AI initiative counts Google, Microsoft, IBM among its ranks, Apple declines invite

AppleInsider · September 29, 2016 3:29PM

Six companies including Microsoft and Google have launched a cross-disciplinary partnership to steer the future of artificial intelligence development, but as of yet, Apple has not signed on.

Officially titled the "Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society," the group's stated goals are to pool resources and develop interoperability for the future of AI technology. At this time, the group has declared that it does not intend to become a governmental lobbyist group.

To meet its goals, the organization anticipates it will "host discussions, commission studies, write and distribute reports on critical topics, and seek to develop and share best practices and standards for industry." Additionally, the group states that it will "conduct outreach with the public and across the industry on topics related to advancing better understanding of AI systems and the potential applications and implications of this technology as they arise."

The founding corporate members of the group are Amazon, Facebook, Google, IBM, and Microsoft with each company holding one spot on the board of directors. Notable missing members are Apple, and Elon Musk's OpenAI program.

"We've been in discussions with Apple," said Microsoft engineer and partnership co-chair Eric Horvitz. "I know they're enthusiastic about this effort, and I'd personally hope to see them join."

Apple has historically not joined industry-guiding groups until late in the process, if at all. The Bluetooth SIG was formed in 1998, with Apple only joining as a lead-tier "promoting member" in 2015, more than a decade after the technology's first inclusion in an Apple product.

In the future, the group hopes to have "academics, non-profits and specialists in policy and ethics" outside of big business as members to help guide the initiative.

"This group is a huge step forward, breaking down barriers for AI teams to share best practices, research ways to maximize societal benefits and tackle ethical concerns, and make it easier for those in other fields to engage with everyone's work." said Google's Greg Corrado and the initiative's other chairman Mustafa Suleyman from Google-owned DeepMind in a joint statement. "We're really proud of how this has come together, and we're looking forward to working with everyone inside and outside the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to make sure AI has the broad and transformative impact we all want to see."

Suleyman is co-founder and Head of Applied AI at DeepMind, where he is responsible for the application of DeepMind's technology to real-world problems. Corrado is a senior scientist at Google Research, and a co-founder of the Google Brain Team.

Horvitz is a Microsoft Technical Fellow and managing director of Microsoft's Redmond, Washington research lab, specializing in the "complementarities of human and machine intelligence."

thewhitefalcon · September 29, 2016 4:03PM

Kick Facebook and Google out, and then I'll feel fine about Apple joining.

holyone · September 29, 2016 4:24PM

thewhitefalcon said:

Kick Facebook and Google out, and then I'll feel fine about Apple joining.

Yeah those two got me all kinds of suspicious, probably want to surreptitiously find out what Cupertino is up to, everybody knows AI is going to be big business in the near future, what's the point fo all these competing businesses collaborating On a product they all want to sell ? Much too curious me thinks

lkrupp · September 29, 2016 4:33PM

AppleInsider said:

Officially titled the “Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society,"

Sounds like a circle jerk to me. Come up with some universal standard that quells innovation and call it beneficial. Beneficial to who, exactly? Probably to the companies involved so they can avoid competition and failure because someone develops a better system.

gatorguy · September 29, 2016 5:25PM

lkrupp said:

AppleInsider said:

Officially titled the “Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society,"
Sounds like a circle jerk to me. Come up with some universal standard that quells innovation and call it beneficial. Beneficial to who, exactly? Probably to the companies involved so they can avoid competition and failure because someone develops a better system.

Why would it necessarily be any different from the Bluetooth Sig group which was mentioned in this article. That's certainly not a "circle-jerk". Somewhat universal standards to more quickly evolve a new technology would seem beneficial to me, much more so than everyone going their own way. With even IBM involved I suspect it won't be long before Apple joins in too.

holyone · September 29, 2016 6:32PM

gatorguy said:

lkrupp said:

AppleInsider said:

Officially titled the “Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society,"
Sounds like a circle jerk to me. Come up with some universal standard that quells innovation and call it beneficial. Beneficial to who, exactly? Probably to the companies involved so they can avoid competition and failure because someone develops a better system.

Why would it necessarily be any different from the Bluetooth Sig group which was mentioned in this article. That's certainly not a "circle-jerk". Somewhat universal standards to more quickly evolve a new technology would seem beneficial to me, much more so than everyone going their own way. With even IBM involved I suspect it won't be long before Apple joins in too.

Firstly - Because that group consists of companies that exploit user data to make money - Secondly Apple designs and develops technology with a different moral perspective than Google and Facebook as you well know - Thirdly how would this work ? I mean AI is ultimately intended for monatazation unlike the BT standard you mentioned which really isn't a critical profit seeking technology, whilst AI is competitively, separately and individually being persuade by the members for commercial advantages, BT is more a standard developed by a nutral party which insures a common operation for different devices of different ecosystem to communicate and share data, is AI going to be the same on every platform and operate the same in all environments ? Wh ? Couldn't you ask the same about Siri should Apple collaborate with its completion to make Siri work better ? A fussion of all the assistance ? How can than that promote "completion" that'll actually grow the tech ?

flaneur · September 29, 2016 6:47PM

Number one ethical consideration: Intelligence, artificial or otherwise, shouldn't be monetized by advertising.

gatorguy · September 29, 2016 7:46PM

flaneur said:

Number one ethical consideration: Intelligence, artificial or otherwise, shouldn't be monetized by advertising.

I agree and it may not be. I now see what the issue with a couple of folks is tho. The assumption is this will only be for monetizing thru ads. That's a big assumption IMHO. AFAIK IBM doesn't typically operate that way, nor does DeepMind even tho it's a subsidiary of Google. Even when discussing Google it should be noted that they too are putting a greater emphasis on non-ad-related revenues and could well have zero intention of monetizing user data. What's the best way to ensure user data privacy is a major focus? Include Apple. Seems relatively straightforward.

jbdragon · September 29, 2016 7:49PM

thewhitefalcon said:

Kick Facebook and Google out, and then I'll feel fine about Apple joining.

Is Microsoft any better these days? Windows 10 does nothing but shot on you, and don't forget Bing!. It's doing the same thing as Google search.

colinng · October 3, 2016 12:34AM

Partnership on AI: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Oh sorry, got that benefit confused with Borat.

AI initiative counts Google, Microsoft, IBM among its ranks, Apple declines invite

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