Recently Alphabet’s president, Sergey Brin, has released the company’s annual Google founders’ letter calling “the new spring in AI is the most significant development in computing in my lifetime”
The San Francisco tech community has been careful when dealing with Artificial intelligence and the powerful tools that are being created with the technology. Alphabet’s president Sergey Brin has released the company’s annual Google founders’ letter which has new insight into the minds that lead one of the world’s largest tech firms.
In the letter, Brin briefly mentioned Etherum and the cryptocurrency boom, but the major highlight of this years letter was the rise of artificial intelligence. Brin said,“The new spring in AI is the most significant development in computing in my lifetime”.
When Google was founder back in 1998, computing power was basic. A.I. and neural networks were largely viewed as computer science.
However, as computing cycled through Moore’s Law, Google and other companies can deploy A.I. for everything from photo analysis to translation services.
“Every month, there are stunning new applications and transformative new techniques,” Brin wrote. “In this sense, we are truly in a technology renaissance.”
However, A.I. has its problems and Brin said that technology companies have a responsibility to ensure that A.I. is being used in an ethical manner.
Do no Harm.
Google employee’s have recently sent management a letter protesting Google’s involvement with the DOD’s Project Maven, which deployed Google’s TensorFlow AI algorithm to analyse UAV footage. This caused a significant rift within Google, as they believed that by working on this project the company had ignored its own mantra; DO NO HARM.
Looking through the letter, Brin has focused heavily on the company’s efforts to ensure that A.I. is being used in an ethical and a safe manner. He has highlighted several safety initiatives that the company follows.
Brin also cautioned that people need to be aware that with the advancement of A.I. and automation. People may lose their jobs across various industries, as well as, the protection of privacy.
