Facebook, Google (microblogging), Amazon, Microsoft and IBM have jointly created a brand new AI alliance. It is reported that the original intention of this alliance is to better promote the development of AI technology and the promotion of the best solutions. The five founding companies all have equal leadership and will provide funding and research resources for the alliance. Moreover, the new AI Alliance will not overturn every company’s existing achievements, but will provide a platform to share valuable opinions.
The heads of AI technology R&D for all five companies mentioned above stated that the establishment of this alliance is a historical achievement that all parties have put down their selfishness, helping to create a safe and fair artificial intelligence system platform, and eventually applied to include Automated driving and medical health.
What is the motivation?
The person in charge of Microsoft’s research department stated that the establishment of this non-profit alliance is due to the recent AI threat theory. As a result, we are concerned that government supervision will slow down the progress of AI technology. But in fact, these concerns are due to the lack of transparency in the research and development of AI technology, and our propaganda work is not done well, so if this technology wants to move forward, it must be open and honest to gain public acceptance.
"I think that now is the right time to form this alliance. Because if you set up this alliance five years ago, people will not pay any attention to it at all, and you may even say that the establishment of this alliance is immature." Dr. Sean of the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at Cambridge University said.
In fact, with the rapid development of AI technology in recent years, we have also seen many problems encountered by this technology in the real world. For example, Google's image scanning technology sometimes mistakes blacks for orangutans, and an algorithm for predicting crime rates is considered to have serious racial discrimination.
In addition, with the increasing strength of AI technology, people have also expressed some concern about the idea that "AI will ultimately rule the world." Apple's co-founders Steve Wozniak, Stephen Hawking, and Elon Musk have united hundreds of academic and industrial communities a few days ago. Well-known experts and scholars signed an open letter against aggressive automatic weapons.
The open letter stressed: "If any major military forces promote the development of AI weapons, this will inevitably create a wave of global arms races. The end point of this technology trajectory is obvious, that is, the automatic weapons will change. Become the future Kalashnikov submachine gun."
Dr. Sean who did not participate in this alliance believes that the establishment of this alliance will ensure that the research and development of AI technology is legal and reasonable. More importantly, the alliance also encourages more academic experts, non-profit institutions, and policy and ethics experts to join in the future.