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The cover of The Worlds I See

The Worlds I See

Fei Fei Li, 2023

See how an immigrant scientist helped build modern computer vision through ImageNet, and why she now insists AI must serve human dignity, curiosity, and responsibility rather than scale alone.

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12 parts, about 24 minutes to read.

Why read it

  • Follows the author from a childhood in China to American schools and labs, kept in science by her mother's insistence
  • Explains how ImageNet, built from WordNet and crowdsourced labels, gave neural networks the data that AlexNet used to leap forward
  • Argues that AI needs human centered ethics, drawing on hospital work, privacy and dignity, and the widening gap between companies and universities

Who it is for

  • Readers curious how modern computer vision got started
  • Immigrants and first generation students balancing family and ambition
  • People weighing the ethics and public role of AI

What the summary covers

  1. Pins and Needles in D.C.2 min
  2. Something to Chase2 min
  3. A Narrowing Gulf2 min
  4. Discovering the Mind2 min
  5. First Light1 min
  6. The North Star2 min
  7. A Hypothesis2 min
  8. Experimentation2 min
  9. What Lies Beyond Everything?2 min
  10. Deceptively Simple2 min
  11. No One's to Control3 min
  12. The Next North Star2 min

Recommended by

  • Jennifer DoudnaNobel laureate in chemistry
    An inspiring personal journey from immigrant childhood to trailblazing scientist, The Worlds I See advocates for overcoming societal barriers and makes a compelling case for a human-centric, ethical approach to AI.
  • Condoleezza RiceDirector of the Hoover Institution at Stanford and 66th U.S. Secretary of State
    In The Worlds I See she gives the best explanation of AI that I’ve ever read while telling the story of her own profoundly American journey as a young immigrant who finds herself through education.
  • Melinda French GatesPhilanthropist
    The Worlds I See is both a fascinating peek behind the curtain of a major scientific breakthrough as well as an inspiring story of one woman’s curiosity and courage.
  • Ed CatmullCofounder of Pixar
    The Worlds I See is a deeply human story that is ultimately about Fei-Fei Li’s lifelong passion for learning and deep love of science.
  • Reid HoffmanCofounder of LinkedIn
    A fascinating and galvanizing memoir, The Worlds I See is a testament to the power and possibility of humanity—one told through Fei-Fei Li’s own remarkable trajectory from humble origins to becoming one of AI’s key visionaries
  • Geoff HintonTuring Award winner
    Fei-Fei Li was the first computer vision researcher to truly understand the power of big data, and her work opened the floodgates for deep learning.

About the author

  • Fei Fei LiStanford professor of computer science and cofounder of World Labs
    • Born in Beijing in 1976 and grew up in Chengdu
    • Joined her father in New Jersey at 16 and worked weekends in the family dry cleaning shop while in high school
    • BA in physics at Princeton, 1999
    • PhD in electrical engineering at Caltech, 2005
    • Joined Stanford in 2009 and became full professor in 2018
    • Led development of ImageNet from 2007, labeling over 14 million images
    • Directed Stanford's AI Lab 2013 to 2018 and was Chief Scientist of AI/ML at Google Cloud on sabbatical 2017 to 2018 (the 2018 Senate hearing opens the book)
    • Cofounded the nonprofit AI4ALL in 2017 to increase diversity in AI

Read it alongside

  • Goes deeperEmpire of AI

    Fei Fei Li says ImageNet's labels needed human judgment, and her team paid crowd workers as much per image as funds allowed. Karen Hao reports that AI still rests on a dispersed workforce, some earning $1.46 to $3.74 an hour, who can lose work overnight.

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