Google Launches $20 Million Fund to Support Responsible AI Development

Contemporary on the heels of its Google Cloud Subsequent convention in San Francisco, the place a number of generative AI tasks and instruments was already unveiled, Google introduced on Monday the launch of the Digital Futures Venture, which goals to carry collectively various voices in AI growth. Google additionally introduced a $20 million fund to assist the “accountable growth of AI.”

“By way of this venture, we’ll assist researchers, arrange convenings, and foster debate on public coverage options,” Google Director of Product Impression Brigitte Gosselink wrote in a weblog publish.

Gosselink mentioned that whereas AI has the potential to make life simpler, it additionally raises questions on equity, bias, adversarial impacts on the workforce, misinformation, and safety. To sort out these challenges, Gosselink mentioned it can take the cooperation of leaders within the tech business, academia, and policymakers.

The primary recipients of the $20 million fund, Gosselink mentioned, embrace the Aspen Institute, Brookings Establishment, Carnegie Endowment for Worldwide Peace, the Middle for a New American Safety, the Middle for Strategic and Worldwide Research, the Institute for Safety and Know-how, Management Convention Schooling Fund, MIT Work of the Future, R Avenue Institute and SeedAI.

A number of of the most important tech corporations, together with Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta, have entered what has been referred to as an AI arms race to see who can develop one of the best, quickest, and most cost-effective AI instruments. Google and Microsoft alone have spent billions on AI instruments during the last decade, together with investments in OpenAI and Google’s Bard, Vertex, and Duet AI platforms.

Whereas synthetic intelligence goes again many years, the expertise entered the mainstream with the general public launch of generative AI software ChatGPT. Generative AI instruments use consumer prompts to create content material starting from textual content to pictures and movies.

So swift was its unfold, a number of high-profile tech leaders—together with SpaceX CEO and OpenAI co-founder Elon Musk, Stability AI CEO Emad Mostaque, Apple Co-founder Steve Wozniak, and 2020 Presidential candidate Andrew Yang—signed an open letter calling for a pause in AI growth.

Policymakers and watchdog teams have continued to sound the alarm in regards to the potential risks and misuse of generative AI applied sciences, together with the Secretary Basic of the United Nations, the Middle for Countering Digital Hate, and the UK-based Data Commissioner’s Workplace (ICO). Even the Vatican beneath Pope Francis has spoken in regards to the rising expertise.

In Could, synthetic intelligence pioneer Geoffrey Hinton resigned from his place at Google to have the ability to freely categorical his issues about how AI might negatively impression the world. In July, ChatGPT creator OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, Anthropic, Hugging Face, and Stability AI met with the Biden Administration and dedicated to growing protected, safe, and clear AI expertise.

“Getting AI proper will take greater than anybody firm alone,” Gosselink concluded. “We hope the Digital Futures Venture and this fund will assist many others throughout academia and civil society to advance impartial analysis on AI that helps this transformational expertise profit everybody.”

Google has not but responded to Decrypt’s request for remark.