Norway’s Breathtaking Beauty
While traveling in Norway last month, I had the privilege of researching Norway and got an article published in Forbes on this beautiful country’s progress in AI.
I recently had the privilege of interviewing Klas Pettersen, CEO of NORA.ai, and appreciate his personal story. Because often we think that to be a leader in AI, you must come from an AI engineering background, and this Not so accurate.
To get AI right, we need many diverse approaches; Disciplines from theology, science ethics, mathematicians, humanities, social sciences, our hard core AI engineers, data scientists, and functional disciplines, finance, legal, HR, sales, marketing, etc.
With intelligence changing rapidly in the world, in every business function, industry, private or public, AI is transforming business processes, practices, infrastructure – and it is an AI everywhere.
Traveling and learning about different cultures and meeting talented and diverse AI leaders helps us understand what is possible. It opens our eyes to strategies for building partnerships in new research communities that are doubling down on specific use cases. Why look only in North America, or the UK or Canada, or Asia.
Why not visit Norway?
We need to collaborate to ensure that humanity is leading the future versus AI leading humanity everywhere.
Every leader has roots and I’m always curious about what studies CEOs leading AI organizations have because it’s so wise to hear their stories about how they’ve driven their organization’s success, and it Also what lessons have they learned along their journey so we make sure we all grow a little bit more. Enjoy learning about Klas Peterson, his career journey, his family and his passion for wrestling, and what mentorship means to him.
What inspired you to pursue studies in computational neuroscience?
Klas’s master’s degree was in quantum mechanics. When he finished his thesis, he went backpacking for about half a year. It was in the first half of the year 2000, when Alex Garland wrote the book The Beach, which inspired many people his age to travel to beaches and islands such as Koh Phangan in Thailand. One of the books the class read during this trip was Shadows of the Mind by Roger Penrose. The book is about consciousness, and since he was a physicist, it inspired him to ask big questions about how the brain works. After his trip, Klaas joined Accenture but knew in his heart that he needed to pursue a Ph.D. and met Professor Götte Einewolle, who furthered Klas’s academic curiosity and helped him secure a grant within computational neuroscience, and his Ph.D. carried forward. studies.
Your Ph.D. How did it happen? What study inspires you to explore AI?
Klass decided to transition to his doctoral research career when the game 2 move was 37 between Lee Sedol and AlphaGo in 2016. An inspirational reading from Penrose’s book enabled the class to delve more deeply into big questions such as: What is intelligence? What is consciousness?
Ai was always favored by the younger beat of the class, as he always played board games, especially chess. When DeepMind made dramatic improvements in the AI field, Klass noticed, like many of us AI leaders.
And when the successor, AlphaZero, beat the best chess programs by pure self-learning in 2017, the class began studying how these algorithms worked, and soon realized they would be much more powerful than a board game. .
Klass therefore changed his research area to the study of artificial neural networks, and began to apply deep learning to his neuroscience research. About a year or two later, an announcement was made: several universities and research institutes in Norway would start a collaboration within AI. When the consortium, NORA, was established, Klass applied for the CEO position in April 2019, and much progress has been made.
What are NORA.ai Roots?
Due to the importance of the field of AI, six rectors and leaders of research institutes in Norway announced that they will establish the Norwegian Consortium for AI Research Institutes at the end of 2018. When Klass started as CEO in April 2019, he was given a lot of respect. Little freedom to build this consortium. He and his team were able to bring together 16 leading universities and research institutions with a vision of international relevance and excellence in AI research, education and innovation for Norwegian universities and research institutions.
What achievements has NORA.ai made globally?
NORA.ai has established a strong international actor and partner within the AI industry, and has helped advance Norwegian capacity and infrastructure within AI. Currently, NORA.ai is focused on its National Research School in AI, building a national infrastructure for AI and establishing closer collaboration between universities and industry/public sector.
Internationally NORA.ai is closely associated with AI structures such as Alan Turing Institute (UK), HIDA (Germany), Department of Energy National Labs (USA and CLASS was active in establishing this MoU) and other Nordic countries (NORA) Has happened. created this Nordic conference and this Nordic AI Journal). As a result of these initiatives, there are now a number of strong collaborations between UK and Norwegian researchers.
NORA.ai has a strong position in the Norwegian government and is now often called upon as a consultant.
Like most AI ecosystems, commercialization is important and it now has an innovation arm, NORA.startup. Norway now has over 40 exciting AI startups where innovators, researchers and students are coming together to share knowledge, experience and create new projects and companies.
Inspired by the UK Taskforce on the Foundation Model, Klaas and his team are actively involving most of Norway’s educational institutions to help build projects of national importance where talent can be easily tapped. Currently NORA.ai is helping to set up the infrastructure for the Norwegian language model.
What AI use cases are you currently pursuing and what help do you need from other geos?
There are several ongoing projects, but the most interesting one is what NORA.ai wants to establish and where they need international partners is the infrastructure needed for the large language model. The vision of the class is that NORA.ai wants to build a language model with Norwegian, and other Scandinavian languages, and English. They are not only building a language model, but also building the infrastructure for the language model, and providing solutions and improved models to meet the needs of the public sector and industry. They have a large national association, which includes universities, research institutes and the Norwegian National Library, etc.
Norway is strong in the health sector and has excellent registry data. Klass stressed that this may be challenging with international cooperation on sensitive data, but it is absolutely possible and advised that NORA.ai has had several meetings with US National Labs to see if they can find a better way to do it. Can establish strong international cooperation to make diagnostic equipment and precision medicine products. ,
What are your thoughts on EU AI legislation – will it propel us forward or hold us back?
Claus shared that he believes the EU AI Act is much needed, but he also highlighted the difficult balancing act to regulate without hindering innovation too much. His biggest concern is whether regulation stifles open research in ways that stifle collaboration and innovation. He emphasized how important it is to ensure that open-source R&D can appropriately comply with the AI Act as well as a “one size fits all” framework that supports all Foundation models. Perceives as high risk, may make low risk and open area impossible. Source models in Europe, as described in a recent open letter to the European Parliament by LAION.
What do you do in your spare time to have fun and relax?
,Wrestling! Well, I have four kids, all boys, ages 8 to 15. So over the years, I automatically calm down as soon as I step inside my door. But I also play wrestling. For the past six years, I have been the leader of one of the biggest wrestling clubs in Norway, and all my kids have been wrestling. The weekend is usually spent at a wrestling tournament for young athletes somewhere in the Nordics. It is rewarding to see children and young people develop self-confidence through their exercise. And we are doing very well at the club. We were the best club in the national championships this year (2023), and a female wrestler was second in the world championships, which is quite extraordinary from Norwegians. I do a little wrestling myself. And yes, this connection is something that I started many years ago with big AI leaders, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, who made it a thing for AI leaders to engage in martial arts. shared class.
What advice do you have for young people who want to pursue a career in AI?
“Be a doer. do your programming. Learn the technique. Join the community. And perhaps most importantly: find a good mentor. Good teachers matter a lot. Good mentors shouldn’t just focus on results, they should be like a good wrestling coach: they should guide you on many aspects of life, and really help you improve your career, your performance and how , should focus on this. And to the elders out there: Be a good teacher! , shared class.
Other CEOs are driving change in AI in other countries
See my Forbes article on Vietnam’s WinAI CEO, Dr. Hung Bui
