Jeffrey Lee Funk
Jeffrey Lee Funk
Contributor, The Yuan

Jeffrey Lee Funk’s 40-year career has focused on how new technologies emerge and diffuse as a professor and consultant. He was one of the first to recognize the potential for smartphones during the late 1990s and early 2000s in Japan. He earned the NTT DoCoMo mobile science award in 2004.

“Governments for AI” webinar part 3 - discussion
Podcast
In the second part of our discussion on the webinar we explore key measures that governments can take to ensure the safety of AI. By addressing these aspects, we find that when governments contribute to fostering an AI landscape, it not only thrives on innovation but also upholds ethical principles, accountability, and global cooperation.
Delta Dialog  |  Feb 09, 2024
“Governments for AI” webinar part 2 - discussion
Podcast
Navigating the delicate balance between fostering innovation and addressing potential risks, governments play a crucial role in shaping the responsible development and deployment of AI technologies. Listen with us as we discuss the importance of the role governments play in the AI industry.
Delta Dialog  |  Feb 02, 2024
“Governments for AI” webinar part 1 - presentations
Podcast
Explore the intersection of AI, governance, and global impact through the insights of leading experts in our recent webinar. From the safety of AI to the imperative need for governance and regulation, our distinguished panel delved into crucial topics shaping the future.
Delta Dialog  |  Jan 29, 2024
Sluggish AI adoption is depressingly reminiscent of past flops
Governments4AI
With all the furor about AI one would expect to see it in wide application, yet it is not, and, where it does deploy, mostly augments rather than replacing human workers. Former National University of Singapore Engineering and Technology Management Prof Jeffrey Lee Funk cites use cases.
Jeffrey Lee Funk  |  Jan 01, 2024
How smart will AI become, or is this the wrong question to ask?
Outsmart
A Malay prince saw an orange beast at a river mouth in 1299. Though undoubtedly a tiger, he was told it was a lion. This omen induced him to build a city there - Singapura - from Sanskrit singa (lion) and pura (city). From that ex-British Far East fortress, on day 15 of The Yuan’s journey of smart discovery tech Prof Jeffrey Lee Funk forecasts that AI’s ‘emergence’ may prove as elusive as a lion in Lion City.
Jeffrey Lee Funk  |  Jul 07, 2023
The Yuan AI 2023: Moonshots to fail, augments to prevail
The Yuan AI 2023
Even as headline-grabbing AI ventures fail or fall short of expectations, one should not lose hope because 2023 will still see plenty of augmentation and gradual innovation going on quietly behind the scenes that will set the stage for even greater breakthroughs.
Jeffrey Lee Funk  |  Dec 23, 2022
Open Medical Data - A fairytale or the future?
Podcast
This second episode of the Delta Dialog deals with a very different perspective on open medical data than the first session, namely the difficulty of the challenges to be overcome. These are data quality, utility of AI within open medical data, policy, funding, and human capital.
Delta Dialog  |  Dec 09, 2022
The real reason self-driving vehicles will not succeed
Generic
Self-driving cars, or autonomous vehicles, have garnered a great deal of attention in recent years, and despite the huge amounts of money and resources pouring in, the industry continues to disappoint. Is a technological breakthrough imminent, or should one expect more underperformance?
Jeffrey Lee Funk  |  Sep 27, 2022
Open access: independent testing, incentives are needed for high-quality data
Open Data 2022
Open access to data must focus on their quality, not just quantity. Opening data will not ensure quality, buy may even have the opposite effect, argues Prof Jeffery Lee Funk as part of The Yuan’s Open Data 2022 series.
Jeffrey Lee Funk  |  Jul 04, 2022
AI Startups Are Doing Poorly, as Is AI Overall
Emerging markets
Much hype has surrounded AI startups in recent years, but some of this may be overblown as such startups have tended to underperform compared with their peers in other fields. Such companies’ profitability, or lack thereof, along with decisions about whether to go ahead with IPOs or SPACs offer insights into the current state of the AI sector, and what the near future holds.
Jeffrey Lee Funk  |  May 23, 2022
AI’s Slow Adoption Jibes With Former Failures
Optimization
The promise of AI technology has often failed to live up to its hype. How to learn from past successes and failures to adjust the expectations for AI and change how new technologies are applied to do so more successfully is the issue The Yuan contributor Prof Funk grapples with in this his inaugural article.
Jeffrey Lee Funk  |  Apr 18, 2022