (NUS). It was here that the passion for machine learning and natural language processing (NLP), the pillars of modern AI, began to ignite and burn.
Dr. Thang realized the limitless potential of "teaching" computers to understand and interact with humans in natural language. That aspiration motivated him to continue his journey of knowledge at Stanford University (USA). Here, he pursued a doctoral program under the guidance of Professor Christopher Manning, one of the world's leading AI experts.
Working with his great teacher, Luong Minh Thang set a more specific goal: to teach computers how to read and understand text, to be able to summarize the content and accurately answer key questions in the passage. It was during this period that the name Luong Minh Thang began to be known in the academic world when he co-authored "Luong Attention".
This is a breakthrough mechanism in neural machine translation, which significantly improves the quality of automatic translation and is still an important component in many modern translation systems. It is the foundation brick, the pioneering step that affirms Vietnamese talent and intelligence on the world AI map.
The "earthquake" of AI at Google
In September 2016, Dr. Luong Minh Thang officially joined Google Brain (now part of Google DeepMind). His expertise focuses on machine learning and natural language processing, core areas that are shaping the future of AI.
Here, he is the only Vietnamese in the core research team developing the Parti model (Pathways Autoregressive Text-to-Image). This is a revolutionary technology that allows AI to automatically convert descriptive text into vivid, visual images. If language is the traditional means of human communication, then applying AI to "paint" creative pictures from words can be considered a breakthrough, opening up countless applications in art, design, education and communication.
Since 2018, Dr. Luong Minh Thang has been a co-founder of the Meena project, an ambitious AI chatbot capable of natural conversation on any topic. He and his colleagues have built Meena from the initial ideas, gradually developing it into a complex model with 2.6 billion parameters, trained on a huge text data warehouse of up to 340GB.
Sharing about the challenging but also inspiring research process, Dr. Thang confided: “That requires careful thinking because at my level there are many problems that can be solved. The core importance is to find the problem that most people need the most, even if they haven't thought of it yet, but must have the ability to apply it in practice.”
At the time of its announcement in 2020, Meena was considered by experts to be the world's leading chatbot, demonstrating sophisticated conversational capabilities. However, Google decided not to widely release Meena due to concerns about potential risks, after another company's chatbot encountered unexpected problems such as providing false information or expressing prejudice.
The breakthrough appearance of ChatGPT in late 2022 created a big "shock" in the technology industry, which, according to Dr. Thang, pushed Google into a tense "100-day AI race". Along with about 50 other key experts, Dr. Thang directly participated in the development of Bard - a chatbot built on Meena's technology platform but with stricter requirements for information accuracy and reliability, different from Meena's previous trend of entertaining and humorous chat. After the tireless efforts of the entire team, Bard was officially launched in early February 2023.
AlphaGeometry: When AI conquers the peak of the Math Olympiad
At the end of 2023, the name Luong Minh Thang once again attracted the attention of the world's technology and science community. He and his colleagues at Google DeepMind announced AlphaGeometry, an AI system capable of solving geometry problems at the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) level with a level equivalent to a Gold medal.
In a test of 30 geometry problems selected from IMO competitions from 2000 to 2022, AlphaGeometry successfully solved 25 problems within the time limit of the competition. For comparison, a previously advanced AI system solved only 10 problems, and the average IMO gold medalist solved 25.9 problems. This is a remarkable leap forward, demonstrating the increasingly sophisticated logical reasoning capabilities of AI.
This achievement has received recognition and appreciation from many AI experts and leading mathematicians in the world. Professor Ngo Bao Chau (Department of Mathematics, University of Chicago), who won the prestigious Fields Medal, commented: "It is completely reasonable for AI researchers to try their hand at IMO geometry problems, because finding solutions to them is a bit like chess, in that we have very few reasonable ways to move at each step. But I am still surprised that they can do it."
With AlphaGeometry, Dr. Luong Minh Thang's team not only applied advanced deep learning techniques, but also created an AI capable of sophisticated geometric reasoning - an ability once considered the "final limit" of machines compared to human intelligence.
“We want AI to reach new heights, not only imitating humans but also having new reasoning, searching and creating practical solutions for the world in many fields such as Physics, Chemistry, for example in finding and developing new drugs,” Dr. Thang shared.
The Desire to Serve and the Fire to Inspire
Despite the resounding technical achievements, for Dr. Luong Minh Thang, that is not the ultimate goal. What he always worries about and aims for is how to apply these advanced technologies to education and life, bringing practical benefits to the community and society. "Liberal education will create a breakthrough in the field of AI," Dr. Thang shared.
In addition to his in-depth research work at Google, Dr. Thang also devotes much effort to promoting and building the AI community in Vietnam. He is the co-founder of VietAI, a non-profit organization that has trained more than 1,000 high-quality AI engineers for the country. Many of VietAI's students have since achieved success at large technology corporations such as Google, Amazon, or leading technology startups at home and abroad. Not stopping there, he also contributed to the founding of the New Turing Institute, with the ambition of forming a strong and dynamic AI ecosystem in Southeast Asia, following the successful model of Silicon Valley.
Dr. Luong Minh Thang's journey to conquer AI is not only written with complex algorithms and sophisticated lines of code, but also with a strong belief in human potential and a burning desire to build a better future. He is a living proof that Vietnamese talent can absolutely shine brightly in the international arena, contribute to the common treasure of human knowledge, and most importantly, always keep in mind a great love and responsibility for the homeland and country.
Source: https://khoahocdoisong.vn/ts-luong-minh-thang-tu-imo-dang-do-den-dinh-cao-ai-google-post1543348.html
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