"By the time Song-Chun Zhu was six years old, he had encountered death more times than he could count. Or so it felt. This was the early 1970s, the waning years of the Cultural Revolution, and his father ran a village supply store in rural China. There was little to do beyond till the fields and study Mao Zedong at home, and so the shop became a refuge where people could rest, recharge and share tales."
"In 1992, he left China for the US to pursue a PhD in computer science at Harvard. Later, at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), he led one of the most prolific AI research centres in the world, won numerous major awards, and attracted prestigious research grants from the Pentagon and the National Science Foundation. He was celebrated for his pioneering research into how machines can spot patterns in data, which helped lay the groundwork for modern AI systems such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek."
Song-Chun Zhu experienced frequent encounters with death in rural China during the early 1970s while growing up in his father's village supply shop. He absorbed tragedies and became obsessed with what people left behind, prompting him to reject a fate of anonymous peasant existence after discovering his family genealogy listed births and deaths but no life details. He left China in 1992 to pursue a PhD at Harvard and later led a prolific AI research center at UCLA, winning major awards and securing Pentagon and NSF grants. His pioneering work on machines spotting patterns in data helped lay foundations for modern AI systems. He lived in Los Angeles with his wife and two daughters and believed he would never leave.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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