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Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on AI

573 points by monsieurpng 10y ago

lets-tryagain 10y ago
My AI predicts this industry consortium will produce nothing but travel expenses.
asimuvPR 10y ago
The organizational structure has been designed to allow non-corporate groups to have equal leadership side-by-side with large tech companies. Anybody know more details? As non-corporate entity the opportunity is very interesting due to the potential of having access to their infrastructure. The cost of running AI projects on the cloud is currently prohibitive and am forced to run on performance limited machines.
apsec112 10y ago
Are LeCun, Corrado, etc. actually running this? They're pretty busy, and the website doesn't sound like them: "We believe that by taking a multi-party stakeholder approach to identifying and addressing challenges and opportunities in an open and inclusive manner, we can have the greatest benefit and positive impact for the users of AI technologies. While the Partnership on AI was founded by five major IT companies, the organization will be overseen and directed by a diverse board that balances members from the founding companies with leaders in academia, policy, law, and representatives from the non-profit sector. By bringing together these different groups, we will also seek to bring open dialogue internationally, bringing parties from around the world to discuss these topics." This sounds like it was written by some PR person. Google and Facebook are "IT companies"?
- jacques_chester 10y ago
  > This sounds like it was written by some PR person. It probably was. The article is pretty clearly a press release with some touch-up. This happens a lot when the pressure is to be first to publish. Someone gives you a completely-written "story" and off you go.
  - apsec112 10y ago
    That quote wasn't from the article, it was from the org website (http://www.partnershiponai.org/faq/ http://www.partnershiponai.org/faq/).
    - jacques_chester 10y ago
      I sit corrected.
- CobrastanJorji 10y ago
  You could define an IT company to be a company whose primary business is computer-based storage, retrieval, and manipulation of information, and with such a definition what company could be more IT-like than Google or Facebook?
- andreyk 10y ago
  Seems so based on LeCun and others' posts on Facebook -https://www.facebook.com/yann.lecun/posts/10153847670912143 https://www.facebook.com/yann.lecun/posts/10153847670912143 "Finally we announced the Partnership on AI to benefit people and society! Amazon, Google/DeepMind, Facebook, IBM, and Microsoft will collaborate to advance understanding of AI and discuss best practices on challenging issues such as ethics and trust. The five companies are founding the initiative, but everybody is invited to join. Representatives are Eric Horvitz (Microsoft), Yann LeCun (Facebook), Mustafa Suleyman (DeepMind), Ralf Herbrich (Amazon), and myself from IBM. More info at www.partnershiponai.org Looking forward to start working together on this exciting initiative!" "A picture of the co-founders of the Partnership on AI, at the IBM Watson Headquarters in NYC (on Astor Place, across the street from my Facebook office!). With Eric Horvitz, Francesca Rossi, me and Mustafa Suleyman. Ralf Herbrich joined us by phone from Germany."
phodo 10y ago
At the risk of ad hominem, this is typical techcrunch reporting: >> "Though Apple is said to be enthusiastic about the project, their absence is still notable because the company has fallen behind in artificial intelligence when compared to its rivals — many of whom are part of this new group." How exactly is it that TC knows that Apple has indeed fallen behind? Are they privy to the Apple ML roadmap? Are they using lack of open source activity as a metric to make this claim? Is there an unidentified source who can objectively measure the ML progress across these organizations, and using this objective metric, conclude that Apple is behind? It's a claim without much substance, and paints Apple in a negative light. You could say that this is a marketing failure on the part of Apple, and you might be correct. For example, see the article floating a few weeks ago on Medium (I think) on how Apple was embedding ML in everything. In the days of price performance wars in CPUs (and GPUs), there were more or less objective (err, almost objective) benchmarks that people could point to. This is not the case with ML/DL. It would be great if we could say: "Across image classification, the precision / recall is X, vs. Facebook's Y. Clearly, Apple has more work todo in image classification. But in Machine Translation, Apple is ahead, with metrics A vs. B from Facebook.. What is happening with ML/DL/AI/whatever is that all companies are using the same bag of words to describe what they do, but the popular press is not discerning enough to make heads or tales out of what they report on, and they end up mis-educating the public. </soapbox> </rant>
- vmarsy 10y ago
  I think your comment is fair >> "Though Apple is said to be enthusiastic about the project, their absence is still notable because the company has fallen behind in artificial intelligence when compared to its rivals — many of whom are part of this new group." could easily be replaced by "Apple decided not to join the group because they're so advanced compared to its rivals. This group was actually created in an attempt to catch-up with Apple". Both of these extreme claims aren't really back up by substantial facts.
- jdavis703 10y ago
  Well are we talking about applied AI or theoretical AI? As a dumb user (and I use Apple products), I definitely get the feeling that Apple is behind in the game. Now do they have kick-ass R&D that isn't getting shipped to users? Perhaps, but that's not what customers and investors care about.
runesoerensen 10y ago
There's more information on their website: http://www.partnershiponai.org/ http://www.partnershiponai.org/
andrewclunn 10y ago
Okay, which AI are they talking about? The term can mean various things. I mean if this were merely heuristic neural networks, one would think that Tesla would be included.
smoyer 10y ago
Sounds like an alienate means for Skynet to become sentient.
glonq 10y ago
Job one for the AI: given the set of other companies involved in AI research, determine which one, if invited to join as a sixth partner, produces a new acronym that is less silly than "im fag"
cheriot 10y ago
Apple wants to be on the right side of the anti-trust lawsuit this time. /s
pron 10y ago
Calling simple statistical clustering algorithms that are tweaked by lots of trial-and-error heuristics "AI" feels like calling those slow two-wheeled electric self-balancing skateboards "hoverboards". Sometimes marketing can be too dramatic.
- B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
  Shh. You're among blue monkeys. They stone green monkeys.
- ilaksh 10y ago
  Deep learning is not a simple statistical clustering algorithm. Trial and error is a main way that people learn and it works.
  - pron 10y ago
    > Deep learning is not a simple statistical clustering algorithm. What is it, then? In the 60s people used backpropagation to train neural networks. NN + BP is a very simple statistical clustering algorithm. I know that when I worked on neural networks in the 90s we still used backpropagation. Are they using something different now?
    - gormo2 10y ago
      >Are they using something different now? Yes, why else do you think we've had such breakthroughs in the past six years?
      - nurettin 10y ago
        They are mostly using the same Lenet-5 on modern hardware, just refined to converge better for some tasks.
      - pron 10y ago
        No, I don't think so. AFAIK, deep learning is essentially the same 1960s algorithms[1] (possibly modified a bit) running on much larger networks. Most progress is due to better hardware (and ad hoc configurations, made possible by the larger networks afforded by better harder). Of course, SAT solvers, which have become extremely effective in recent years, are also still based on a 1960s algorithm[2], so use of an old algorithm doesn't imply lack of progress in effectiveness. The two (NN and SAT solvers) share little theoretical progress (and certainly no theoretical breakthrough) in the past several decades, but SAT solvers aren't marketed as "AI" in spite of their seemingly magical abilities. I know that ML researchers usually cringe at the name AI and often try to disassociate themselves from the sci-fi term, but still, the marketing is extremely aggressive and misleading. I realize that in every generation, marketers like associating the name "AI" with some particular class of algorithms, but it's important to understand that currently, assigning that name to this class of statistical clustering algorithms (regardless of their remarkable effectiveness in some tasks) is a stretch, just as it was when the term was assigned to other algorithms. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backpropagation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backpropagation [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis%E2%80%93Putnam_algorithm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis%E2%80%93Putnam_algorithm
bitJericho 10y ago
Tc needs to be banned on hn
- ayanray 10y ago
  harsh
  - bitJericho 10y ago
    Not really. Look at the comments on just about any tc article. It's a marketing website disguised as news.
jlas 10y ago
Is OpenAI planning to be a part of this?
- runesoerensen 10y ago
  Sounds like it: https://twitter.com/OpenAI/status/781243032582578177 https://twitter.com/OpenAI/status/781243032582578177
  - jonathankoren 10y ago
    Actually that sounds like some shade tossed on this endevour. i.e. They were either not asked, or had to pony up money that only a multibillion dollar megacorp could part with.
    - runesoerensen 10y ago
      > They were either not asked, or had to pony up money that only a multibillion dollar megacorp could part with. Perhaps you're right, but at least it seems like OpenAI would like to join if/when invited. Judging from the press release it sounds like this partnership intend to invite non-corporate/non-profit members soon (and I think they'll loose a lot of credibility and support if they don't): "Academics, non-profits, and specialists in policy and ethics will be invited to join the Board of the organization, named the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society (Partnership on AI)." ... "There will be equal representation of corporate and non-corporate members on the board of this new organization" http://www.partnershiponai.org/2016/09/industry-leaders-establish-partnership-on-ai-best-practices/ http://www.partnershiponai.org/2016/09/industry-leaders-esta...
      - rory 10y ago
        Mustafa Suleyman has now added an encouraging reply: https://twitter.com/mustafasuleymn/status/781244827669147648 https://twitter.com/mustafasuleymn/status/781244827669147648
Bud 10y ago
Oh, great. So all the companies that have recently had the most problems with ethics issues and user privacy issues are now collaborating in order to more effectively address those issues? Pardon me if my scoffing is audible.
- oxryly1 10y ago
  IMHO ethics will effectively be the defining characteristic of AI in the future. The companies who innovate AI, however, will probably never mention it except as marketing copy. That leaves literally everyone else holding the bag in regards to judging the industries actions and holding it accountable for transgressions. I'm not sure how that will work out, but I'm not terribly hopeful...
  - ctrlalt_g 10y ago
    I'm probably going to be downvoted to oblivion, but I would actually be more at ease in general if most people would defer critical judgments to a reliable and open-sourced AI. For example in terms of driving, my discomfort about how an AI would handle being Kobayashi Maru'd is far less significant than my discomfort about encountering a teenage driver.
  - _coaxialcabal 10y ago
    So, not that different from Basel III?
  - mbrock 10y ago
    A major book about ethics, "After Virtue", takes as half of is subject matter what the author calls "the interminable nature of ethical debates" and the failure of post-enlightenment ethical thinking. I don't see how AI is going to suddenly make us capable of ethical reasoning on a large scale... unless... maybe AI could do the reasoning for us...
    - the_other 10y ago
      Are you talking about the AI we make which simulate a process we don't fully understand?
keeran 10y ago
Sad to not see Baidu on there.
meira 10y ago
> “We want to involve people impacted by AI as well,” said Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder and head of applied AI at DeepMind, a subsidiary of Alphabet. Who believes that this is to favor users, believes in everything.
- JabavuAdams 10y ago
  Actually, the DeepMind people seem quite idealistic. Whether they can maintain that idealism in the face of corporate pressures is another story. The character of the founders and engineers matters. Would you rather have GAI developed by DeepMind / Google, or by Lockheed Martin?
  - hueving 10y ago
    Lockheed Martin, their revenue stream isn't based on mining your personal information and communications. With Google at the helm there is almost no chance this stuff won't be always executing on their servers rather than in your device alone.
    - tonmoy 10y ago
      But their revenue stream is generated from war.
      - meira 10y ago
        Só the only reasonable answer is none of these two (neither Facebook)
    - ucaetano 10y ago
      > revenue stream isn't based on mining your personal information and communications Oh, it is! Not only that, but their revenue stream is mining that data and handing it over to the government: http://www.atl.external.lmco.com/business/ATL10.php http://www.atl.external.lmco.com/business/ATL10.php
      - 10y ago
radicaldreamer 10y ago
Seems like it's oriented toward lobbying and keeping AI from being regulated.
- itg 10y ago
  Good, there's enough fear mongering about it when we don't even know where to start when it comes to building an AGI.
  - rojobuffalo 10y ago
    It's only fear mongering if it's deliberate for some ulterior end. If spreading concern is only motivated by protecting the human race from destroying itself--that would be a reasonable thing to talk about. Who's benefiting from urging caution about potential bad outcomes for AGI?
    - hueving 10y ago
      >Who's benefiting from urging caution about potential bad outcomes for AGI? Every single person working in a position on the cusp of automation. The same thing happens with any new technology that threatens massive industries. (automobiles, airplanes, electricity, heating oil, etc)
      - treehau5 10y ago
        Except automation unlike all those others you reference in that they all created new industries. AGI to cut the jobs and save labor costs for these large corporations.
      - rojobuffalo 10y ago
        AGI and heating oil? There's a troubling gap in reasoning there. Narrow AI and automation replacing jobs has its own set of problems. But a machine intelligence explosion is a completely different thing, and a legitimate existential risk. It's really important to understand the difference and the specific arguments.
rbc 10y ago
Does all this fuss about AI mean the Lisp machines will come back? ;)
- rbc 10y ago
  I'll add that I've owned both a Symbolics 3620 and a MacIvory. I was being a little glib, but I wouldn't mind seeing some kind of resurrection of the Lisp machine technology.
throwaway6497 10y ago
As usual Apple is missing. Pleasantly surprised to find Amazon on the list of collaborators. They usually take from open source/communities and rarely give back. This is a good change.
- shiift 10y ago
  I agree. As an Amazon SDE this makes me quite excited for the future!
gavman 10y ago
>>"As of today’s launch, companies like Apple, Twitter, Intel and Baidu are missing from the group. Though Apple is said to be enthusiastic about the project, their absence is still notable because the company has fallen behind in artificial intelligence when compared to its rivals — many of which are part of this new group." It seems Apple's lack of engagement in the community [1] is really starting to hurt it. Did anyone else take away from this that the other big players are not including them at the table/considering them real competition? [1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-29/apple-s-secrecy-hurts-its-ai-software-development http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-29/apple-s-se...
- theDoug 10y ago
  No.
- debt 10y ago
  apple isn't hurt by this at all. they likely don't want to commit any resources beyond a spokesperson mentioning that their enthusiastic about it. this partnership thing is a pr move that makes all involved look good. investors and shareholders alike thinkin "cool they're working on ai, that's good" what will come of the partnership? nothing other than a place journalists can ping for questions about ai.
  - flamedoge 10y ago
    As tradition, Apple will come in mid-hype and do it "right"
    - duaneb 10y ago
      AI is by nature abstract. Once it's not abstract, there is typically a more useful term for it: classification, recognition, search, etc etc. What do you mean by doing AI right? Apple's track record with doing something right applies to product lines, not their technology.
- j1vms 10y ago
  Whether right or wrong, I think it's good to keep in mind that Apple has, by far the highest quarterly profit and total asset value, compared to any of these companies - it really is a giant among giants. Alphabet certainly has an excellent future outlook (reflected in the markets), but its current financial state still pales in comparison to Apple. Taking this into account, I figure Apple thinks twice and thrice before joining industry consortiums and partnerships that they didn't initiate themselves. This would be straightforward posturing/strategizing on their part, and probably doesn't reveal too much about the current state of their R&D in Machine Learning. It's unfortunate that things are this way, but nothing unusual from a "game theory" perspective.
deleted 10y ago
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ladzoppelin 10y ago
Who gives a sh!t that Apple was not at the meeting. I think the main takeaway is that 4-5 companies might control one of the most powerful technologies/ideas of the last 5 years. Its already hard enough competing with these companies how is this good for everybody else?
- ladzoppelin 10y ago
  edit: "The group plans to make discussions and minutes from meetings publicly available." I guess that is cool. But what about the competitive advantage these companies have right now? Does anybody monitor that stuff? I am not talking robots and singularity crap but rather companies that have means and the ability to make every decision with ML and the data to create an insurmountable competitive advantage.
  - mbrock 10y ago
    ...except for the secret meetings. Those records will be secret.
    - ghostDancer 10y ago
      Those won't be called meetings but gatherings and exchanges of ideas,so they won't have to be publicly available.
deleted 10y ago
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dmead 10y ago
should read "Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on marketing"
acronymftw 10y ago
Hope they do not use that as an acronym.
- tripzilch 10y ago
  PAI? PoAI? I don't get it.
thr0waway1239 10y ago
I was starting to get worried about the data collection already happening individually at these big companies. Now that they have announced a partnership which potentially combines all this data together, I feel so much better! The funny thing is, the companies are ALWAYS going to put a positive spin on this. Not very different from the WhatsApp "we won't show ads, ever" messaging. Now I am in the camp which says "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me". Almost none of these companies can be trusted at this point. [1] Their refusal to ask OpenAI to be at the table really does not reflect well on them [2]. And the less said about the tenured professors who are now becoming company mouthpieces saying things like "we create products which cannot make profit but which is meant purely for data collection" the better [3]. And lastly, if these companies had such a sincere desire to "improve AI for the sake of humanity", how about they start by letting OpenAI (or a similar company) do a data audit of all the information they share so that we can actually be certain it is not just a data brokerage masquerading as a public service? I wanted to say that I wish the AI community will boycott this effort completely. I find it a bit worrying that this community now resides almost entirely within the walls of corporate America. [1] Interestingly, the only company which is even making noises about user privacy is Apple. Is it possible they saw something in this partnership that they didn't like? [2] https://twitter.com/OpenAI/status/781243032582578177 https://twitter.com/OpenAI/status/781243032582578177 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12428883 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12428883
- HNridiculous 10y ago
  This has nothing to do with data collection or any other crazy conspiracy theories you are trying to peddle such as Open AI being intentionally excluded etc. Hell half of your comment does not even makes any sense. Allowing OpenAI to do "Data audit" LOL are you seriously high on drugs. Do you know what OpenAI is or does?? Nothing with Auditing! And yet this is the most upvoted comment in this thread along with second one where people have another set of crazy theories about Apple being "magically" superior.
  - edem 10y ago
    Yet you didn't back your comment up with facts.
ghostbunnies 10y ago
What could go wrong?
ghostbunnies 10y ago
What could go wrong?
sidcool 10y ago
Would be great if OpenAI joins them.
tmalsburg2 10y ago
What's the purpose of this initiative? Sharing technology? Hardly. The goal is probably to shape the discourse on AI and its implications on society and the individual in a way that's favorable for these companies. In other words, they will try to preempt, counter, and suppress criticism of their business models, i.e. the AI exploitation of user data in the service of advertisers and others. It's pretty obvious why Apple is not on board. They have previously taken the position that user data should be left alone and therefore pose a threat to Google, Facebook et al. whose financial success is solely built on the extraction of information from users. This has nothing to do with Apple falling behind technologically.
ionwake 10y ago
Which is the best way to invest in the field of AI ? Can anyone recommend any specific companies / branches ? Thank you.
- paisible 10y ago
  One way is through hardware that supports the current wave of innovation, i.e : GPUs. Nvidia has been on a tear recently. I'd love others' input on this.
antocv 10y ago
If you are working for any of these companies, you should really consider if it is worth it, and possibly stop or switch to more meaningful and less evil endevours.
gerfficiency 10y ago
Nice. I'm sure the NSA wants in on this partnership as well!!
newscracker 10y ago
The moment I saw the headline, I noticed Apple missing from the list, and it felt right! Facebook, Amazon, Google...Microsoft...IBM...all coming together to promote (sell) AI? This sounds like the coming together of the evil powers. Apple, however successful it may continue to be financially, needs to focus on a wider penetration of its devices and services if there is to be any meaningful dent on the privacy front around the world. Being a market leader in one country (or a few) doesn't help much when billions of people around the world use Android phones where the default is "ask for any permission and it shall be given." For this to change, I believe Apple must go lower on the price front, even if that means lower margins. It also needs to push forward quicker on things that other companies don't consider, like differential privacy, and look for markedly different ways of doing things compared to the personal data hungry parasites like the ones in the title.
- drukenemo 10y ago
  Good point. I find it funny to read other comments here of "who cares about Apple not being in the group?". Apple is just one of the most successful companies of all times and it demonstrates over and over to have a bit more integrity and commitment to guarding user's privacy. Kudos to Apple.
ioeu 10y ago
To quote Pedro Domingos in "The Master Algorithm" [1]: > But everyone has only a sliver of it [information about you]. Google sees your searches, Amazon your online purchases, AT&T your phone calls, Apple your music downloads, Safeway your groceries, Capital One your credit-card transactions. Companies like Acxiom collate and sell infor- mation about you, but if you inspect it (which in Acxiom’s case you can, at aboutthedata.com), it’s not much, and some of it is wrong. No one has anything even approaching a complete picture of you. That’s both good and bad. Good because if someone did, they’d have far too much power. Bad because as long as that’s the case there can be no 360-degree model of you. What you really want is a digital you that you’re the sole owner of and that others can access only on your terms. Does this mean that effectively all of Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft will have the whole picture? That makes me worried. [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Algorithm-Ultimate-Learning-Machine/dp/0465065708 https://www.amazon.com/Master-Algorithm-Ultimate-Learning-Ma...
GrinningFool 10y ago
Five companies that collectively have more data on US residents' online behaviours than all the world's governments, working in partnership on AI. What could possibly go wrong ?
icantdrive55 10y ago
1. These companies have been collecting our information for years now. Some have acces to what we write in are emails, but of course, they never read them, they just scan them for marketing purposes? 2. Why do I feel certain people's information has been looked at, scrutinized, cross checked, collated, etc. by certain savvy insiders. Warren buffet, George Sorrows, any of the financial movers and shakers, information is sitting on a server somewhere, unless you're a Clinton. If I had access, I could help but look at it. Before you made an investment, bought a stock, bought realeste, took over a company; wouldn't you be tempted to peak at some of that information?. 3. I feel certain individual information has been used as research for financial gain. 3. I belive it's basically insider trading without the other guy knowing he/she gave away any information. 4. I believe it will be exposed, and will be the next huge Financial scandal. 5. I believe this move might be a smoke screen. "We know some of us have already abused private information for personal/financial gain. Let's combine the data. It might put some reigns on what we all know some of our insiders have been doing. Let the people think we are doing this to better society. 6. I don't have any evidence, I just have a hard time believing no one is looking at juicy date pouring in from some high profile people. 7. I believe it will be on the front page of Forbes in less than a year.
- redcalx 10y ago
  What can happen will happen.
- sharemywin 10y ago
  If Foursquare can do this imagine what Google, Apple, or facebook can do. https://medium.com/foursquare-direct/foursquare-predicts-chipotle-s-q1-sales-down-nearly-30-foot-traffic-reveals-the-start-of-a-mixed-78515b2389af#.lqsjmrf79 https://medium.com/foursquare-direct/foursquare-predicts-chi...
watchdogs23 10y ago
Wow that's really sad that they have refuesed to use the OpenAi operating syestem which shows exactly how much the really care about there jobs reflections
batman_symbol 10y ago
I remember learning about oligopolies and cartels in high school economics. Pretty sure this is at its core, a form of collusion meant to undermine the competitive spirit of the market. Ethical implications of this strategy are quite dire at best. No one stood up to the robber barons then and likelt no can now.

573 points by monsieurpng 10y ago

My AI predicts this industry consortium will produce nothing but travel expenses.

The organizational structure has been designed to allow non-corporate groups to have equal leadership side-by-side with large tech companies. Anybody know more details? As non-corporate entity the opportunity is very interesting due to the potential of having access to their infrastructure. The cost of running AI projects on the cloud is currently prohibitive and am forced to run on performance limited machines.

apsec112 10y ago

Are LeCun, Corrado, etc. actually running this? They're pretty busy, and the website doesn't sound like them: "We believe that by taking a multi-party stakeholder approach to identifying and addressing challenges and opportunities in an open and inclusive manner, we can have the greatest benefit and positive impact for the users of AI technologies. While the Partnership on AI was founded by five major IT companies, the organization will be overseen and directed by a diverse board that balances members from the founding companies with leaders in academia, policy, law, and representatives from the non-profit sector. By bringing together these different groups, we will also seek to bring open dialogue internationally, bringing parties from around the world to discuss these topics." This sounds like it was written by some PR person. Google and Facebook are "IT companies"?

jacques_chester 10y ago
> This sounds like it was written by some PR person. It probably was. The article is pretty clearly a press release with some touch-up. This happens a lot when the pressure is to be first to publish. Someone gives you a completely-written "story" and off you go.
- apsec112 10y ago
  That quote wasn't from the article, it was from the org website (http://www.partnershiponai.org/faq/ http://www.partnershiponai.org/faq/).
  - jacques_chester 10y ago
    I sit corrected.
CobrastanJorji 10y ago
You could define an IT company to be a company whose primary business is computer-based storage, retrieval, and manipulation of information, and with such a definition what company could be more IT-like than Google or Facebook?
andreyk 10y ago
Seems so based on LeCun and others' posts on Facebook -https://www.facebook.com/yann.lecun/posts/10153847670912143 https://www.facebook.com/yann.lecun/posts/10153847670912143 "Finally we announced the Partnership on AI to benefit people and society! Amazon, Google/DeepMind, Facebook, IBM, and Microsoft will collaborate to advance understanding of AI and discuss best practices on challenging issues such as ethics and trust. The five companies are founding the initiative, but everybody is invited to join. Representatives are Eric Horvitz (Microsoft), Yann LeCun (Facebook), Mustafa Suleyman (DeepMind), Ralf Herbrich (Amazon), and myself from IBM. More info at www.partnershiponai.org Looking forward to start working together on this exciting initiative!" "A picture of the co-founders of the Partnership on AI, at the IBM Watson Headquarters in NYC (on Astor Place, across the street from my Facebook office!). With Eric Horvitz, Francesca Rossi, me and Mustafa Suleyman. Ralf Herbrich joined us by phone from Germany."

phodo 10y ago

At the risk of ad hominem, this is typical techcrunch reporting: >> "Though Apple is said to be enthusiastic about the project, their absence is still notable because the company has fallen behind in artificial intelligence when compared to its rivals — many of whom are part of this new group." How exactly is it that TC knows that Apple has indeed fallen behind? Are they privy to the Apple ML roadmap? Are they using lack of open source activity as a metric to make this claim? Is there an unidentified source who can objectively measure the ML progress across these organizations, and using this objective metric, conclude that Apple is behind? It's a claim without much substance, and paints Apple in a negative light. You could say that this is a marketing failure on the part of Apple, and you might be correct. For example, see the article floating a few weeks ago on Medium (I think) on how Apple was embedding ML in everything. In the days of price performance wars in CPUs (and GPUs), there were more or less objective (err, almost objective) benchmarks that people could point to. This is not the case with ML/DL. It would be great if we could say: "Across image classification, the precision / recall is X, vs. Facebook's Y. Clearly, Apple has more work todo in image classification. But in Machine Translation, Apple is ahead, with metrics A vs. B from Facebook.. What is happening with ML/DL/AI/whatever is that all companies are using the same bag of words to describe what they do, but the popular press is not discerning enough to make heads or tales out of what they report on, and they end up mis-educating the public. </soapbox> </rant>

vmarsy 10y ago
I think your comment is fair >> "Though Apple is said to be enthusiastic about the project, their absence is still notable because the company has fallen behind in artificial intelligence when compared to its rivals — many of whom are part of this new group." could easily be replaced by "Apple decided not to join the group because they're so advanced compared to its rivals. This group was actually created in an attempt to catch-up with Apple". Both of these extreme claims aren't really back up by substantial facts.
jdavis703 10y ago
Well are we talking about applied AI or theoretical AI? As a dumb user (and I use Apple products), I definitely get the feeling that Apple is behind in the game. Now do they have kick-ass R&D that isn't getting shipped to users? Perhaps, but that's not what customers and investors care about.

runesoerensen 10y ago

There's more information on their website: http://www.partnershiponai.org/ http://www.partnershiponai.org/

andrewclunn 10y ago

Okay, which AI are they talking about? The term can mean various things. I mean if this were merely heuristic neural networks, one would think that Tesla would be included.

smoyer 10y ago

Sounds like an alienate means for Skynet to become sentient.

glonq 10y ago

Job one for the AI: given the set of other companies involved in AI research, determine which one, if invited to join as a sixth partner, produces a new acronym that is less silly than "im fag"

cheriot 10y ago

Apple wants to be on the right side of the anti-trust lawsuit this time. /s

pron 10y ago

Calling simple statistical clustering algorithms that are tweaked by lots of trial-and-error heuristics "AI" feels like calling those slow two-wheeled electric self-balancing skateboards "hoverboards". Sometimes marketing can be too dramatic.

B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
Shh. You're among blue monkeys. They stone green monkeys.
ilaksh 10y ago
Deep learning is not a simple statistical clustering algorithm. Trial and error is a main way that people learn and it works.
- pron 10y ago
  > Deep learning is not a simple statistical clustering algorithm. What is it, then? In the 60s people used backpropagation to train neural networks. NN + BP is a very simple statistical clustering algorithm. I know that when I worked on neural networks in the 90s we still used backpropagation. Are they using something different now?
  - gormo2 10y ago
    >Are they using something different now? Yes, why else do you think we've had such breakthroughs in the past six years?
    - nurettin 10y ago
      They are mostly using the same Lenet-5 on modern hardware, just refined to converge better for some tasks.
    - pron 10y ago
      No, I don't think so. AFAIK, deep learning is essentially the same 1960s algorithms[1] (possibly modified a bit) running on much larger networks. Most progress is due to better hardware (and ad hoc configurations, made possible by the larger networks afforded by better harder). Of course, SAT solvers, which have become extremely effective in recent years, are also still based on a 1960s algorithm[2], so use of an old algorithm doesn't imply lack of progress in effectiveness. The two (NN and SAT solvers) share little theoretical progress (and certainly no theoretical breakthrough) in the past several decades, but SAT solvers aren't marketed as "AI" in spite of their seemingly magical abilities. I know that ML researchers usually cringe at the name AI and often try to disassociate themselves from the sci-fi term, but still, the marketing is extremely aggressive and misleading. I realize that in every generation, marketers like associating the name "AI" with some particular class of algorithms, but it's important to understand that currently, assigning that name to this class of statistical clustering algorithms (regardless of their remarkable effectiveness in some tasks) is a stretch, just as it was when the term was assigned to other algorithms. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backpropagation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backpropagation [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis%E2%80%93Putnam_algorithm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis%E2%80%93Putnam_algorithm

bitJericho 10y ago

Tc needs to be banned on hn

ayanray 10y ago
harsh
- bitJericho 10y ago
  Not really. Look at the comments on just about any tc article. It's a marketing website disguised as news.

jlas 10y ago

Is OpenAI planning to be a part of this?

runesoerensen 10y ago
Sounds like it: https://twitter.com/OpenAI/status/781243032582578177 https://twitter.com/OpenAI/status/781243032582578177
- jonathankoren 10y ago
  Actually that sounds like some shade tossed on this endevour. i.e. They were either not asked, or had to pony up money that only a multibillion dollar megacorp could part with.
  - runesoerensen 10y ago
    > They were either not asked, or had to pony up money that only a multibillion dollar megacorp could part with. Perhaps you're right, but at least it seems like OpenAI would like to join if/when invited. Judging from the press release it sounds like this partnership intend to invite non-corporate/non-profit members soon (and I think they'll loose a lot of credibility and support if they don't): "Academics, non-profits, and specialists in policy and ethics will be invited to join the Board of the organization, named the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society (Partnership on AI)." ... "There will be equal representation of corporate and non-corporate members on the board of this new organization" http://www.partnershiponai.org/2016/09/industry-leaders-establish-partnership-on-ai-best-practices/ http://www.partnershiponai.org/2016/09/industry-leaders-esta...
    - rory 10y ago
      Mustafa Suleyman has now added an encouraging reply: https://twitter.com/mustafasuleymn/status/781244827669147648 https://twitter.com/mustafasuleymn/status/781244827669147648

Bud 10y ago

Oh, great. So all the companies that have recently had the most problems with ethics issues and user privacy issues are now collaborating in order to more effectively address those issues? Pardon me if my scoffing is audible.

oxryly1 10y ago
IMHO ethics will effectively be the defining characteristic of AI in the future. The companies who innovate AI, however, will probably never mention it except as marketing copy. That leaves literally everyone else holding the bag in regards to judging the industries actions and holding it accountable for transgressions. I'm not sure how that will work out, but I'm not terribly hopeful...
- ctrlalt_g 10y ago
  I'm probably going to be downvoted to oblivion, but I would actually be more at ease in general if most people would defer critical judgments to a reliable and open-sourced AI. For example in terms of driving, my discomfort about how an AI would handle being Kobayashi Maru'd is far less significant than my discomfort about encountering a teenage driver.
- _coaxialcabal 10y ago
  So, not that different from Basel III?
- mbrock 10y ago
  A major book about ethics, "After Virtue", takes as half of is subject matter what the author calls "the interminable nature of ethical debates" and the failure of post-enlightenment ethical thinking. I don't see how AI is going to suddenly make us capable of ethical reasoning on a large scale... unless... maybe AI could do the reasoning for us...
  - the_other 10y ago
    Are you talking about the AI we make which simulate a process we don't fully understand?

keeran 10y ago

Sad to not see Baidu on there.

meira 10y ago

> “We want to involve people impacted by AI as well,” said Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder and head of applied AI at DeepMind, a subsidiary of Alphabet. Who believes that this is to favor users, believes in everything.

JabavuAdams 10y ago
Actually, the DeepMind people seem quite idealistic. Whether they can maintain that idealism in the face of corporate pressures is another story. The character of the founders and engineers matters. Would you rather have GAI developed by DeepMind / Google, or by Lockheed Martin?
- hueving 10y ago
  Lockheed Martin, their revenue stream isn't based on mining your personal information and communications. With Google at the helm there is almost no chance this stuff won't be always executing on their servers rather than in your device alone.
  - tonmoy 10y ago
    But their revenue stream is generated from war.
    - meira 10y ago
      Só the only reasonable answer is none of these two (neither Facebook)
  - ucaetano 10y ago
    > revenue stream isn't based on mining your personal information and communications Oh, it is! Not only that, but their revenue stream is mining that data and handing it over to the government: http://www.atl.external.lmco.com/business/ATL10.php http://www.atl.external.lmco.com/business/ATL10.php
    - 10y ago

radicaldreamer 10y ago

Seems like it's oriented toward lobbying and keeping AI from being regulated.

itg 10y ago
Good, there's enough fear mongering about it when we don't even know where to start when it comes to building an AGI.
- rojobuffalo 10y ago
  It's only fear mongering if it's deliberate for some ulterior end. If spreading concern is only motivated by protecting the human race from destroying itself--that would be a reasonable thing to talk about. Who's benefiting from urging caution about potential bad outcomes for AGI?
  - hueving 10y ago
    >Who's benefiting from urging caution about potential bad outcomes for AGI? Every single person working in a position on the cusp of automation. The same thing happens with any new technology that threatens massive industries. (automobiles, airplanes, electricity, heating oil, etc)
    - treehau5 10y ago
      Except automation unlike all those others you reference in that they all created new industries. AGI to cut the jobs and save labor costs for these large corporations.
    - rojobuffalo 10y ago
      AGI and heating oil? There's a troubling gap in reasoning there. Narrow AI and automation replacing jobs has its own set of problems. But a machine intelligence explosion is a completely different thing, and a legitimate existential risk. It's really important to understand the difference and the specific arguments.

rbc 10y ago

Does all this fuss about AI mean the Lisp machines will come back? ;)

rbc 10y ago
I'll add that I've owned both a Symbolics 3620 and a MacIvory. I was being a little glib, but I wouldn't mind seeing some kind of resurrection of the Lisp machine technology.

throwaway6497 10y ago

As usual Apple is missing. Pleasantly surprised to find Amazon on the list of collaborators. They usually take from open source/communities and rarely give back. This is a good change.

shiift 10y ago
I agree. As an Amazon SDE this makes me quite excited for the future!

gavman 10y ago

>>"As of today’s launch, companies like Apple, Twitter, Intel and Baidu are missing from the group. Though Apple is said to be enthusiastic about the project, their absence is still notable because the company has fallen behind in artificial intelligence when compared to its rivals — many of which are part of this new group." It seems Apple's lack of engagement in the community [1] is really starting to hurt it. Did anyone else take away from this that the other big players are not including them at the table/considering them real competition? [1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-29/apple-s-secrecy-hurts-its-ai-software-development http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-29/apple-s-se...

theDoug 10y ago
No.
debt 10y ago
apple isn't hurt by this at all. they likely don't want to commit any resources beyond a spokesperson mentioning that their enthusiastic about it. this partnership thing is a pr move that makes all involved look good. investors and shareholders alike thinkin "cool they're working on ai, that's good" what will come of the partnership? nothing other than a place journalists can ping for questions about ai.
- flamedoge 10y ago
  As tradition, Apple will come in mid-hype and do it "right"
  - duaneb 10y ago
    AI is by nature abstract. Once it's not abstract, there is typically a more useful term for it: classification, recognition, search, etc etc. What do you mean by doing AI right? Apple's track record with doing something right applies to product lines, not their technology.
j1vms 10y ago
Whether right or wrong, I think it's good to keep in mind that Apple has, by far the highest quarterly profit and total asset value, compared to any of these companies - it really is a giant among giants. Alphabet certainly has an excellent future outlook (reflected in the markets), but its current financial state still pales in comparison to Apple. Taking this into account, I figure Apple thinks twice and thrice before joining industry consortiums and partnerships that they didn't initiate themselves. This would be straightforward posturing/strategizing on their part, and probably doesn't reveal too much about the current state of their R&D in Machine Learning. It's unfortunate that things are this way, but nothing unusual from a "game theory" perspective.

deleted 10y ago

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ladzoppelin 10y ago

Who gives a sh!t that Apple was not at the meeting. I think the main takeaway is that 4-5 companies might control one of the most powerful technologies/ideas of the last 5 years. Its already hard enough competing with these companies how is this good for everybody else?

ladzoppelin 10y ago
edit: "The group plans to make discussions and minutes from meetings publicly available." I guess that is cool. But what about the competitive advantage these companies have right now? Does anybody monitor that stuff? I am not talking robots and singularity crap but rather companies that have means and the ability to make every decision with ML and the data to create an insurmountable competitive advantage.
- mbrock 10y ago
  ...except for the secret meetings. Those records will be secret.
  - ghostDancer 10y ago
    Those won't be called meetings but gatherings and exchanges of ideas,so they won't have to be publicly available.

deleted 10y ago

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dmead 10y ago

should read "Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft Create Partnership on marketing"

acronymftw 10y ago

Hope they do not use that as an acronym.

tripzilch 10y ago
PAI? PoAI? I don't get it.

thr0waway1239 10y ago

I was starting to get worried about the data collection already happening individually at these big companies. Now that they have announced a partnership which potentially combines all this data together, I feel so much better! The funny thing is, the companies are ALWAYS going to put a positive spin on this. Not very different from the WhatsApp "we won't show ads, ever" messaging. Now I am in the camp which says "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me". Almost none of these companies can be trusted at this point. [1] Their refusal to ask OpenAI to be at the table really does not reflect well on them [2]. And the less said about the tenured professors who are now becoming company mouthpieces saying things like "we create products which cannot make profit but which is meant purely for data collection" the better [3]. And lastly, if these companies had such a sincere desire to "improve AI for the sake of humanity", how about they start by letting OpenAI (or a similar company) do a data audit of all the information they share so that we can actually be certain it is not just a data brokerage masquerading as a public service? I wanted to say that I wish the AI community will boycott this effort completely. I find it a bit worrying that this community now resides almost entirely within the walls of corporate America. [1] Interestingly, the only company which is even making noises about user privacy is Apple. Is it possible they saw something in this partnership that they didn't like? [2] https://twitter.com/OpenAI/status/781243032582578177 https://twitter.com/OpenAI/status/781243032582578177 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12428883 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12428883

HNridiculous 10y ago
This has nothing to do with data collection or any other crazy conspiracy theories you are trying to peddle such as Open AI being intentionally excluded etc. Hell half of your comment does not even makes any sense. Allowing OpenAI to do "Data audit" LOL are you seriously high on drugs. Do you know what OpenAI is or does?? Nothing with Auditing! And yet this is the most upvoted comment in this thread along with second one where people have another set of crazy theories about Apple being "magically" superior.
- edem 10y ago
  Yet you didn't back your comment up with facts.

ghostbunnies 10y ago

What could go wrong?

ghostbunnies 10y ago

What could go wrong?

sidcool 10y ago

Would be great if OpenAI joins them.

tmalsburg2 10y ago

What's the purpose of this initiative? Sharing technology? Hardly. The goal is probably to shape the discourse on AI and its implications on society and the individual in a way that's favorable for these companies. In other words, they will try to preempt, counter, and suppress criticism of their business models, i.e. the AI exploitation of user data in the service of advertisers and others. It's pretty obvious why Apple is not on board. They have previously taken the position that user data should be left alone and therefore pose a threat to Google, Facebook et al. whose financial success is solely built on the extraction of information from users. This has nothing to do with Apple falling behind technologically.

ionwake 10y ago

Which is the best way to invest in the field of AI ? Can anyone recommend any specific companies / branches ? Thank you.

paisible 10y ago
One way is through hardware that supports the current wave of innovation, i.e : GPUs. Nvidia has been on a tear recently. I'd love others' input on this.

antocv 10y ago

If you are working for any of these companies, you should really consider if it is worth it, and possibly stop or switch to more meaningful and less evil endevours.

gerfficiency 10y ago

Nice. I'm sure the NSA wants in on this partnership as well!!

newscracker 10y ago

The moment I saw the headline, I noticed Apple missing from the list, and it felt right! Facebook, Amazon, Google...Microsoft...IBM...all coming together to promote (sell) AI? This sounds like the coming together of the evil powers. Apple, however successful it may continue to be financially, needs to focus on a wider penetration of its devices and services if there is to be any meaningful dent on the privacy front around the world. Being a market leader in one country (or a few) doesn't help much when billions of people around the world use Android phones where the default is "ask for any permission and it shall be given." For this to change, I believe Apple must go lower on the price front, even if that means lower margins. It also needs to push forward quicker on things that other companies don't consider, like differential privacy, and look for markedly different ways of doing things compared to the personal data hungry parasites like the ones in the title.

drukenemo 10y ago
Good point. I find it funny to read other comments here of "who cares about Apple not being in the group?". Apple is just one of the most successful companies of all times and it demonstrates over and over to have a bit more integrity and commitment to guarding user's privacy. Kudos to Apple.

ioeu 10y ago

To quote Pedro Domingos in "The Master Algorithm" [1]: > But everyone has only a sliver of it [information about you]. Google sees your searches, Amazon your online purchases, AT&T your phone calls, Apple your music downloads, Safeway your groceries, Capital One your credit-card transactions. Companies like Acxiom collate and sell infor- mation about you, but if you inspect it (which in Acxiom’s case you can, at aboutthedata.com), it’s not much, and some of it is wrong. No one has anything even approaching a complete picture of you. That’s both good and bad. Good because if someone did, they’d have far too much power. Bad because as long as that’s the case there can be no 360-degree model of you. What you really want is a digital you that you’re the sole owner of and that others can access only on your terms. Does this mean that effectively all of Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft will have the whole picture? That makes me worried. [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Master-Algorithm-Ultimate-Learning-Machine/dp/0465065708 https://www.amazon.com/Master-Algorithm-Ultimate-Learning-Ma...

GrinningFool 10y ago

Five companies that collectively have more data on US residents' online behaviours than all the world's governments, working in partnership on AI. What could possibly go wrong ?

icantdrive55 10y ago

1. These companies have been collecting our information for years now. Some have acces to what we write in are emails, but of course, they never read them, they just scan them for marketing purposes? 2. Why do I feel certain people's information has been looked at, scrutinized, cross checked, collated, etc. by certain savvy insiders. Warren buffet, George Sorrows, any of the financial movers and shakers, information is sitting on a server somewhere, unless you're a Clinton. If I had access, I could help but look at it. Before you made an investment, bought a stock, bought realeste, took over a company; wouldn't you be tempted to peak at some of that information?. 3. I feel certain individual information has been used as research for financial gain. 3. I belive it's basically insider trading without the other guy knowing he/she gave away any information. 4. I believe it will be exposed, and will be the next huge Financial scandal. 5. I believe this move might be a smoke screen. "We know some of us have already abused private information for personal/financial gain. Let's combine the data. It might put some reigns on what we all know some of our insiders have been doing. Let the people think we are doing this to better society. 6. I don't have any evidence, I just have a hard time believing no one is looking at juicy date pouring in from some high profile people. 7. I believe it will be on the front page of Forbes in less than a year.

redcalx 10y ago
What can happen will happen.
sharemywin 10y ago
If Foursquare can do this imagine what Google, Apple, or facebook can do. https://medium.com/foursquare-direct/foursquare-predicts-chipotle-s-q1-sales-down-nearly-30-foot-traffic-reveals-the-start-of-a-mixed-78515b2389af#.lqsjmrf79 https://medium.com/foursquare-direct/foursquare-predicts-chi...

watchdogs23 10y ago

Wow that's really sad that they have refuesed to use the OpenAi operating syestem which shows exactly how much the really care about there jobs reflections

batman_symbol 10y ago

I remember learning about oligopolies and cartels in high school economics. Pretty sure this is at its core, a form of collusion meant to undermine the competitive spirit of the market. Ethical implications of this strategy are quite dire at best. No one stood up to the robber barons then and likelt no can now.