This debate held on January 31, 2018 in San Diego, CA, was organized by the Penrose Institute in conjunction with Qualcomm. The following content was provided by Matt Grob of XCOM, moderator of the panel. Panelists include: Dr. Eugene Izhikevich - Brain Corp, Sir Roger Penrose, James Tagg - Penrose Institute, and Oleg Sinyavsky - Brain Corp. See a groundbreaking debate on artificial intelligence between renowned physicist Sir Roger Penrose and neuroscientist Dr. Eugene Izhikevich. We’re in the early days of AI development, and right now, the entire industry has more questions than answers on how far we can take the AI revolution. There are a lot of unknowns, and there’s an interesting contrast between what AI is now and what it can be. Yes, AI is already doing tremendous things and improving at exponential rates, but it’s still incapable of doing many tasks that humans consider simple or that children can learn in minutes given a few examples. We simply don’t completely know how the human brain works and why it’s so efficient at so many tasks. Qualcomm Research has been researching AI for over a decade, starting with brain-inspired spiking neural networks, to make the devices and the things we interact with everyday more intelligent. We’ve worked closely with other leaders in AI, from academia to industry, to push AI forward. As you can imagine, we’ve encountered diverse opinions about the future of AI and have continued those discussions and debates to advance our thinking and knowledge, as well as the industry. To that end, we brought together two world-renowned thinkers in the AI space for a friendly debate: mathematical physicist, author, and professor Sir Roger Penrose and Dr. Eugene Izhikevich, a neuroscientist and the co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of Brain Corporation. What could be better than two titans of AI, with contrasting opinions, having a healthy debate? I had the honor to moderate the debate, which was hosted by Joan and Dr. Irwin Jacobs. The debate format comprised opening statements, moderated questions with the opportunity for rebuttal, and audience questions followed by final statements.