In the state-owned company IDEAS NCBR, Professor Piotr Sankowski created a team of people, but he himself lost the competition for the new head. This was met with outrage from some of the university community and an appeal to Prime Minister Donald Tusk for intervention. So the question arises what will happen to the professor and whether a new institute will be created that will deal with artificial intelligence.
Professor Piotr Sankowski is one of the most outstanding Polish scientists in the field of artificial intelligence. On Tuesday morning, Dariusz Wieczorek, Minister of Science and Higher Education, talked to the professor.
– I said a simple thing: the company's management board and executive functions in a limited liability company are one thing, and conducting research in the field of artificial intelligence is another thing, and I suggested to the professor that he continue all this as a coordinator of all the teams he created, which were created – the minister reveals.
A few years ago, Professor Sankowski created a huge team of Polish scientists as part of the state-owned company IDEAS NCBR – a center intended to develop work on artificial intelligence in Poland. – We needed two things to make it successful: money and people. There were over a hundred people there – truly the best in the world – recalls the professor.
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After creating the team, the professor lost the competition for the new head of IDEAS NCBR, which was met with outrage from some of the university community. Scientists wrote several letters to Prime Minister Donald Tusk asking for intervention.
– What the authorities did is not transparent to me. I don't understand the rules of the competition for a new boss that took place there, I don't understand what the scores were for both candidates, it was never revealed to us. I believe that this is spoiling an institution that worked very well and served Poland in such a very important area as artificial intelligence – says Prof. Aleksandra Przegalińska from the Leon Koźmiński University, initiator of the protest letter to Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
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Lack of an artificial intelligence research strategy
The IDEAS NCBR research and development center was established three years ago. Researchers under his supervision published forty scientific articles during this time. The problem, however, is that the PiS government, while creating a necessary institution, left it in a vacuum. There has been no long-term strategy for research on artificial intelligence.
– According to reports at the Committee of the Council of Ministers, the team for coordinating artificial intelligence has met once in four years. No decisions have been made. An institute has just been established in the form of a limited liability company – it's neither a wolf nor a hare – so now everyone has a problem – points out Piotr Mieczkowski from the Digital Poland Foundation.
When it comes to investing in artificial intelligence, Poland is only in the fourth ten countries in the world. We should be higher. – We need to watch how people who are better than us do it – suggests Marcin Żukowski, co-creator of Snowflake – a cloud-based data warehouse platform. – Many countries understand how important it is for the future of the economy, for the future of the companies that operate in it, and actually for every aspect of our country's operation – adds Marcin Żukowski.
The Minister of Science and Higher Education wants all universities in Poland that work on the development of artificial intelligence to have shares in the IDEAS NCBR company, and Professor Sankowski, no longer as the head of the company, would coordinate this work. Will a new research institute emerge from this? – I would like to hear about this plan, which will be created, I hope, soon – replies the professor.
Main photo source: Fakty TVN