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AI will be as good or as evil as human nature allows, said the CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai, in a recent interview with 60 Minutes. Pichai said that the revolution was coming faster than one might think. And, keeping up with the fast pace, Google on Thursday announced Google DeepMind. It is Alphabet Incs latest bid to enhance its research and development in artificial intelligence.

DeepMind and the Brain team from Google Research have united as Google DeepMind. The union of the two entities is aimed at accelerating the progress towards a world where AI can help solve the biggest challenges facing humanity.

Together, in close collaboration with our fantastic colleagues across the Google Product Areas, we have a real opportunity to deliver AI research and products that dramatically improve the lives of billions of people, transform industries, advance science, and serve diverse communities, said DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis in an official release.

On the other hand, Pichai said that progress has been faster than ever before. To ensure the bold and responsible development of general AI, were creating a unit that will help us build more capable systems more safely and responsibly. This group, called Google DeepMind, will bring together two leading research groups in the AI field: the Brain team from Google Research, and DeepMind, Pichai said in his statement.

According to the Google boss, the collective accomplishments in AI over the last decade comprise AlphaGo, Transformers, word2vec, WaveNet, AlphaFold, sequence to sequence models, distillation, deep reinforcement learning, and distributed systems and software frameworks like TensorFlow and JAX for expressing, training and deploying large scale ML models.

DeepMind, an AI research start-up, was founded by AI researchers Demis Hassabis, Shane Legg, and Mustafa Syleymann in 2010. In 2014, it was reported that Facebook was in talks to acquire the company. However, Google bought the company for over $500 million. Around the time of the acquisition, it was seen as a move by Google that would bring itself to the forefront of deep learning, giving it an edge over its competitors.

DeepMind developed machine learning systems that used deep neural networks and models inspired by neuroscience. The company applies general-purpose learning algorithms to large data sets to train its system and predict outcomes. It illustrates the vast potential of machine learning and how it can advance AI. It is believed that the principles applied by DeepMind can also be used by companies to enhance their efficiency in various areas.

Google Brain is essentially an AI research team that works at Google AI. The dedicated division for AI research came into shape in 2011 with the collaboration between Google fellow Jeff Dean, Stanford University professor Andrew Ng, and Google researcher Greg Corrado.

Reportedly, Google Brain was conceived to develop deep learning processes with existing infrastructure. The company fuses machine learning research, large-scale computing resources, and information technology. TensorFlow, the open-source software library, is a notable technology from Google Brain that facilitates neural networks to be accessed by the public along with numerous AI internal projects. Google Brain aims to create research avenues in natural language processing and machine learning.

According to Pichai, combining the talents from Google Brain and DeepMind into one focused team backed by computational resources will significantly accelerate the companys progress in AI. Pichai, in the official release, also stated that Google was the first AI company since 2016 and that it has strived to improve its AI products be it in Search, Gmail, YouTube, or camera in Pixel phones. His words reflected the search giants deeper commitment to innovations in AI.

Hassabis feels that Google DeepMind will help in building more capable general AI safely and responsibly. The new entity will bring together world-class talent in AI, computing power, resources, and infrastructure to bolster the next generation of AI developments for products across Google and Alphabet Inc.

The research advances from the phenomenal Brain and DeepMind teams laid much of the foundations of the current AI industry, from Deep Reinforcement Learning to Transformers, and the work we are going to be doing now as part of this new combined unit will create the next wave of world-changing breakthroughs, said Hassabis.

First published on: 21-04-2023 at 14:09 IST

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Google intensifies its bid to lead AI race, announces Google DeepMind: Heres what it means - The Indian Express