Fei Fei Li Quotes

If I were to dedicate my life to science, whatever form that might take, it would be by the grace of the people I’d met during my lowest and most confusing days. More and more, I was feeling something I hadn’t in a long time: I was grateful.

I believe our civilization stands on the cusp of a technological revolution with the power to reshape life as we know it. To ignore the millennia of human struggle that serves as our society’s foundation, however—to merely “disrupt,” with the blitheness that has accompanied so much of this century’s innovation—would be an intolerable mistake. This revolution must build on that foundation, faithfully. It must respect the collective dignity of a global community. And

For a Chinese student raised in the schools of Chengdu, my first days at Parsippany High School were an assault on the senses. The mood was manic and unsteady, and everything around me was brighter, faster, heavier, and noisier than the world I left behind. Nothing quite registered, no matter where I looked, as if the very nature of light and sound were somehow different here.

[Li Ch’uan cites the case of Fu Chien, prince of Ch’in, who in 383 A.D. marched with a vast army against the Chin Emperor. When warned not to despise an enemy who could command the services of such men as Hsieh An and Huan Ch’ung, he boastfully replied: “I have the population of eight provinces at my back, infantry and horsemen to the number of one million; why, they could dam up the Yangtsze River itself by merely throwing their whips into the stream. What danger have I to fear?” Nevertheless, his forces were soon after disastrously routed at the Fei River, and he was obliged to beat a hasty retreat.] If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. [Chang Yu said: “Knowing the enemy enables you to take the offensive, knowing yourself enables you to stand on the defensive.” He adds: “Attack is the secret of defense; defense is the planning of an attack.” It would be hard to find a better epitome of the root-principle of war.]

Elder Lian has lectured us many times on proper behavior between boys and girls, darkly warning of how “dangerous feelings” can arise. I’m not that worried about any feelings arising, though. They’re already here, no matter how I try to suppress them.

He gives me a quick primer on the basics of the equipment and then shocks me when he uses some of the rope to tie us together. He grins when he sees my astonishment. Nervous about being so close to me? he asks, giving the rope a slight tug. I cross my arms, refusing to be baited by that dangerous question—even if there is truth to it. But whatever my feelings for him, I must focus on the larger picture: Zhang Jing and our village’s future. Don’t get any ideas, I warn. A small smile tugs at his lips. And what kind of ideas would those be, apprentice?

When King Chuang of Ch 'u was thinking of attacking Yiieh, Chuang Tzii admonished him, asking: "For what reason is Your Majesty going to attack Yueh?" " It is because its government is disorderly and its army weak," replied the King. " Thy servant is afraid," said Chuang Tzu, "Your Majesty's wisdom is like eyes able to see over one hundred steps away but unable to see their own eyelashes. Since Your Majesty's troops were defeated by Ch'in and Chin, Ch'u has lost a territory of several hundred li. This proves the weakness of her army. Again, Chuang Ch'iao has dared robberies within the boundaries of the state, but no magistrate has been able to stop him. This proves the disorder of her government. Thus, Your Majesty has been suffering not less weakness and disorder than Yueh and yet wants to attack Yueh. This proves that Your Majesty's wisdom is like the eyes." Thereupon the King gave up the plan. Therefore, the difficulty of knowledge lies not in knowing others but in knowing oneself. Hence the saying: " One who knows himself is enlightened." Once, when Tzii-hsia saw Tseng Tzii, Tseng Tzii asked, " Why have you become so stout? " " Because I have been victorious in warfare," replied Tzii-hsia. "What do you mean by that?" asked Tseng Tzii. In reply Tzii-hsia said: " Whenever I went in and saw the virtue of the early kings I rejoiced in it. Whenever I went out and saw the pleasure of the rich and noble I rejoiced in it, too. These two conflicting attractions waged a war within my breast. When victory and defeat still hung in the balance, I was thin. Since the virtue of the early kings won the war, I have become stout." Therefore, the difficulty of volition lies not in conquering others but in conquering oneself. Hence the saying: " One who conquers himself is mighty.

Despite the near squalor of my mother’s life in America, and the menial work that seemed to have claimed her every waking moment since our arrival, she remained steadfast that my passion for science was not to be ignored.

Two worlds were forming. There was real life, in which I continued to worry about my mother’s health, our ability to keep up with our finances, and my own status as an outsider (albeit an increasingly fortunate one). Then there was Princeton. A place I could only describe as a paradise for the intellect.

Finally, there was a then-obscure astrophysicist named Professor Tyson—Neil deGrasse Tyson, as the world would later know him. His flamboyant teaching style was infectious, made even more potent by the affability that would become his trademark.

If [it] keeps putting one foot in front of the other without stopping, even a lame turtle can go a thousand li.

I’d used many different words to describe this new incarnation of what I once had viewed purely as a science. “Phenomenon.” “Disruption.” “Puzzle.” “Privilege.” “Force of nature.” But as I retraced my steps across the capital, one new word took precedence. AI was now a responsibility. For all of us. This,

although many of AI’s founding contributors would go on to explore an eclectic range of fields, including psychology and cognitive science, their backgrounds were almost exclusively centered on mathematics, electrical engineering, and physics itself.

Turing’s vision was shared by his fellow computer scientists in America, who codified their curiosity in 1956 with a now famous Dartmouth College research proposal in which the term “artificial intelligence” was coined.

Rowdiness and irreverence seemed to be the norm among the kids. Even from behind a still-towering language barrier, I knew I’d never seen students talk to teachers the way Americans did. But what astonished me most was how the informalities appeared to cut both ways. Their dynamic was often adversarial, but jocular as well. Even warm. On an otherwise imposing first day, I instantly knew one thing: I would love American teachers.

I was in a hurry to regain even a fraction of the scholastic footing I enjoyed in China, but language was a barrier that obstructed me at every turn. Frustration rose as I trudged through each assignment at an excruciating pace, rarely making it to the end of a sentence without having to appeal to a dictionary.

To an ESL student, every class is an English class.

Whereas teachers in Chengdu seemed to want little more than for me to blend in, I began to sense Mr. Sabella was challenging me in a different way. He wanted me to stand out. No one owes you anything, he seemed to be saying. If you want an A so badly, you can work harder for it next time. I can’t pretend I was ready to receive that kind of wisdom, but I had to acknowledge, reluctantly, that there was probably something to it.

There were moments that I had to step back and simply watch. These were the people I grew up with in China: strong, resourceful, impressive. It’d been far too long since I’d seen them. I was proud to witness their return.

I packed my schedule as densely as I could, immersing myself in math and physics, scouring corkboard advertisements for lectures and workshops, and checking out stacks of books from the library. I even developed a habit of wandering into the afternoon tea held for the staff at the Institute for Advanced Study every Friday.

Although it had taken more than a half century for the necessary preconditions to align—historic milestones in the evolution of algorithms, large-scale data, and raw computing power, all converging at the dawn of the 2010s—it took less than a half decade for the capabilities they unleashed to change the world.

Hubel and Wiesel’s epiphany was that perception doesn’t occur in a single layer of neurons, but across many, organized in a hierarchy that begins with the recognition of superficial details and ends with complex, high-level awareness.

The final months of my senior year were probably the first time I’d felt anything resembling self-confidence since I’d arrived in America. Mr. Sabella’s mentorship helped me rediscover a sense of dignity and reminded me that friendship—trust—was possible for outsiders, too.

Like Einstein honing his ideas after a long shift in the patent office, these early thinkers took the first steps toward a new world on the margins of busy careers, exploring the early days of AI with a genuine sense of adventure. That connection to physics, in fact, was more than a thematic one; although many of AI’s founding contributors would go on to explore an eclectic range of fields, including psychology and cognitive science, their backgrounds were almost exclusively centered on mathematics, electrical engineering, and physics itself.

The result was a kind of service that bordered on clairvoyance as far as our customers were concerned. She was the daughter of a Kuomintang family, born on the wrong side of the Cultural Revolution and plunged into a lifelong exile of the mind. Now, she was the friendliest face in New Jersey dry cleaning.

Ironically, being an ESL student made it easy for me to speak up. I continued to need so many words and English-language concepts explained that isolated questions became an ongoing dialogue. The more we spoke, the more I realized that he wasn’t anything like the teacher I’d overheard dismissing the intellectual capabilities of girls back in China, or the discouraging restaurant boss who’d all but mocked my love for reading. He could be terse and abrasive, but he never wrote me off the way others had. He was challenging me, and it was working.

After she’s gone, Lu lies alone in his bed, a bit drunk, and thinks of a poem by Li Yu, the last emperor of the Southern Tang dynasty, who met his untimely end by poisoning: How many teardrops Run down your face and across your cheeks? Don’t speak when troubles make you weep Or try to play the phoenix flute through your tears Because then your heart will just break all the more

Wouldn’t it be lovely if Li-gongzi could give birth to four babies too?” Li Yu felt a bit awkward. Wang-gonggong had accidentally predicted the truth.

Among science’s greatest virtues, however, is its ability to recast a lesson in humility as a moment of possibility.