Time 40 under 40. Dr Ling Xi

Time 40 under 40

As the pace of technological change continues to accelerate, meet the thought and tech leaders with bold new visions and approaches to technology that will continue to propel the world forward. 

NEW TECHNOLOGISTS AND FOUNDERS

Dr Ling Xi

It's been a colossal year for the young head of engineering at RP Intelligence, the newest and most dynamic global player in the global tech scene. Dr Xi is not only a single mother and research leader in AI alignment testing via debate but also managed to squeeze in taking away silver at the Strength in Depth CrossFit games held in Birmingham this year. Dr Xi joins us with her two AGI companions, the twins, whom she is now famous for interviewing with.

Who is your personal hero?

XX3: Easy, Dr Xi’s father is her hero.

XX2: Confirmed at 98% credible interval.

Ling Xi: Thanks boys, yes they are spot on, as normal. My father not only always believed in me and helped push me forward, but he also helped me fall in love with physical culture by spending long hours teaching me our family Gong Fu style. I would not be the woman I am today without his patience and wisdom. 

How about in the academic and tech world? Any inspiring figures?

Ling Xi: What do we think boys?

The a pulse of blue and green lights flicker between on the laptop behind her. 

XX2: This is less clear, I would suggest based on reading and comments on her work that tech founders, like Sam Altman, are inspiring based on his singular drive to develop and accelerate the use of AI.

XX3: Disagree. Tech founders appear frequently in her work but are often not associated with emotional terms and phrases. Using a #hashtag emotional analysis I would suggest that Richard Feynman is more inspiring personally. 

Ling Xi: Very good XX3, while Altman and others have inspired me to pursue my career aggressively, I'm much more emotionally connected to great scientists. Richard Feynman famously said "I have no respect whatsoever for authority; forget who said it and instead look at what he starts with, where he ends up, and ask yourself, 'Is it reasonable?'He found the issues at Challenger 13 when no one else could and cracked the locks at Los Alamos to prove a point to Oppenheimer. On top of all that, he had a sense of humour and an actual sex life, plus played the bongos. In addition to CrossFit and trying to meet someone special to share my life with, I like to sing.  

If you weren't working in tech what would you be doing?

Ling Xi: I would be a captain (or Queen maybe?) of industry. I had the good fortune to start with considerable support from my father and I already ran a small fitness business in China and a medium sized property company in Thailand. If it wasn't tech it would be another game; health, insurance, finance, property it doesn't matter, I want to play and I'm good at it. 

XX2 & 3: And, spend more time with your son.

Ling Xi: Yes boys, yes, that too. Thank you for saying that as well. 

What's the biggest issue in tech these days?

XX2 and XX3 and Ling Xi all in harmony: Lack of alignment between man and machine. 

Impressive, we didn't script that by the way. Can you elaborate? Obviously you walk the walk and talk the talk here.

Ling Xi: Of course, AI alignment and AI understanding were a largely ignored sector of research compared to optimisation and deployment.

XX2: Dr Xi’s theoretical work showed that self play via debate could both improve alignment, and optimisation together. 

XX3: And her applied work showed that this approach allowed human and machine voting panels to keep pace with much more powerful systems. 

Ling Xi: Thanks boys, but remember, I literally couldn't have done it without you two. We kept pace with both chatGPT’s latest model and Deepmind’s in a range of live tasks. The twins have far less data and less power, but the Dao de Jing says: "Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power,”. The fusion of woman and machine is the future. More power doesn't mean more insight, more optimisation can be just more overfitting. If we want real knowledge engines, not just word guessing machines, the world must adapt to an aligned paradigm.