AI has permeated every aspect of our daily life, from voice assistants like Alexa and Siri to self-driving cars and individualized social media recommendations. The market for AI technology is predicted to be enormous, valued at around $200 billion in 2023 and projected to rise to over $1.8 trillion by 2030.

Artificial intelligence, GenAI and machine learning technologies have advanced to such an amazing degree that new businesses and products are released onto the market nearly daily. How can an aspirant to AI engineering or someone seeking expertise in the huge field of AI obtain the most up-to-date information on the ecosystem at their fingertips?

This feature will highlight the top seven influencers who are experts in the AI and machine learning sectors.

Top 7 influencers to get AI news and major breakthroughs in the AI/ML ecosystem

1.Andrew NG

Andrew Ng is a notable computer scientist, entrepreneur and educator who specializes in artificial intelligence, deep learning and machine learning. He has extensive academic experience, having previously served as Director of the Stanford AI Lab and as a tenured professor in Stanford University's Computer Science department. Andrew also works as an adjunct professor at Stanford University, where he teaches AI, deep learning, machine learning and robotics. Andrew has held several industry leadership positions, including Co-CEO of Coursera, where he supervised product, engineering, sales, marketing and operations.

Andrew has over 2 million LinkedIn followers (1M+ on Twitter) and is known for his amazing lectures in online training, which has resulted in an unprecedented fan base. According to Reuters, Amazon has appointed Andrew to its board as the global GenAI race gathers momentum.

Notable achievements include serving as the chief architect on early-stage deep learning projects for companies such as Baidu and Google.

Also Read: 5 AI communities to follow and transform your AI expertise

2.Fei-Fei Li

Fei-Fei Li is a well-known artificial intelligence researcher, instructor and champion of diversity in the industry. Li, born in China, earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University. She was also the Director of the Stanford AI Lab and a tenured professor in the Computer Science department.

Li has held a variety of industry leadership positions, including co-founder of AI4ALL, an organization dedicated to advancing diversity and inclusion in AI and former Chief Scientist of AI/ML for Google Cloud.

She is also a co-host of the podcast 'The Batch,' where she analyzes AI breakthroughs and their implications for society.

Li's research focuses on computer vision, machine learning and cognitive neuroscience. With nearly 500,000 Twitter followers, she offers her insights on AI, ethics and increasing diversity in the profession.

3.Demis Hassabis

Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO of DeepMind, has made substantial contributions to AGI and AI, and he remains a key player in the field, with an emphasis on designing algorithms that can learn and reason like humans.

Hassabis, who was born in London, studied computer science and cognitive neuroscience, with a particular emphasis on artificial general intelligence (AGI) and the development of algorithms that can learn and think like humans.

With over 355,000 Twitter followers, he provides updates on DeepMind's most recent research and AI developments.

Also Read: What does Steven Pinker think of AGI?

4.Yann LeCun

Yann LeCun is one of the most influential artificial intelligence researchers working today, having over 700k followers on X (formerly Twitter) and another 690k+ on LinkedIn. He presently serves as Meta's Vice President and Chief AI Scientist, providing technical leadership for the company's massive AI research department. LeCun formerly served as Director of Facebook AI Research, where he oversaw the ambitious lab's growth from its inception.

LeCun also has many professorships at New York University, where he established the Center for Data Science.

He began his career as a research staff member and later Department Head at AT&T Labs, where he pioneered work in neural networks. He previously served as a Fellow at NEC Research Institute and Bell Laboratories, where he made substantial contributions to machine learning and computer vision.

5.Kirk Borne

Kirk Borne is a well-known data scientist and digital influencer who is committed to fostering data and AI literacy around the world. He is the founder of Data Leadership Group, which offers data science consulting and training. He also acts as an advisor to DataPrime Inc.

Borne has long been regarded as one of the world's top data science influencers, ranking #1 or #2 since 2013. He has amassed over 445,000 followers on Twitter and 85000 on LinkedIn.

He formerly worked as a Professor of Astrophysics at George Mason University before joining Booz Allen as a Principal Data Scientist. Borne has also worked in science at NASA, where he supported missions such as the Hubble Space Telescope.

6.Andrej Karpathy

Andrej Karpathy is an established name in the discipline of artificial intelligence, known for his significant achievements and leadership roles at prestigious corporations. From June 2017 until July 2022, he led the computer vision team for Tesla Autopilot, spearheading advances in data collection, neural network training and deployment for self-driving technology.

Prior to joining Tesla, Karpathy worked as a Research Scientist at OpenAI, where he helped pioneer research on deep learning for generative models and reinforcement learning.

His academic background includes a PhD in computer science from Stanford University, where he worked on the creation of innovative convolutional and recurrent neural networks for computer vision and natural language processing.

Andrej boasts an enormous following of over 970,000 on his social media platform X, where he generously shares his expertise in LLM engineering and CUDA integration with PyTorch.

Also Read: Running open source LLM Models on your workstation

7.Bernard Marr

Bernard Marr is a futurist, author and keynote speaker who has gained recognition across the globe for his proficiency in data intelligence, digital transformation and business performance. With more than 20 years of expertise, he has led innovation and strategic growth efforts while advising and working with multinational corporations including Accenture, IBM and Microsoft.

As the CEO and creator of Bernard Marr & Co., Marr leads efforts in change management, public speaking and business consulting, enabling organizations to successfully negotiate the challenges of the digital era. He also oversees Bernard Marr's Wine Cellar, exhibiting his spirit of entrepreneurship in a variety of endeavors.

Despite having only over 139k nominal Twitter followers, he has an astounding 1.5 million LinkedIn fans.

Honorable mentions

There few other influencers you might want to follow for AI and its intersectionality with other topics. We have already covered Steven Pinker and David Deutsch. But Paul Graham, Marc Andreesen are other two people worth mentioning here.

Concluding things up

The knowledge base and foundation you have to become an accomplished AI developer or engineer in the field of AI/ML can be transformed by these seven influencers. These seven individuals will live on as legends even if there are many more with vast knowledge in the subject, such as Yoshua Bengio, Kate Crawford, Aravind Srinivas Andy Fitze, Elon Musk, etc.

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Additional References

100 most influential people in artificial intelligence

12 Top Finance AI Influencers you need to follow

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