David Ferrucci speaks at TEDx Binghamton University

David A. Ferrucci is an American computer scientist who served as the principal investigator of a team of

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

and academic researchers and engineers between 2007 and 2011 to the development of the Watson computer system, which won the television quiz show ''

Jeopardy! ''Jeopardy!'' is an American television game show created by Merv Griffin. The show is a quiz competition that reverses the traditional question-and-answer format of many quiz shows. Rather than being given questions, contestants are instead g ...

''. Ferrucci graduated from Manhattan College, with a B.S. degree in biology and from

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (; RPI) is a private university, private research university in Troy, New York, United States. It is the oldest technological university in the English-speaking world and the Western Hemisphere. It was establishe ...

, in 1994 with a Ph.D. degree in computer science specializing in

knowledge representation and reasoning Knowledge representation (KR) aims to model information in a structured manner to formally represent it as knowledge in knowledge-based systems whereas knowledge representation and reasoning (KRR, KR&R, or KR²) also aims to understand, reason, and ...

. He joined IBM's Watson project in 1995 and left in 2012 to join

Bridgewater Associates Bridgewater Associates, LP (informally known as "Bridgewater") is an American investment management firm founded by Ray Dalio in 1975. The firm serves institutional clients including pension funds, Financial endowment, endowments, Foundation (no ...

. He is also the founder, CEO, and Chief Scientist of Elemental Cognition, a venture exploring a new field of study called "natural learning", which Ferrucci describes as "artificial intelligence that understands the world the way people do." In December 2024, he became Managing Director of the Institute for Advanced Enterprise AI, "a new non-profit research organization dedicated to helping business leaders tackle complex challenges with reliable, explainable AI." Ferrucci is interviewed in the 2018 documentary on artificial intelligence Do You Trust This Computer? In this documentary, he accurately predicts the emergence of systems in 3 to 4 years that can autonomously learn how to learn things.

Books

Ferrucci contributed one chapter to the 2018 book ''Architects of Intelligence: The Truth About AI from the People Building it'' by the American futurist Martin Ford.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ferrucci, David Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) Manhattan College alumni Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute alumni IBM people