Currently, all the big technology companies are artificial intelligence companies, but none other than Google. To underscore the point before its I / O developer conference, the company has renamed its Google Research division as Google AI, reflecting the importance of artificial intelligence for the company's future.
In a blog post announcing the news, the company said the rebranding was to "better reflect [its] the commitment" to the integration of AI into various services. It follows an organizational reorganization last month that saw the development of AI products split from Google's search efforts, and veteran Googler Jeff Dean taking the helm of the new division. A recently renewed homepage for Google AI also emphasizes more than just the company's consumer products, highlighting the recently published research on health and astronomy and open source tools used by the AI community around the world, such as the automatic learning framework Tensor Flow. (Important to note also: non-IA research will still be done under the new "Google AI" division)
This focus on research and the community contrasts slightly with Microsoft, which has also been pushing its artificial intelligence credentials this week at its creation conference. But for Microsoft, the message has been more about the ethics and morals of AI, with the company launching a new $ 25 million fund for AI for accessibility to develop technology for people with disabilities. Google also does a lot of work in the field of AI ethics, but it's interesting to see these two titans of the world of technology trying to differentiate their message on the same subject.
Last month, in a letter to investors, Google co-founder Sergey Brin warned about threats posed by AI, such as job destruction, biased algorithms and misinformation. He also called AI "the most significant development of computing in my life." Google's rebranding of its research division leads to that point.