De Kai

AI pioneer and author of Raising AI

Categories: AI, Business, Futurist, Hong Kong, Innovation, Technology, Trends

De Kai is the author of the award winning book Raising AI, which MIT Press will release in paperback in June 2026. He is a pioneering AI professor who invented and built the web’s first global AI translator, laying the groundwork for tools like Google Translate and Bing Translator, and was honored by the ACL as a Founding Fellow for his decades of breakthroughs, which lie at the intersection of language, AI, cognition, and ethics.

De Kai is at HKUST (Hong Kong) and at the International Computer Science Institute (Berkeley), served on Google’s inaugural AI ethics advisory council, is an independent director at the AI ethics think tank The Future Society, and recently founded the Empathetic AI Institute.

Raising AI: Building Human-Centered Intelligence in the Age of Generative and Agentic AI

As AI systems grow more powerful and pervasive, the central question is no longer only what they can do — but what values and assumptions they are being trained to reflect. Drawing on the ideas in Raising AI, this keynote reframes AI not as a tool to be deployed, but as something society is actively shaping. It explores what it means to develop AI with greater responsibility, empathy, and human awareness, and what each of us — as individuals, leaders, and institutions — has a role in getting right.

From Generative AI to Agentic AI: What Leaders Need to Understand Next

The current wave of generative AI is only one part of a much larger shift. As AI moves toward more agentic forms — systems that can plan, decide, and act with increasing autonomy — the implications for organisations, governance, and human judgment become far broader. This keynote examines what is genuinely new in this transition, what is being underestimated, and what leaders need to understand now about oversight, accountability, and the evolving relationship between human and machine agency.

AI, Language, Media and Society: How Intelligent Systems Are Reshaping Human Communication

AI is transforming not only work and industry, but the ways in which humans communicate, interpret meaning, and construct trust. From language models to media platforms, these technologies are beginning to reshape public discourse, journalism, culture, and the boundaries between information and persuasion. Drawing on decades of research in language, cognition, and AI, this keynote examines what is at stake when machines increasingly mediate human understanding — and what journalists, communicators, and institutions need to be thinking about now.

AI and the Creative Mind: Intelligence, Imagination, and the Future of Human Expression

AI is not only transforming business and governance — it is reshaping creativity itself. From music and film to journalism and design, intelligent systems are becoming active participants in the creative process, raising profound questions about authorship, originality, and what it means to be human. Drawing on his work across AI, computational musicology, and the arts, De Kai examines what this shift means for creative industries, cultural institutions, and anyone whose work depends on imagination and expression.