CCDS Connect 2025 – Scholar Session: Deep Thinking, Big Questions, and the Future of AI

On the morning of 10 May 2025, before the main CCDS Connect event began, a select group of scholarship recipients and invited students gathered for an exclusive Scholar Session that offered something rare: space to think deeply about the future.

The centrepiece of the session was a keynote lecture by Professor Erik Cambria, Provost Chair in Computer Science and Engineering at NTU and Visiting Professor at MIT Media Lab. His talk, titled "Shaping the Future: AI, Learning, Work, and Humanity", pulled back the curtain on the current state of AI and what lies ahead.

Professor Cambria tackled the limitations of today’s AI head-on, pointing out the gaps in systems that excel at pattern recognition but falter at nuance: sarcasm, storytelling, and human intention. He introduced the Seven Pillars for the Future of AI, a multidisciplinary framework for building ethical, explainable, and human-aligned AI systems.

 

We are not just creating smarter systems. We’re creating systems that must serve people. That takes more than computing. That takes humanity.” Professor Erik Cambria

 

Students responded with curiosity and confidence, asking a range of questions during the Q&A session:

• How do we ensure AI models trained on flawed data don’t replicate those flaws?
• How do we imbue emotional intelligence in AI systems?
• What is your opinion about AI with regards to the negative impact of data centres on the climate?

Professor Cambria answered with clarity and candour, encouraging students not to wait until postgraduate studies to make an impact, but to find problems that matter and start solving them early.

The session ended over lunch with current students, where conversations continued informally. For many, it was their first glimpse into the depth and complexity of the AI landscape beyond buzzwords; and a preview of the kind of intellectual challenge that awaits at CCDS.