Google’s artificial intelligence projects have created a lot of headlines in recent months.
From their DeepMind project beating champions of Alpha Go at their own game, to recent announcements Magneta and Springboard, not to mention driverless cars, its clear that AI and Machine Learning are central to Google’s strategy across its vast portfolio. This week the company also announced the opening of a new Machine Learning R&D Centre in Europe.
In a recent interview with Hollywood Reporter, Alphabet chairman Eric Schmidt played down the fears that surround advancements in AI: ‘To be clear, we’re not talking about consciousness, we’re not talking about souls, we’re not talking about independent creativity.” However, being acutely aware of the concerns around intelligent technology, the company’s AI research division Google Brain recently published an AI Precision Safety whitepaper.
“While possible AI safety risks have received a lot of public attention, most previous discussion has been very hypothetical and speculative.” wrote Chris Olaf, Google Research in a recent blog post. “We believe it’s essential to ground concerns in real machine learning research, and to start developing practical approaches for engineering AI systems that operate safely and reliably.”
Powerful Infrastructure
Underpinning all of these projects, as well as the company’s flagship Search, Translate and Youtube products is Google Cloud Platform, providing developers with the tools to build a range of programs from simple websites to complex, intelligent applications.
As part of our AI in Business Festival, we spoke to Miles Ward, Global Head of Solutions at Google Cloud Platform, to find out more about the machine learning tools they offer to developers.
Google provides all customers with a 60 day free trial (worth $300) which allows developers to get to grips with the platform without commitment – get started here.
Google Cloud Platform also offer free credits to computer science students in the US via its Education Grants initiative.
