Government officials, business leaders and academics attending China's second World Intelligence Congress, abbreviated WIC 2018, envisioned people's liberation from labor with the help of artificial intelligence.

With the theme "The Age of Intelligence: New Progress, New Trends, New Efforts," the three-day event began in north China's Tianjin municipality on Wednesday.

Lin Nianxiu, deputy director of China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said at the opening of the congress that the aspirations to make machines more intelligent and liberate human beings from as much labor as possible have been major impetuses driving worldwide technological advances and industrial innovation.

After more than six decades since the first AI programs were developed in the 1950s, AI has become the most vibrant and promising field of science and technology, Lin said.

Richard Liu, founder and CEO of Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com, said in his speech at a forum with the theme "Vision: Intelligent and Sustainable Development" that his biggest dream is for all people to be liberated from labor.

He said that with the development of AI, machines are expected to replace humans in generating material wealth.

In this way, people will be able to spend more time on leisure activities, such as developing their hobbies and enjoying quality time with their families, Liu said. 

George Smoot, a 2006 Nobel laureate in physics, also noted that "AI can replicate labor activities at much greater scale and speed, and even perform some tasks beyond the capacities of humans."

"For example, by using virtual assistants, a thousand legal documents can be reviewed in a matter of days instead of taking three people six months to complete," Smoot said.

With a focus on the changes and opportunities brought by AI technologies and how they can be utilized to shape a sustainable world, the WIC 2018 features the World Intelligent Technology Expo, three main forums, 18 themed forums and four contests, namely the World Intelligent Driving Challenge, the World Intelligent Drones Contest, the Open Data Innovation and Application Contest, and the 2018 China (Tianjin) Industrial APP Innovation and Application Contest.

The event is co-organized by the Tianjin Municipal People's Government, the NDRC, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Cyberspace Administration of China, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and the China Association for Science and Technology.

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