Google acquired DeepMind for $400 million in 2014 and the firm became a subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet in 2015.

Suleyman co-founded DeepMind and originally became its chief product officer. After Google’s acquisition in 2014, Suleyman became DeepMind’s head of applied AI.

In a tweet, Suleyman announced he’s now moving to Google itself to work on AI policy alongside Ken Walker, Jeff Dean, and others.

Suleyman is a longstanding proponent for AI ethics, so his presence at Google may help to ensure the web giant pushes boundaries in terms of technology but while respecting things like human rights.

Of course, DeepMind’s work hasn’t been without its controversies.

An app called Streams, developed by DeepMind for doctors and nurses, was ruled by the UK government in 2017 to have gained inappropriate access to medical data from 1.6 million patients.

At the time, Suleyman wrote in a blog post:

“DeepMind operates autonomously from Google, and we’ve been clear from the outset that at no stage will patient data ever be linked or associated with Google accounts, products or services.”

Critics believe this promise was broken when Streams was grabbed by Google itself. One thing which can’t be criticised, however, is DeepMind has shown its ability to get working AI solutions into the market. Suleyman appears to be part of Google’s desire to tap some of DeepMind’s ability to ship working AI solutions.

In a blog post, DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis spoke highly of the role Suleyman had played at the firm:

“As a serial entrepreneur, Mustafa played a key role over the past decade, helping to get DeepMind off the ground, and launched a series of innovative collaborations with Google to reduce energy consumption in data centres, improve Android battery performance, optimise Google Play, and find ways to improve the lives of patients, nurses and doctors alike,” he said.

“Mustafa leaves DeepMind having helped set us up for long-term success, and I’m looking forward to what he’ll achieve in the years ahead as he joins Google in a new role.”

Suleyman will be starting his new role at Google in January.

(Image Credit: Mustafa Suleyman by Joi Ito under CC BY 2.0 license)

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StarCraft 2 is a complex real-time strategy game that can still throw surprises at you even years after playing. In other words, StarCraft 2 is great for testing an AI.

Back in January, AI News reported DeepMind’s so-called ‘AlphaStar’ AI beat professional human eSports players Grzegorz Komincz and Dario Wunsch.

AlphaStar is now taking a virtual trip to Europe where it will begin playing a “small number” of games on the StarCraft 2 competitive ladder. Human players won’t even be aware they’re playing against the AI as it will be anonymised.

Blizzard explained the reasoning behind the anonymisation:

“Having AlphaStar play anonymously helps ensure that it is a controlled test so that the experimental versions of the agent experience gameplay as close to a normal 1v1 ladder match as possible.

It also helps ensure all games are played under the same conditions from match to match. DeepMind will release the research results in a peer-reviewed scientific paper along with replays of AlphaStar’s matches.”

AlphaStar was trained on historic game footage that StarCraft’s developer Blizzard has been releasing on a monthly basis. Five versions of the AI battled each other to hone their skills in training which equates to around 200 years for a human.

Multiple experimental variants of AlphaStar will take part in the test and it will play 1v1 matches only. The test will be opt-in, so players will have to click an in-game popup to get involved. Basically, it’s a voluntary ass-whooping.

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The renowned Cambridge-based artificial intelligence experts hope their product will become parent company Alphabet’s first medical device.

In a live demonstration, a patient had a retinal scan performed on her eye. DeepMind’s system was able to provide a diagnosis and ‘urgency score’ in just 30 seconds.

The ability to perform such a quick diagnosis will free up doctors’ precious time for other purposes and ensure patients get treatment as soon as possible.

A range of eye diseases can already be diagnosed by DeepMind’s system including glaucoma, macular degeneration, and diabetic retinopathy.

Developed in conjunction with London’s Moorfields Eye Hospital, the system has the same level of accuracy as the world’s leading specialists.

Much like robotics and 5G are expected to help patients in rural areas gain access to world-leading experts, AI systems like DeepMind’s will provide the fastest and most accurate diagnosis of medical problems no matter where a patient is.

The product is being developed by DeepMind Health. The subsidiary has received its fair share of criticism after the UK government ruled the company had gained inappropriate access to medical data from 1.6 million patients when developing its Streams app.

Once boasting of a 100 percent employee retention rate, talent has begun leaking from DeepMind in recent months. Some believe the backlash from the Streams controversy has made it more difficult for DeepMind to find willing, and much-needed, partners in the medical industry.

DeepMind first published details about its research in science journal Nature last August.

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