Project Maven was Google’s collaboration with the US Department of Defense. In March, leaks indicated that Google supplied AI technology to the Pentagon to help analyse drone footage.

The following month, over 4,000 employees signed a petition demanding that Google’s management cease work on Project Maven and promise to never again “build warfare technology.”

In April 2018, Google’s infamous ‘Don’t be evil’ motto was removed from the code of conduct’s preface — but retained in its last sentence. In the final line, it now says: “And remember… don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right – speak up!”

Google’s employees saw something that wasn’t right and did speak up. In fact, Gizmodo reported a dozen or so employees resigned in protest.

The company listened and told its employees last week that it would not be renewing its contract with the Department of Defense when it expires next year.

In a bid to further quell fears about the development of its AI technology and how the company intends it to be used, Google has today published its ethical principles.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote in a blog post the company will not develop technologies or weapons that cause harm, or anything which can be used for surveillance violating “internationally accepted norms” or “widely accepted principles of international law and human rights.”

Some observers are concerned the clauses about the ‘accepted norms’ provides ground to push the boundaries of what’s considered acceptable.

Gizmodo also reported that Google sought to help build systems that enabled the Pentagon to perform surveillance on entire cities. In China, that is something which is widely accepted, and in use today.

Here are what Google says is the company’s key objectives for AI developments:

1. Be socially beneficial.
2. Avoid creating or reinforcing unfair bias.
3. Be built and tested for safety.
4. Be accountable to people.
5. Incorporate privacy design principles.
6. Uphold high standards of scientific excellence.
7. Be made available for uses that accord with these principles.  

Pichai promised the company “will work to limit potentially harmful or abusive applications” and will block the use of their technology if they “become aware of uses that are inconsistent” with the principles Google has set out today.

What are your thoughts on Google’s AI ethical principles?

The post Don’t Be Evil: Google publishes its AI ethical principles following backlash appeared first on AI News.

ML Kit is a new suite of cross-platform APIs from Google enabling app developers to use machine learning for things such as face recognition, text scanning, reading barcodes, and even identifying objects and landmarks.

From the ML Kit documentation page:

“We want the entire device experience to be smarter, not just the OS, so we’re bringing the power of Google’s machine learning to app developers with the launch of ML Kit, a new set of cross-platform APIs available through Firebase.

ML Kit offers developers on-device APIs for text recognition, face detection, image labelling and more. So mobile developers building apps like Lose It!, a nutrition tracker, can easily deploy our text recognition model to scan nutritional information and ML Kit’s custom model APIs to automatically classify over 200 different foods with your phone’s camera.”

Many of these abilities can run offline but are more limited than when connected to Google’s cloud. For example, the on-device version of the API could detect a dog is in a photo – but when connected to the internet – it could recognise the specific breed.

Google says any data sent to its cloud is deleted after processing.

ML Kit is simplifying what used to be a complicated process and making AI more accessible. Rather than having to learn how to use complex machine learning libraries such as TensorFlow, retrieve enough data to train a model, and then make it light enough to run on a mobile device… ML Kit enables access to many common features via an API call on Google Firebase.

Developers wanting to get started with ML Kit can find it in the Firebase console.

What are your thoughts on Google’s ML Kit?

The post Google launches cross-platform ML Kit APIs to simplify AI integration appeared first on AI News.

John Giannandrea stepped down on Monday but was expected to be staying at Google. He reportedly wanted to be in a position that allowed him to be “more hands-on with technology” than in his previous role. It seems that Apple offered him the opportunity he was looking for.

Apple is often regarded in tech circles as trailing Google when it comes to AI, so the knowledge Giannandrea is bringing to the company will be invaluable.

Giannandrea will run Apple’s “machine learning and A.I. strategy,” and become one of 16 executives who report directly to Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook.

In his previous role, Giannandrea was appointed chief of Google’s AI and search businesses. The role he’s leaving is being split into two — Jeff Dean will be taking over heading AI at Google, while search will be led by Ben Gomes.

“Our technology must be infused with the values we all hold dear,” wrote Cook in an email to Apple staff. “John shares our commitment to privacy and our thoughtful approach as we make computers even smarter and more personal.”

TechCrunch observed that Giannandrea had a very pragmatic approach to AI — he considers ethics important to its development, but he does not believe in the end-of-the-world scenarios some have predicted.

“What I object to is this assumption that we will leap to some kind of superintelligent system that will then make humans obsolete,” he said. “I understand why people are concerned about it but I think it’s gotten way too much airtime. I just see no technological basis as to why this is imminent at all.”

Giannandrea’s ethos sounds very much aligned to Apple who has a long-standing commitment to practices which safeguard its users, including a strict approach to protecting their privacy.

Apple’s respect for user privacy is often seen as putting it at a disadvantage when it comes to AI which relies on large amounts of data. The company says it has developed methods of training machine learning algorithms without compromising privacy but is yet to detail how this works in practice.

What are your thoughts on Apple poaching Google’s AI chief?

The post Apple has poached Google’s AI chief appeared first on AI News.

AI has been in Google’s DNA since it began life as a humble search engine. Since then, it’s aimed to be a part of every aspect of our lives. Part of Google’s success in achieving this ubiquity has been its ability to move with the times and take advantage of the next big thing.

Google started as being ‘web first’ as the internet grew, became ‘mobile first’ as smartphones entered many of our pockets, and now it aims to harness its existing strengths to be ‘AI first’ as companies scramble for positions in this important field.

The decision to split Giannandrea’s role into two makes a lot of strategic sense. AI and search have much in common, but each represents two of the most important priorities for Google. That carries a lot of work and responsibility for one person to lead which could impact the company’s efficiency.

Taking up the AI role is Google Brain leader Jeff Dean. The search role, meanwhile, will go to search engineering boss Ben Gomes.

Gomes will be focusing solely on improving Google Search, while Dean will also continue his position in the Google Brain team which researches machine learning. Giannandrea won’t be leaving Google completely. but reportedly wants to be  “more hands-on with technology” than in his previous role.

TechCrunch observed that Giannandrea had a very pragmatic approach to AI — he considers ethics important to its development, but he does not believe in the end-of-the-world scenarios some have predicted. Hopefully, this is an attitude continued by Dean.

AI News wishes Giannandrea, Dean, and Gomes all well in their new roles.

Image under Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

What are your thoughts on Google’s management shuffle?

The post Google’s AI and search chief is stepping down – his role splitting into two appeared first on AI News.

Feng Liu, Yong Shi, and Ying Liu put their test to AIs from Google, Apple, and Microsoft. The AIs scored as follows:

• Google: 47.28
• Baidu: 32.92
• Bing: 31.92
• Siri: 23.9

Google leads the pack comfortably according to the results. Baidu and Bing are a comfortable distance behind. Siri’s result is the most notable as it trails its competitors significantly with almost half the score of Google.

To calm those concerned about the potential AI apocalypse forewarned by the likes of Elon Musk — even Google’s score was relatively low compared to humans.

For comparison, the average score for a six-year-old in the researchers’ test is 55.5. For an 18-year-old, the average result is 96. This shows, at least for the time being, humans still have the advantage when it comes to general knowledge (…unless you’re under six, maybe.)

The gap is closing quickly, however. Earlier studies by the group show a rapid improvement over a relatively short period of time. Back in 2014, Google and Baidu put up scores of 26.5 and 23.5 respectively.

Once again, this posts Siri in a rather bad light. Google’s (and almost Baidu’s…) score back in 2014 was higher than Siri’s in the latest study.

The results are in-line with those found in another study posted by our sister publication IoT News. In that study, Siri also fell significantly behind Google and Microsoft in the ability to answer general knowledge questions.

The full research can be found here for your perusal.

What are your thoughts on the results of the study?

The post Google’s AI has a higher IQ than Siri, Bing, and Baidu — but all were beaten by a six-year-old appeared first on AI News.