AI Heroes: Leonardo Chiariglione, father of MP3 & MPEG - MPAI Launches New AI Standardization Effort

🤖 At AI Heroes, an event organized by Synesthesia in my own city Torino, I talked to Leonardo Chiariglione father of MP3 and MPEG MPAI Launches New AI Standardization Effort At the recent AI Heroes event in Torino, Italy, Leonardo Chiariglione, renowned as the "father of MP3", discussed his latest endeavor - establishing standards for artificial intelligence (AI) to enable mass production of AI-powered applications. Chiariglione spearheaded the creation of the widely adopted MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group) standards including the MP3 audio format. Now, after closing down MPEG in 2020, marking the end of an era, Chiariglione has launched a new group called Mpai (Moving Picture, Audio and Data Coding by Artificial Intelligence). The goal of Mpai echoes Chiariglione's pioneering work in media coding standards - to set common standards to help create a global market. As Chiariglione stated: "Eventually you get to something that is approved by the group...and now we have nine standards that have been published. Five of them have been adopted without modification by IEEE." Mpai aims to standardize the interfaces and workflows of AI systems to promote transparency, trust and interoperability. In Chiariglione's words: "You use [an AI application], you're appraised of it, but you don't know how it works...So, if I am using an autonomous car, and that autonomous car uses some AI inside, if there's an accident, who's the fault?" The Mpai standards provide a framework to break down monolithic AI models into modular components with defined inputs and outputs. As Chiariglione explained: "The eventual goal is if I define and I standardize the input and output data and the function, then it is possible for someone who is very experience in that particular processing to provide an AI modules that can be plugged in in somebody else's workflow." This modular approach opens the door for developers to easily "download a module and...create the application yourself", according to Chiariglione. Mpai also establishes conformance testing to validate implementations meet the standards. Over three decades since pioneering MP3 and MPEG, the father of digital media coding continues to shape the future - this time for AI. Chiariglione's enduring vision to facilitate creation through standardization looks set to unleash yet another wave of innovation.