Amazon, Facebook, Google, IBM & Microsoft partner for AI

The captivating machines ranging from self-driving cars to the chatbots that can answer questions like humans to the smartest technology around that includes Google anticipating your search bar entries, Facebook tracking down your years of friendship, Amazon catching all your shopping on its radar is powered by one key- Artificial Intelligence. As practical uses of AI are expanding by the day, a new non-profit organization called the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society has come into into being that has roped in 5 major tech giants- Amazon, Google (and Google’s DeepMind), Facebook, IBM, and Microsoft. Apple is in talks to join the industry heavyweights for the initiative too.

What’s the mission?

The five-headed organization will be addressing opportunities and challenges with AI technologies to benefit “people and society.” According to a statement, the organization’s members will conduct research, recommend best practices, and publish research under an open license in areas such as ethics, fairness, and inclusivity; transparency, privacy, and interoperability; collaboration between people and AI systems; and the trustworthiness, reliability, and robustness of the technology. There will be no intervention from government or other policymaking bodies. Eric Horvitz, Technical Fellow & Managing Director, Microsoft Research said:

“We’re excited about this historic collaboration on AI and its influences on people and society. We see great value ahead with harnessing AI advances in numerous areas, including health, education, transportation, public welfare, and personal empowerment.”

The organization’s founding members will each contribute financial and research resources to the partnership and will share leadership with independent third-parties, including academics, user group advocates, and industry domain experts. There will be equal representation of corporate and non-corporate members on the board of this new organization. “We’re in a golden age of Machine Learning and AI. As a scientific community, we are still a long way from being able to do things the way humans do things, but we’re solving unbelievably complex problems every day and making incredibly rapid progress,” said Ralf Herbrich, Director of Machine Learning Science and Core Machine Learning, Amazon.

“This partnership will ensure we’re including the best and the brightest in this space in the conversation to improve customer trust and benefit society. We are excited to work together in this partnership with thought leaders from both industry and academia,” Herbrich added.

This partnership comes almost a year after the announcement of OpenAI, a non-profit research firm backed by heavy hitters like co-chairs Elon Musk of SpaceX and Tesla fame, Y Combinator’s Sam Altman, as well as investor Peter Thiel, who worked with Musk at PayPal. The aim of the firm was to “make the scope of AI less narrow.”