Microsoft’s New Research Group Aims to Democratize AI

Microsoft offers a number of machine learning tools to help developers take advantage of AI in their applications. There’s an extremely cool example of an emotion detecting app here. (Image courtesy of Microsoft.)

Microsoft recently announced the formation of the Microsoft Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Research Group, in line with the company’s interest in developing AI technology across its product line. The group is headed by computer scientist and IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) fellow Harry Shum, a veteran of Microsoft projects including Microsoft Research and Bing engineering.

Democratizing AI with a Four-Pronged Approach

Microsoft’s stated goal concerning AI is to make it accessible to every person or organization that wants to use it. This democratization of AI is meant to enable the future of human knowledge, by providing resources capable of analyzing data faster than any human could ever hope to do. To meet this goal, Microsoft is taking a four-pronged approach:

Agents: This refers to the way in which humans and intelligent machines interact. Microsoft’s personal digital assistant Cortana is an example of an agent that improves through collective experience across users.
Applications: Microsoft wants every app you use to be intelligent. From photo apps on your smartphone to programs like Skype and Office, machine intelligence can be implemented to improve the user experience.
Services: Microsoft doesn’t want AI to be limited to its own apps. The company wants the fruits of its research, including cognitive capabilities and machine analytics, to be available to application developers around the world, such as Uber.
Infrastructure: Microsoft aims to build the world’s most powerful AI supercomputer with its Azure platform and make it available to anyone.

“We live in a time when digital technology is transforming our lives, businesses and the world, but also generating an exponential growth in data and information,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. “At Microsoft, we are focused on empowering both people and organizations, by democratizing access to intelligence to help solve our most pressing challenges. To do this, we are infusing AI into everything we deliver across our computing platforms and experiences.”

The Microsoft AI and Research Group will bring together over 5000 computer engineers and scientists to pursue Microsoft’s goal of AI democratization. You can apply to be one of them on Microsoft’s website.

For more AI news, check out A.I. Uses Deep Learning to Beat Humans at DOOM.