A scientist’s poor eyesight helped fuel a revolution in computer ‘vision’

Working in artificial intelligence for decades, Alexei Efros, a computer scientist at the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research Lab, suddenly finds himself in a world where his once-niche field has become an increasingly pronounced part of everyday life for millions. The fruits of his breakthroughs in computer ‘vision’ can be found in smartphones, photo-editing technology, self-driving cars and more. In this documentary profile from Quanta Magazine, Efros gives a brief history of computer vision for AI from the 1960s to today, details how his poor eyesight proved advantageous in his work and explains why there’s much more to machine learning than building an algorithm. He also discusses how, in his lab, he and the next generation of researchers are working to address pressing problems in contemporary AI, such as human bias.