AI and machine learning get boost as Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Google, and IBM join hands

Five of the best technology companies – Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Google, and IBM – have join hands to boost research in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning.

The partnership between the companies means that the five companies will be working together towards advancement and research in the field of AI and machine learning and come up with ways in which products powered by AI and machine learning could best be developed. The five companies will be pitching in initially for the finances and once other companies and stakeholders join in, more funds are expected to be available.

The organisational structure of the partnership has been designed in such a way that it allows non-corporate groups to have equal leadership side-by-side with large tech companies. The technology giants want to involve as many people and stakeholders as possible.

“We want to involve people impacted by AI as well,” Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder and head of applied AI at DeepMind, a subsidiary of Alphabet (parent company of Google).

One of the key hindrances in the adoption of AI has been the trust factor. Consider the case of autonomous cars. The core of such cars is AI and people are required to put complete trust in these cars – even entrust the cars with their safety on roads. This effectively means that AI and machine learning has to reach a stage of maturity where trust can be established.

“The power of AI is in the enterprise sector. For society at-large to get the benefits of AI, we first have to trust it,” Francesca Rossi, AI ethics researcher at IBM Research, told Tech Crunch.

AI-powered bots will become the next interface, shaping our interactions with the applications and devices we rely on and Microsoft’s latest solutions are set to change the way HP interacts with its customers and partners, Microsoft’s Indian-born Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said recently.

At Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference in August, Nadella had said that AI-powered chatbots will “fundamentally revolutionise how computing is experienced by everybody.”