Google's New A.I. Boss Jeff Dean Is Hinting at the Future Possibilities for That Particular Form of Technology
It's inevitable that artificial intelligence will have a larger role in the lives of people in the not too distant future. Companies are investing a lot in this particular form of technology, and sometime soon, results will be generated.
Unsurprisingly, the folks at Google are among those investing significantly in artificial intelligence.
Earlier this month, Google's A.I. department underwent a bit of a makeover when former executive John Giannandrea stepped down from his post. Giannandrea led both of Google's search and A.I. units.
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With Giannandrea no longer with the company, two people have filled his shoes, with the search organization now being led by Ben Gomes, and the A.I. department now being managed by Jeff Dean, CNBC reported.
During a recent interview with Wired, Dean talked about his new role as well as what the future of Google's A.I. department will look like under his leadership.
Because Google is still a business, Dean is obviously tasked with finding new business opportunities using artificial intelligence.
Google is still mostly known for being a search engine, and some of the things that Dean and the other people in the A.I. department are working on will be designed to make that offering of the company even better and more efficient.
According to Dean, by further investigating the capabilities of artificial intelligence, it may soon become possible for the Google search engine to be more helpful than it is now. Exactly how it may be improved remains unclear at this point, however.
Dean has also expressed interest in further investing in automating artificial intelligence. Essentially, automating artificial intelligence involves allowing machine-learning software to create its own machine-learning software.
According to Dean, by automating artificial intelligence, it may soon become possible for robots to figure out solutions to unfamiliar problems themselves.
At first, the things that robots may be able to learn on their own are simple tasks, but given more time and a more significant investment, machines could become more capable.
Dean also hinted that a greater investment in further developing artificial intelligence could produce breakthroughs in the healthcare industry.
Dean declined to elaborate on what plans the company may have in terms of developing new forms of A.I. that are focused on healthcare, but the possibilities could be endless. The continued development of health-focused artificial intelligence could lead to the discovery of new treatment methods. New forms of medicine may even be developed using artificial intelligence.
As for Google, investing more in health-focused artificial intelligence would obviously be good because the results from it could be helpful to millions of people all over the world. Those potential developments could also give Google new revenue streams and the profits from those could be put back into more A.I. investments.
Short-term, the work done by Dean and the other people in Google's A.I. department may be seen in the devices and software they will release in the near future.
Artificial intelligence will become more and more important as the years go by, and Google will be among the companies who will feature more examples of that technology sooner rather than later.
