Alphabet Inc. has announced the merger of artificial intelligence (AI) research units, Google Brain and DeepMind, to accelerate its AI research efforts. The move is aimed at boosting the company’s competitiveness with rival systems such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot. According to Alphabet’s CEO Sundar Pichai, the newly merged division will be led by Demis Hassabis, who serves as the CEO of DeepMind.
The combined team will be working on “multimodal” AI, like OpenAI’s GPT-4, which can respond to both text and image inputs to generate new content.
“To ensure the bold and responsible development of general AI, we’re creating a unit that will help us build more capable systems more safely and responsibly. This group, called Google DeepMind, will bring together two leading research groups in the AI field: the Brain team from Google Research, and DeepMind,” wrote Sunder Pichai, in his blog post.
Google DeepMind combines the AI expertise and talents of the Brain and DeepMind teams and leverages its massive computing power, infrastructure, and resources to usher in the next generation of AI breakthroughs and products for Google and Alphabet.
The research conducted by these two teams has already laid the foundations of the current AI industry, from Deep Reinforcement Learning to Transformers.
Google and DeepMind
In 2014, Google acquired DeepMind, an independent AI research company, and it has since operated as a subsidiary of Alphabet.
DeepMind utilized deep neural networks and models influenced by neuroscience to develop machine learning systems. By employing general-purpose learning algorithms on massive datasets, DeepMind’s systems could predict outcomes, showcasing the immense potential of machine learning in advancing AI. The techniques and principles utilized by DeepMind offer valuable insights for other companies to improve their efficiency in diverse areas.
Google Brain’s primary objective is to advance research in natural language processing and machine learning.
The merger of Google Brain and DeepMind to form Google DeepMind is expected to produce transformative AI breakthroughs in a responsible manner. This move will accelerate the company’s progress in AI through the expertise of both teams and access to vast computational resources. As a result, Google is expected to make significant advancements in AI research and development.
In February this year, Google unveiled its conversational AI service, Bard, which uses a set of deep learning algorithms to respond to questionnaires. The chatbot is built on LaMDA technology and uses the web to find answers to questions. Bard AI improves its performance by learning from its encounters with humans. Know more about Bard here.
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