Quebec scientist Yoshua Bengio enters the Larousse dictionary

The scientific director of Mila, a Montreal institute for research in artificial intelligence, thus joins the approximately 300 Canadians, including some thirty personalities from Quebec whose names are part of this dictionary. Cartoonist Guy Delisle and conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin are among the Quebec personalities who have recently made their debut there.

In a video interview with several journalists, Yoshua Bengio admitted to reacting with disbelief to the announcement. All these prices, I would not have imagined them a few years ago. It’s always good to have these recognitions.

” It leads me to refocus on humility, which is important in these situations. Science is not one or two people who make it happen, it’s teams and students who don’t necessarily have recognition. “

the Little Illustrated Larousse describes Yoshua Bengio as a Canadian computer scientist born in 1964 in Paris. We add that this precursor of artificial neural networks and deep learning developed machine learning technology used in voice recognition of telephones and language translation. It is emphasized thathe is also interested in the issues raised by the applications of artificial intelligence.

To this is added his obtaining of the Turing Prize from the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), considered to be the Nobel Prize in computing, alongside researchers Geoffrey Hinton and Yann LeCun, in 2019.

A definition that satisfies the scientist. They did a good job, but they didn’t consult me. So they did their investigation properly.

A recognition that allows popularization

In addition to this recognition from Larousse, Yoshua Bengio received the Legion of Honor at the start of the year and the Spanish Princess of Asturias prize last week along with three scientific colleagues. He says he is happy that the work he does with his team has an impact on society.

” [On travaille sur] questions that are increasingly transformative. It’s very motivating for a lot of people and for the students. There are researchers who are also very motivated – and I belong to this camp – simply by the discovery, the understanding of intelligence. “

However, he would like to convince the population and governments to act and go further in his field. [Ces reconnaissances] can help increase the influence and the message one can send as a researcherthinks Yoshua Bengio.

He maintains that we must democratize AI and above all inform the population about it, because the needs will grow in all sectors of society. Using AI is like using a calculator. Everyone needs to have some familiarity with it, which should be part of the basic course.

He asserts that the population must also be well informed in order to be able to make informed decisions on AI at the international level. For this, populations must be aware of moral, ethical and military issues, which are not necessarily of interest to ordinary mortals. Their concerns are more at the level of what we see in science fiction films. Which is not the issue for the next decades.

An independent selection

No name can be submitted to be part of the dictionary. The selection is made by a committee of experts from different disciplines.

In addition, four criteria are necessary for a scientific personality to be part of the Larousse: the notoriety of the person, particularly in France, the longevity, the legitimacy and the accessibility of their achievements.

In the Little Illustrated Larousse 2023, 150 new words, meanings and expressions and more than 40 new proper nouns have been added. Especially Quebec words slip and roll.

Regarding the Princess of Asturias prize awarded last week in Spain, Yoshua Bengio wanted to say that it was heart warming as Spanish was the mother tongue of three of his grandparents.