Google DeepMind Co-Founder Placed on Leave From AI Lab


Google DeepMind Co-Founder Placed on Leave From AI Lab

Giles Turner and Mark Bergen Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- The co-founder of DeepMind, the high-profile artificial intelligence lab owned by Google, has been placed on leave after controversy over some of the projects he led.
Mustafa Suleyman runs DeepMind’s “applied” division, which seeks practical uses for the lab’s research in health, energy and other fields. Suleyman is also a key public face for DeepMind, speaking to officials and at events about the promise of AI and the ethical guardrails needed to limit malicious use of the technology.
“Mustafa is taking time out right now after 10 hectic years,” a DeepMind spokeswoman said. She didn’t say why he was put on leave.
Suleyman did not return multiple email requests for comment. He founded DeepMind in 2010 alongside current Chief Executive Officer Demis Hassabis. Four years later, Google bought DeepMind for 400 million pounds (currently $486 million), an ambitious bet on the potential of AI that set off an expensive race in Silicon Valley for specialists in the field.
DeepMind soon began working on health-care research, eventually creating a division dedicated to the area. Suleyman, nicknamed “Moose” and whose mother was a nurse, led the development of the DeepMind Health team, building it into a 100-person unit.
But DeepMind was heavily criticized for its work in the U.K. health sector. DeepMind Health’s first product was a mobile app called Streams that was originally designed to help doctors identify patients at risk of developing acute kidney injury. In July 2017, the U.K.’s data privacy watchdog said DeepMind’s partner in the project, London’s Royal Free Hospital, illegally gave DeepMind access to 1.6 million patient records. Suleyman apologized in a statement at the time.
In late 2018, Alphabet Inc.’s Google said the team that created Streams would join a new Google division called Google Health. The DeepMind Health brand was shelved, and Suleyman was removed from the day-to-day running of the unit.
Suleyman sat on an external panel of experts Google created to review thorny ethical issues related to AI. Bloomberg News also reported that he served on a smaller group within the company to vet particular projects, formed after an uproar over a Google AI contract with the Pentagon.
©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-deepmind-co-founder-placed-171603428.html

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

BMW traps alleged thief by remotely locking him in car

BMW traps alleged thief by remotely locking him in car Stealer's Wheel? Seattle police department quotes "Watchmen" movie in a recap of the recent arrest. Tech Culture by Gael Fashingbauer Cooper December 4, 2016 5:00 PM PST It's maybe the most satisfying arrest we can imagine. Seattle police caught an alleged car thief by enlisting the help of car maker BMW to both track and then remotely lock the luckless criminal in the very car he was trying to steal. Jonah Spangenthal-Lee, deputy director of communications for the Seattle Police Department, posted a witty summary of the event on the SPD's blog on Wednesday. Turns out if you're inside a stolen car, it's perhaps not the best time to take a nap. "A car thief awoke from a sound slumber Sunday morning (Nov. 27) to find he had been remotely locked inside a stolen BMW, just as Seattle police officers were bearing down on him," Spangenthal-Lee wrote. The suspect found a ke...
Read more

Report: World’s 1st remote brain surgery via 5G network performed in China

World’s 1st remote brain surgery via 5G network performed in China Published time: 17 Mar, 2019 13:12 ·           A Chinese surgeon has performed the world’s first remote brain surgery using 5G technology, with the patient 3,000km away from the operating doctor. Dr. Ling Zhipei remotely implanted a neurostimulator into his patient’s brain on Saturday, Chinese state-run media  reports . The surgeon manipulated the instruments in the Beijing-based PLAGH hospital from a clinic subsidiary on the southern Hainan island, located 3,000km away. The surgery is said to have lasted three hours and ended successfully. The patient, suffering from Parkinson’s disease, is said to be feeling well after the pioneering operation. The doctor used a computer connected to the next-generation 5G network developed by Chinese tech giant Huawei. The new device enabled a near real-time connection, according to Dr. Ling.  “You barely feel that th...
Read more

New ATM's: withdraw money with veins in your finger

New cash machines: withdraw money with veins in your finger Cash machine technology that reads the pattern of finger veins is already available in Japan and Poland   By Telegraph Reporters 6:59PM BST 15 May 2014 Cash machines could soon be installed with devices that identify customers by reading the veins in their fingers. The technology is already being rolled out in Poland, where 1,730 cash machines will this year be installed with readers, negating the need for a debit card and Pin. Developed by Hitachi, the Japanese electronics firm, the machines read the patterns of the veins just below the surface of the skin on your finger using infra-red sensors. The light is partially absorbed by haemoglobin in the veins to capture a unique finger vein pattern profile, which is matched to a profile. The technology is used by Japanese banks and also in Turkey, offering “groundbreaking levels of accuracy and speed of authentication”, Hitachi said, which in t...
Read more