Ajay Agrawal

AI advances to put greater value on human judgment: U of T experts

ullahnor — Thu, 27 Jul 2017 19:19:31 +0000

AI advances to put greater value on human judgment: U of T experts

ullahnor Thu, 07/27/2017 - 15:19

Cutline

Researchers at U of T's Rotman School of Management argue that with the rise of artificial intelligence, there will be more value placed on human judgment (photo by BSIP/UIG via Getty Images)

Topic

Global Lens

Artificial Intelligence

Rotman School of Management

Creative Destruction Lab

Ajay Agrawal

With the rise of artificial intelligence and concern about its potential impact on jobs, U of T's Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans and Avi Goldfarb argue that human judgment will become an increasingly valuable skill.

“In many cases, especially in the near term, humans will be required to exercise this sort of judgment,” they write in the Harvard Business Review. “They’ll specialize in weighing the costs and benefits of different decisions, and then that judgment will be combined with machine-generated predictions to make decisions.”

Agrawal is a professor of entrepreneurship at U of T’s Rotman School of Management and founder of the Creative Destruction Lab, U of T's widely recognized seed-stage accelerator program, which has a strong AI focus. Gans is a professor of strategic management at Rotman, and Goldfarb is a professor of marketing at Rotman and chief data scientist at the Creative Destruction Lab.

The trio say it's still too early to tell whether machine predictions will decrease or increase the overall amount of work available for humans.

“Rather than trying to predict specifics, we suggest an alternative approach,” they argue. “Economic theory suggests that AI will substantially raise the value of human judgment. People who display good judgment will become more valuable, not less.”

Scaling up: U of T accelerator to undertake massive Canadian expansion

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 18 May 2017 16:16:35 +0000

Scaling up: U of T accelerator to undertake massive Canadian expansion

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 05/18/2017 - 12:16

Chris Sorensen

Author legacy

Chris Sorensen

Topic

Global Lens

Creative Destruction Lab

Rotman School of Management

Ajay Agrawal

Startup

Entrepreneurship

The University of Toronto’s Creative Destruction Lab, or CDL, seeks to scale science-based startups into giant, market-dominating companies.

But, on Thursday, it was the accelerator itself that was preparing for massive growth.

The CDL program, part of U of T’s Rotman School of Management, announced an ambitious cross-country expansion that will see new CDL programs operated by business schools in Calgary, Montreal and Halifax – each with their own unique area of focus.

That’s in addition to the CDL-West branch that was launched last year at the University of British Columbia's Sauder School of Business.

“The goal is to generate $100 billion of equity value over 10 years, with half coming from companies based in Canada,” said Ajay Agrawal, a professor of strategic management at Rotman and founder of the CDL accelerator program.

Agrawal said the expansion, in the works for six months, was spawned after business school representatives from across the country expressed interest in adopting both the model and the CDL brand.

The three new additions are: CDL-Rockies, which will focus on energy-related startups at the University of Calgary’s Haskayne School of Business; CDL-Montreal, which will specialize in data science companies at HEC Montreal; and CDL-Atlantic, which will target companies with clean, ocean and agriculture-related technologies at Dalhousie University’s Rowe School of Business.

The expanding network promises to create new opportunities for everyone involved, according to Agrawal.

“We have an artificial intelligence focus in Toronto,” said Agrawal, referring to U of T's pioneering research in the deep learning field and recent efforts to leverage it through public-private partnerships like the recently launched Vector Institute. Examples of AI-related startups that call CDL in Toronto home include: Deep Genomics, which uses machine learning to develop genetic medicines; Blue J Legal, which uses AI to predict the outcome of tax law cases; and WinterLight Labs, which uses AI and machine learning to analyze speech patterns to determine a patient’s neurological health.

“But if we have an AI company in Toronto that’s focused on some kind of ocean application and there’s ocean expertise in Atlantic Canada or Vancouver, now we can connect the dots with investors and scientists in those regions.”

Jim Dewald, the dean of U of C's Haskayne business school, said in a statement that he expects CDL Rockies to do for oil and gas innovation what CDL in Toronto did for commercializing AI advances.

“They created a cluster that attracts entrepreneurs, investors and corporations from around the globe to Toronto,” Dewald said.

CDL’s approach is unique among accelerators, including the nine others at U of T. At its core is an objectives-based mentoring process that challenges startups to meet certain goals – all focused on maximizing the value of the companies in the eyes of shareholders – or risk being voted out of the program. Entrepreneurs also receive guidance and mentoring by top entrepreneurs and investors.

Over the past four years, participants in the U of T-based program created more than $1 billion in equity value.

Rotman’s decision to expand its CDL program to other university campuses is unusual because business schools have historically competed for students. But Agrawal said that as a global top-20 business school, Rotman realized that its competitors were no longer UBC, University of Calgary or Dalhousie – but Harvard, Wharton and MIT.

The same goes for efforts at Rotman – and U of T more generally – to improve Canada’s overall competitiveness by creating companies of the future.

“From a national economic growth perspective, in the tech sector we only have one competitor: Silicon Valley,” Agrawal said. “None of us can compete with the Bay Area on our own. So this gives us a much better chance of success.”

U of T's Geoffrey Hinton and Ajay Agrawal on ROB's “Power 50” list

ullahnor — Wed, 26 Apr 2017 19:49:40 +0000

U of T's Geoffrey Hinton and Ajay Agrawal on ROB's “Power 50” list

ullahnor Wed, 04/26/2017 - 15:49

Cutline

University Professor Emeritus Geoffrey Hinton speaking at Entrepreneurship Week last month. He and U of T's Ajay Agrawal are on the new list of top 50 influential Canadians (photo by Johnny Guatto)

Topic

City & Culture

Artificial Intelligence

Computer Science

Geoffrey Hinton

Rotman School of Management

Ajay Agrawal

Creative Destruction Lab

Startup

Entrepreneurs

The Report on Business Magazine's “Power 50” list of the most influential Canadians to watch includes U of T's Geoffrey Hinton and Ajay Agrawal. They share a spot on the list with the likes of Drake and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“Some call him the godfather of AI, others its elder statesman. Artificial intelligence is the hottest technology emerging today, and Hinton – professor emeritus at University of Toronto and engineering fellow at Google – is its biggest star,” the magazine states.

Hinton is also the chief scientific adviser of the newly created Vector Institute, which is hoping to build on the expertise of the deep-learning team at U of T and become a global leader in the booming field of artificial intelligence.

The list nods to Hinton's influence in AI where computers get better at pattern recognition, promising “significant advances in everything from self-driving cars to medical diagnoses.” And, it mentions his influence in training new leaders in AI like Ilya Sutskever, research director at Elon Musk-funded OpenAI, who is a former student; Ruslan Salakhutdinov, AI research head at Apple who was also a former student; and Yann LeCun, director of AI at Facebook, who did post-doctoral work under Hinton.

Ajay Agrawal

AI advances to put greater value on human judgment: U of T experts

Scaling up: U of T accelerator to undertake massive Canadian expansion

U of T's Geoffrey Hinton and Ajay Agrawal on ROB's “Power 50” list

Read more about Hinton's influence in AI