Author of the acclaimed new book Raising AI (MIT Press, June 2025), Professor De Kai's work building the web’s first language translator and inventing groundbreaking language models spawned Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google translate. For his contributions in AI, natural language processing, and machine learning, De Kai was honored by the Association for Computational Linguistics as one of seventeen Founding Fellows.

De Kai holds joint appointments at HKUST’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering and Berkeley’s International Computer Science Institute. He is Independent Director of the AI ethics think tank The Future Society, and was one of eight inaugural members of Google’s AI ethics council. His research, policy, and public awareness work on polarization, bias, misinformation, and bridging cultures spans artificial intelligence, cognition, language, music, creativity, ethics, society, and policy.

His book Raising AI has earned awards and accolades from across all sectors:

“A new framework for navigating AI’s influence, this book is a must-read” - JPMorgan SUMMER READING LIST 2025 | Fortune CNBC Quartz Yahoo Entrepreneur AOL Yahoo Finance

“An accessible and authoritative guide to AI—as well as a framework of empowerment” - The Next Big Idea Club JUNE 2025 MUST READS | Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, Susan Cain, Daniel Pink, curators

“A deeply human dive into the AIs transforming our world… evokes Jorge Luis Borges’ tale of a mapmaking process so exacting it grows as large as the world it represents” - Kirkus Reviews

“A bold vision… thought-provoking and a timely wake-up call” - Science

“A big, change-your-behavior epiphany… beautiful, even profound… champions the pivotal role of personal responsibility for each of us… our AI offspring are evolving toward agency and sentience, interacting with us, with each other, with the world at large” - Forbes

“Compelling … charts a path toward greater understanding between biological and artificial intelligences… We need AIs helping us rapidly evolve culturally to keep pace with AI hyperevolution instead of triggering us to regress unconsciously into tribalism and irrationality” - Foreword Reviews

“Cuts to the heart of how society views AI… humans should reassess their relationship with AI and train it better, just as parents invest a great deal of care and effort in raising their children” - Tatler

“A powerful reframe: AI bots are neither gods nor slaves; they’re imitative, neuroatypical, attention-seeking children… how’s your parenting?” - Esther Perel

“AI is more akin to climate change than a geopolitical challenge, requiring a new way of thinking” - South China Morning Post

“Eye-opening… how partial truths are a threat to democracy” - TEDx EDITOR’S PICK