Google has put together a $20 million to fund studies into how artificial intelligence can be developed and used responsibly and have a positive impact on the world.
"AI has the potential to make our lives easier and address some of society's most complex challenges — like preventing disease, making cities work better and predicting natural disasters," Brigitte Hoyer Gosselink, a director of product impact at the search giant,
explained in a statement today.
"But it also raises questions about fairness, bias, misinformation, security and the future of work. Answering these questions will require deep collaboration among industry, academia, governments and civil society."
The $20 million set aside for this Digital Futures Project – not a whole lot of money for Google but a lot for academics and think tanks – will go towards supporting outside researchers exploring how machine-learning technology will shape society as it increasingly encroaches on people's lives. The project is particularly interested in AI's potential to upend economies, governments, and institutions, and is funding boffins to probe issues such as:
- How will AI impact global security, and how can it be used to enhance the security of institutions and enterprises
- How will AI impact labor and the economy, what steps can we take today to transition the workforce for AI-enabled jobs of the future, and how can governments use AI to boost productivity and economic growth
- What kinds of governance structures and cross-industry efforts can best promote responsible AI innovation
