Apple hires ex-Google AI expert Samy Bengio

Posted:
in General Discussion
Apple has hired Samy Bengio, a former AI scientist who resigned in protest of Google's firing of two employees, to lead a new AI team under John Giannandrea.

Apple has reportedly hired Samy Bengio to lead a new AI team
Apple has reportedly hired Samy Bengio to lead a new AI team


Bengio is expected to lead a new AI research unit at Apple. The new team will report to John Giannandrea, Apple's Senior Vice President of Machine Learning and AI Strategy.

Bengio's reported arrival at Apple follows the firings of the co-leaders of Google's AI ethics team. On April 6, Bengio announced his resignation from Google after nearly 14 years at the company, saying he was pursuing "other exciting opportunities." His last day at the search giant was April 28.

In December, the Mountain View firm fired Timnit Gebru, co-founder of the company's ethical AI team. In February, Google fired Margaret Mitchell, the co-lead and co-founder of the same team. Following the firings, Google announced a restructuring of its AI teams.

Before their departures from Google, Gebru and Mitchell had expressed concerns about the company's workplace diversity and research review approach. Bengio voiced support for his two former colleagues and was the highest-ranking Googler to exit the company amidst the fallout.

In December, Gebru tweeted, "Finally thank you to Samy Bengio for creating space (and cover) for us to do this type of work. He protects me a lot behind the scenes."

Samy Bengio, left, with his brother, Yoshua
Samy Bengio, left, with his brother, Yoshua


Bengio was one of the early leaders of the Google Brain AI research team. The Canadian computer scientist was pivotal in advancing many of the deep-learning algorithms that serve as a foundation for today's AI. His brother, Yoshua Bengio, is also an AI researcher, working at Universite de Montreal.

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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    BeatsBeats Posts: 3,073member
    Apple should hire the other 2 employees who were fired just to spite Goog and bring the team back together.

    I think I remember employees leaving because they felt icky with Goog data mining so much personal info.

    I think ultimately Siri needs a HUGE overhaul along with innovation and should be the new leader in search. I’d rather ask “What’s the last movie Tom Hanks starred in” and get an answer than get a page full of ads, trivia, news articles and irrelevant info I have to sort through.
    lolliver
  • Reply 2 of 5
    Seems like a good hire. Like others, I would be happy to see Siri improve. 

    That said, I really don’t have many issues with it. My friend’s Echo is far from being as amazing as people on Internet forums make it out to be, and in my experience, Siri isn’t nearly as bad as those same people make it out to be. 

    However, I’m still baffled by how people can word a question to Siri the exact same way and get wildly different results. 

    Beats said:

    I think ultimately Siri needs a HUGE overhaul along with innovation and should be the new leader in search. I’d rather ask “What’s the last movie Tom Hanks starred in” and get an answer than get a page full of ads, trivia, news articles and irrelevant info I have to sort through.
    Here’s what I got when I asked, “What’s the last movie Tom Hanks starred in?”


    lollivermatrix077bageljoey
  • Reply 3 of 5
    fastasleepfastasleep Posts: 6,420member
    Beats said:
    I think ultimately Siri needs a HUGE overhaul along with innovation and should be the new leader in search. I’d rather ask “What’s the last movie Tom Hanks starred in” and get an answer than get a page full of ads, trivia, news articles and irrelevant info I have to sort through.
    Ah yes, just simply overhaul the whole thing and sprinkle some "innovation" while you're in there. You should send in your résumé.
    michelb76watto_cobra
  • Reply 4 of 5
    dope_ahminedope_ahmine Posts: 253member
    Good hire. Now please bring some intelligence to the Apple product/service portfolio — especially the dumbwatch.
  • Reply 5 of 5
    tipootipoo Posts: 1,142member
    But can he make Siri not just respond with the time in my current time zone when I ask "What time is 10AM EST here?"
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