United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has appointed (https://bit.ly/3Ad61BI) Dr Tshilidzi Marwala, Vice Chancellor and Principal of the University of Johnannesburg, South Africa, as the next Rector of the United Nations University (UNU). Professor Marwala is “an accomplished scholar and thought leader with multidisciplinary research interests that include the theory and application of artificial intelligence to engineering, computer science, finance, social science and medicine.” He has written extensively on these subjects; one article that comes to immediate mind was published nine months ago and traced the “evolution” of AI to Charles Darwin.
“There are many types of AI,” he wrote (https://bit.ly/3PjtyVQ) “including machine learning and evolutionary programming. In the evolutionary programme, one type of AI is the genetic algorithm (GA), which is inspired by Darwin’s theory of evolution. In genetic algorithms, new solutions to complex problems are evolved by crossover, mutation and reproduction. In this regard, randomly generated solutions in a population are mixed to create new solutions using the principles of crossover.”
The Boston Global Forum congratulates Dr Marwala and wishes him every success in his new endeavors while looking forward to possibilities of cooperation with UNU under his leadership.
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