ChatGPT and artificial intelligence will not replace humanity anytime soon, Yitzhak Ben-Israel told The Jerusalem Post in an interview on the sidelines of his Tel Aviv University AI conference this week. Ben-Israel, who founded the Israel National Cyber Directorate, led the Israel Space Agency for 17 years and served as a major-general in key IDF positions, said, "What could be and what is practical" and likely are two different things. Using autonomous cars as an example, he said it "has been proven for 10 years already that autonomous cars drive better than people. It is not a problem with the price. "It will not happen yet because there are problems," he suggested. "No one wants a car accident that would kill someone.

Tel Aviv University launched the new, interdisciplinary Center for Artificial Intelligence and Data Science today, headed by Prof. Meir Feder of the Fleischman Faculty of Engineering. The Center will enhance basic science in these fields, encourage cross-disciplinary research that uses the most advanced methods of artificial intelligence (AI) and data science (DS), and train a new generation of researchers and industrialists who will take Israel to the forefront of the global AI revolution in the coming years. Moreover, it will lay the groundwork for the rapidly growing field of quantum computing. The launch event took place during TAU's annual AI Week. TAU President, Prof. Ariel Porat: "The establishment of the AI Center is one more step toward implementing TAU's vision for advancing groundbreaking, interdisciplinary research that brings together the university's finest researchers, the high-tech industry and the community. Not long ago we launched the interdisciplinary Center for Combating Pandemics and over the coming year we intend to establish more such centers, such as one for climate change and another for healthy aging. TAU's great advantage is its enormous range of disciplines. Our new interdisciplinary centers will further extend the scope of research, combining different disciplines, from engineering and computer science through life sciences, medicine and psychology, to economics, management, humanities, arts and law."

Imagine a highly banal situation: a busy junction in a major city, vehicles of every color and description, some moving and others waiting for the lights to change. This situation may be boring to death, but fast, powerful computers can view it differently. Once they are "taught" to pick up and distinguish between the most minute details within the larger picture (machine learning, in the professional jargon), they will be able to identify different car models of various colors and issue warnings of irregular events that are about to happen. For example, a man wearing a heavy overcoat when everyone else is wearing short, light garments, or a person under whose clothes a long-bladed knife is protruding, could generate an alert moments before an attack. It is important to understand that machine learning is only one element of the rapidly developing field known as artificial intelligence.