Stanford publishes its AI Index Report that focuses on the developments of the complex artificial intelligence landscape since 2017. The latest report — 2021 — shed some light on the impact of COVID-19 in AI research, countries leading the race in research, and more. In a total of 7 chapters, the Stanford AI Index Report also covers aspects like AI education, research and development, diversity in AI, and AI policy.
One of the most surprising revelations, for many, is that China overtakes the US in terms of journal citation, pinpointing the advancement in their research. This comes after China surpassed the US in the terms of the number of artificial intelligence research publications in 2017 after briefly overtaking in 2004. However, the US has significantly more cited AI conference papers than China.
While experts and AI enthusiasts may be at crossroads when it comes to the development of research breakthroughs from China, everyone can be blissful about the expanding research in artificial intelligence. According to Stanford AI Index Report, in 2020, the artificial intelligence journal publications grew by 34.5 percent from 2019. AI-related research publications also grew sixfold on arXiv since 2015 and reached 34,736 in 2020.
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The COVID-19 pandemic also provided the opportunity for machine learning enthusiasts and practitioners to attend more virtual conferences; attendance across nine AI-related conferences almost doubled in 2020. The interest among aspirants to build the real-world application using artificial intelligence is also evident, as, in 2019, 65 percent of PhDs from North America moved into industry, up from 44.4 percent in 2010.
While there was a lot to cheer about this report, some of the challenges the AI industry witnessing are startling. One of the major challenges that are impeding AI development is the need for diversity. The Stanford AI Index Report pinpointed that, in 2019, 45 percent of new U.S. resident AI Ph.D. graduates were white, 2.4 percent were African American, and 3.2 percent Hispanic.
You can read about the entire report here, which has a lot of information on the issues with the lack of proper benchmarking for artificial intelligence to measure the real-world impact and more.
