A German artificial intelligence (AI) pioneer and recipient of China's top science cooperation award for foreign scientists has called for putting AI to use for good.
In an interview with China Media Group (CMG) aired on Friday, Otto Heinrich Herzog, a member of the German National Academy of Science and Engineering and a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, noted that AI is quickly becoming ubiquitous in everyday life, even if it goes unnoticed.
"Certainly, without any doubt, we will have many more artificial intelligence applications and the point then is once it's implemented and used in daily life, you won't notice anymore that it's AI. It's just a good function, that's it. Everybody uses AI without knowing it. For instance, if you use the Internet, you are using a lot of AI and you don't notice it at all," he said.
Herzog added that AI is not omniscient, warning that the technology can't be relied on completely and should always be applied with caution.
"The terrible point is that you will get, always, an answer. The system will always find an answer if you ask a system question because it's designed in that way, even if the answer is wrong," said the computer scientist.
"When I tried out this first system, I asked it -- just to be sure I could control the answer -- who is Otto Herzog from Bremen? And the answer was Otto Herzog from Bremen is a famous sculptor; he had exhibitions in many cities and so on and so on. And then I told the system but Otto Herzog from Bremen is a computer scientist. And then the reply was you are wrong; Otto Herzog from Bremen is a sculptor. And that was a nice setting for the beginning with working such a system because it really showed that you cannot trust those systems nowadays," he said.
With these limitations in mind, he called for researchers to remain diligent in their work and not become overly reliant on machines.
"I think it's really important to do proper research, right? Not use those systems we have today to pretend you are doing research and create some papers which have no value at all. Make AI for good -- I think that's a very good expression," he said.
Herzog was among nine foreign scientists who received the 2025 China International Science and Technology Cooperation Award at a national science and technology conference held in Beijing on July 8.
The award is China's highest scientific honor for foreign nationals, recognizing their outstanding contributions to scientific and technological cooperation with China.
Herzog also founded Germany's first AI research center in 1985 and led the country's first AI research team. Since coming to China in 2014, he has promoted interdisciplinary research integrating AI with urban planning.
Since 2015, he has served as principal scientist of the Collaborative Innovation Center for Intelligent Planning of the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration, contributing to AI research and China-Germany cooperation in science and technology.
German computer scientist calls for "making AI for good"
