Breaking Barriers in AI: Meet Fei-Fei Li, the ‘Godmother’ Transforming Technology

Meet Professor Fei-Fei Li, celebrated as the ‘godmother of AI’. In a significant moment, she stands out as the only woman among seven AI pioneers receiving the prestigious 2025 Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, presented by the King at St James’s Palace. Alongside her are notable figures such as Prof Yoshua Bengio, Dr Geoffrey Hinton, and Meta’s Chief AI Scientist Dr Yann LeCun, all being honored for their transformative contributions to modern machine learning.

Prof Li’s acceptance of her title is rooted in her commitment to representing women in science. She acknowledges that rejecting the title would diminish the recognition of women in technology: ”For all the young women I work with… I’m okay now accepting this title.” Her journey began in China before she emigration to the U.S., where she became a leading figure in computer vision with her groundbreaking work on ImageNet, a project that opened new frontiers in AI through large-scale image recognition.

According to Prof Li, the next milestone for AI will be its ability to interact with the physical world, a capability she believes could greatly enhance human creativity and innovation. She advocates for a balanced discussion on AI safety, noting the varied opinions among her peers. While Dr Hinton warns of AI as a potential extinction threat, Prof LeCun views such fears as exaggerated. Prof Li promotes a pragmatic approach, encouraging scientists to engage in healthy debates and discussions surrounding AI’s impact on society.

The Queen Elizabeth Prize honors engineers whose work benefits humanity, previously awarded to innovators like Sir Tim Berners-Lee. This year’s recipients exemplify how engineering can revolutionize our lives while caring for the planet, as noted by Lord Vallance, chair of the Prize Foundation. Celebrating these trailblazers, Prof Li not only highlights the importance of diversity in tech but also reinforces the value of measured dialogue in the evolving landscape of artificial intelligence.