AI icons as football stars

AI has been the most transformative technology of the last 20 with many, including the likes of Paul Graham saying that the wave of AI will be bigger than the two previous waves of the web in the late 90s and early 200s as well as the mobile wave of the late 2000s/ early 2010s, with that I wanted to write this blog to make light of those hero’s behind the scenes who have lead the way in this wave in which we will benefit so greatly from, many of the researchers are behind the scenes and are not known to the public eye, but deserve to be treated like superstars for their work. Therein came the idea to help people to gain an understanding of the largest and most influential players in the field of AI by likening them to the players in the most popular sport in the world, Football! Now before we continue, there comparisons are based on multiple factors, including prominence, ability, personality both on and off the pitch, popularity and interactions with other players and clubs, these opinions are up for debate so if you think there are better fits then please let me know. In part 1 of this blog we will go through 5 researchers and explain a bit about their work and influence and how they compare to the respective football player, this is part of a long standing effort to make AI feel more approachable and breakdown the barriers between AI and the common public perception.

1. Elon Musk

Elon Musk is a controversial figure to put into this list as he is not the most popular among AI enthusiasts, nonetheless I have included him in the list because of his contributions with Grok, initial investment into OpenAI which was the catalyst for much of the public buzz that we see today. He is also an advocate for safe AI and constantly exclaim in public about his concerns with AI, although many believe that his opinions are very extreme and ‘fearmongering’ which is not helpful for AI innovation, it does add a lot into the discussion and still does allow us to remain conscious of the possibility of losing control of these AI systems. Elon musks is a man with man resources at his disposal, and in the last few years much of the competition around creating the best performing LLM is about resources, when Elon musk’s xAI released Grok on November 2023, and announced in March 11 2024 that Grok would be open source, this was big news and displayed his intention in promoting transparency with AI which is in contrast to competitors like OpenAI’s closed approaches.

It is also worth mentioning that innovators are not just those that are creating the architectures but also those that are actively using AI in domains that are leading to real value, Through Tesla, Musk has developed proprietary AI models for self driving vehicles which has lead to huge progress in automatous driving capabilities. Additionally at Neuralink musk is using AI powered brain machine interfaces to potentially enhance human cognitive abilities.

Neymar

Elon Musk and Neymar share a remarkable similarity in being incredibly polarising figures who command massive public attention, generate constant controversy, and possess an undeniable talent that keeps them at the Center of their respective fields. Just as Neymar is known for his flashy playing style, dramatic public persona, and ability to switch between clubs with significant fanfare, Musk similarly moves between technological domains with bold proclamations and attention-grabbing announcements. Both individuals have a knack for generating headlines, whether through their exceptional skills or their tendency to create dramatic narratives around their work and personal brands. The comparison deepens when examining their approaches to innovation and performance. Neymar, like Musk, is someone who combines extraordinary technical skill with a showmanship that sometimes overshadows his actual contributions. Musk's approach to AI and technology mirrors Neymar's approach to football - unpredictable, ambitious, and always pushing boundaries. Both have faced significant criticism for their methods, with detractors arguing that their approach is more about personal branding than substantive progress. Yet, they remain influential figures who have undeniably transformed their respective fields, whether it's Musk's work in AI, electric vehicles, and space exploration, or Neymar's impact on modern football through his unique playing style and global marketability

2. Yann LeCun

Next on our list we have Yann LeCun, in contrast to Elon, Yann has heavily contributed to the deep learning literature, Yann currently sits as the Chief AI scientist at Meta where he has made significant contribution's in a whole manner of areas including using Ai for social media content moderation, and has also been an advocate of open source AI which is a factor in the open sourcing in some of the most powerful LLMs in the world in LLama, but his contributions go far beyond just Meta. Yann LeCun is loved by the AI community as is very heavily influential in the space, with over 1.6 million followers across linkedin and X(formerly Twitter). He is very often enabling conversation around subjects such as AI advancements, Scientific integrity, AI ethics ans much more, this type of dialogue is absolutely necessary for AI to continue going in the right direction (assuming that it has been).

Yann’s influence in the public eye is not even the half of it, has contributed to some of the most influential discoveries and inprovoments in model architecture including pioneering the development of the CNN which revolutionised computer vision and image recognition. He also contributed ot the development of backpropogation which is a fundamental algorithm for training neural networks.

It should also be noted that Yann began researching Neural networks in the 1980s, and at this time the perception around neural networks was not great, many did not believe in the architectures success in the 1980s. Yann LeCun is therefore credited with “carrying the torch through the dark ages” of Neural network research.

It is not often that you can say that without a certain person you don’t know where the industry would be, but Yann LeCun is one of them, and for that he gets to be one of the current goats. 🐐

Lionel Messi

Yann LeCun embodies the essence of Lionel Messi - a foundational genius who revolutionised his field through technical brilliance and consistent innovation. Just as Messi transformed football with his unprecedented skill and game-changing play, LeCun pioneered deep learning techniques like CNNs that fundamentally reshaped artificial intelligence. Both are respected not just for their achievements, but for their commitment to their craft during challenging periods when their approaches were initially doubted. LeCun's journey of "carrying the torch through the dark ages of neural network research" parallels Messi's early career at Barcelona, where he persevered and ultimately redefined expectations. Their technical mastery, coupled with a humble approach and deep respect for their field, makes them beloved figures. Like Messi's influence extending beyond individual matches to inspire an entire generation of players, LeCun has inspired countless AI researchers and fundamentally altered how we understand machine learning

3. Jensen Huang

For those not in the AI space, you still may recognise Jansen Huang, the co-founder and CEO of Nvidia. Nvidia, now that largest company in the world with a market capitalisation of $2.56 trillion has significantly contributed to AI innovation in a number of ways. Firstly and most importantly GPU development, now for those that don’t know a GPU (Graphics processing unit), is hardware that was initially designed for digital image processing and to accelerate computer graphics by being able to compute many calculations simultaneously as opposed to a CPU which processes things sequentially, while the GPU was mainly a purchase for gamers or graphics designer who wanted to render graphics quickly. In recent times it quickly became the go to for training and running Large language models. This meant that GPUs demand shot up like a rocket and therefore why Nvidia has become the most valuable company. Without Jensen Huang and Nvidia the scale of compute needed to train and run the models like GPT-4, Gemini, Claude as well as all of the others would have been impossible.

One of Nvidia’s biggest contributions within AI has also been the development of the CUDA architecture, this enables the GPUs to compute parallel computing tasks beyond just graphics processing.

In terms of popularity, Jensen Huang is one of the top, becoming one of the most well known and liked icons, however although one of the top icons, his lack of contribution in the research space cannot put him within the GOAT status of Yann Lecun and others later on.

Luka Modric

Jensen Huang and Luka Modrić represent the quintessential behind-the-scenes maestros who transform their respective fields through intelligence, strategic vision, and subtle yet profound impact. Just as Modrić is known for his exceptional ability to control the midfield, orchestrating play with intelligence and precision, Huang has become the strategic mastermind who controls the computational landscape of AI through Nvidia's groundbreaking GPU technologies. Both are not necessarily the most flamboyant performers in their domains, but their true genius lies in their ability to create systems and frameworks that enable extraordinary performances by others, making them indispensable to their entire ecosystem. The parallels between Huang and Modrić extend to their late-bloom recognition and sustained excellence. Modrić emerged as a world-class player later in his career, achieving his peak performance and global recognition in his 30s, similar to how Huang's Nvidia became truly dominant in the AI era despite being founded decades earlier. Both have a cerebral approach to their craft - Modrić through his exceptional game reading and strategic passing, Huang through his architectural vision in developing computational technologies like CUDA that enable parallel computing. They are respected not for dramatic individual achievements, but for their consistent, intelligent contribution that elevates the entire field around them. While they might not always grab headlines like more flashy contemporaries, their strategic brilliance and sustained impact make them true icons who are revered by those who understand the deeper nuances of their respective domains.

4. Andrew Ng

Andrew Ng is a personal favourite of mine and an icon loved by many, he has contributed to AI in a whole manner of ways, from his research on the Google brain Project where they developed a massive neural network capable of recognising images such as cats from unlabelled YouTube videos this accomplishment was significant as it demonstrated the power of large scale deep learning models trained on vast amounts of data. It also demonstrated something called transfer learning which is the idea that a neural network could learn generalisable features from unlabelled data which could then be applied to other tasks. Outside of research he has cofounded Coursera and Deeplearning.AI (2012 and 2017 respectively) amongst many companies but these two companies specifically have been influential in training more that 8 million students worldwide about AI and the significance of advancing the education in this space to the further developments in the field cannot be overstated. He also founded AI fund, a $175 million fund to invest in AI startups which is a significant contribution to allow early stage start ups to gain the necessary resources.

In my opinion, Andrew Ngs most significant contribution to the space has been to instill a sense of community and enabling education in the space, he is very well known in the community and has done the best jobs in giving people access to the real innovators behind the scenes which is some thing that not many people have done.

N’Golo Kante

Andrew Ng and N'Golo Kanté share a remarkable similarity in their approach to their respective fields - both are humble, incredibly hardworking individuals who create value not through flashy performances, but through systematic, ground-level contributions that transform entire ecosystems and bouth are absolutely everywhere! Just as Kanté is renowned for his incredible work rate, ability to cover massive amounts of ground on the football pitch, and enable other players to shine, Ng has done the same for AI education and innovation.

Both are characterised by their selfless approach, focusing on building infrastructure and creating opportunities for others rather than seeking personal spotlight. Their impact is often felt in the success of those around them - Kanté by providing defensive stability that allows attacking players to flourish, and Ng by creating educational platforms and investment funds that empower emerging AI talents. The depth of their contributions goes beyond mere technical skill. Ng, like Kanté, is a master of fundamental groundwork that often goes unnoticed but is absolutely critical to overall success. Where Kanté is the player who breaks up opponent attacks and creates smooth transitions in football, Ng has been breaking up barriers in AI education, creating smooth transitions for millions of students into the world of artificial intelligence. Both have a unique ability to make complex systems work more efficiently - Kanté through his positioning and defensive intelligence, Ng through his approach to democratising AI education and investing in early-stage AI startups. Their popularity stems not from individual showmanship, but from a genuine commitment to elevating their entire field, making them beloved figures who are respected for their integrity, hard work, and transformative impact on their respective domains.

5. Demis Hassabis

Demis Hassabis is a beyond impressive figure, the CEO and Co-founder of Deepmind has been on a mission to create artificial general intelligence, a point where an AI system can do practically any coginitive tasks a human can do, although he believes that we are on track, we are not currently there, however this does not mean that Demis has not made many breakthroughs along the way, including a recent Nobel prize in chemistry for developing AlhpaFold2, an AI to predict the structure of all the 200 million proteins that researchers have identified.

Demis Hassabis and his team also developed AlphaGo, which was an AI that was the first program to beat the world champion in the complex game of Go, for those interested there is an amazing documentary on this feat which is will link here.

Kylian Mbappe

Demis Hassabis and Kylian Mbappé are both prodigious talents who emerged early and showed an extraordinary potential to reshape their entire field through breakthrough innovations and an ambitious vision that goes far beyond conventional boundaries. Just as Mbappé burst onto the global football scene as a teenage phenomenon, revolutionising expectations of what a young player could achieve, Hassabis similarly emerged as a visionary in AI, demonstrating remarkable achievements from an early age. Both are characterized by their exceptional ability to solve complex problems with seemingly intuitive brilliance - Mbappé through his game-changing speed and strategic intelligence on the football pitch, Hassabis through groundbreaking AI systems like AlphaGo and AlphaFold that solve previously intractable scientific challenges.

The comparison deepens in their shared pursuit of transformative, generational goals that extend beyond immediate achievements. Mbappé isn't just about winning matches, but about reimagining football's potential, much like Hassabis's mission to develop Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) represents a fundamental reimagining of computational potential. Their achievements are not just about individual brilliance, but about expanding the very conception of what's possible in their respective domains. Whether it's Mbappé's transformative play that challenges traditional football paradigms or Hassabis's AI breakthroughs that push the boundaries of machine intelligence, they represent a new generation of thinkers who are not content with incremental progress, but seek to fundamentally redefine the landscape of their fields.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed part 1 of the comparisons, let me know if you think there are better fits for the researchers or if you have any other suggestions for the next part of this blog. I will be releasing part 2 soon so stay tuned!