Uber pulls the covers off of its new AI lab

0 0

By Matthew Griffin Intelligence and the Senses 8th December 2016

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF

As the capability of new artificial intelligence systems improve more organisations are leveraging AI products and tools to help them maintain and extend their competitive edge

Uber have announced that they’ve launched an artificial intelligence (AI) lab and acquired Geometric Intelligence, an AI startup, as the company looks to use the technology to improve the performance and efficiency of its driverless vehicles and products.

Futurist Keynote, London: Investing in the Exponential Future, SRP European Conference

The effort marks Uber’s biggest step yet into AI, which has become a key competitive battleground for the technology companies dotted along the west coast, and its use in the transportation space is hotting up substantially as companies, such as Tesla, who have their own AI lab, along with many others begin to use AI in anger to improve the performance of their autonomous vehicles and optimise their services – which, in Ubers case will likely include their using AI to improve routing, matching passengers to rides, and one day using it to underpin their future flying taxi service.

“With all of its complexity and uncertainty, negotiating the real world is a high order intelligence problem,” said Jeff Holden, Uber’s Chief Product Officer, and he pointed to cars, planes and robotics as all needing better navigational intelligence.

As tech companies increase their focus on AI, buying AI start ups in oder to get into the space has become more common.

Terms of Uber’s acquisition were not disclosed, but its new AI lab will be formed from the staff at Geometric Intelligence and led by Gary Marcus, a cognitive scientist at New York University. Formed in 2014, Geometric Intelligence focuses on an area known as “sparse data”, which allows computers to make inferences using relatively small data sets.

Microsoft's newest AI is an artist with an imagination

The company is known for taking an interdisciplinary approach to AI – its founders include Mr Marcus, a professor of psychology; Zoubin Ghahramani, a professor of machine learning at the University of Cambridge; and Kenneth Stanley, a computer scientist at the University of Central Florida.

As Uber has grown, it is by far Silicon Valley’s most valuable private company, with a recent valuation of $68.5bn from investors, it has also become more acquisitive. Earlier this year, the company acquired Otto, an autonomous driving truck company that recently showed off Americas first driverless truck delivery with Budweiser, in a deal that included more than $600m worth of equity in Uber, and a share of future trucking business profits.

Matthew Griffin / About Author

Matthew Griffin, described as “The Adviser behind the Advisers” and a “Young Kurzweil,” is the founder and CEO of the World Futures Forum and the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures consultancy working across the next 50 years, and is an award winning futurist, and author of “Codex of the Future” series.

Regularly featured in the global media, including AP, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Discovery, RT, Viacom, and WIRED, Matthew’s ability to identify, track, and explain the impacts of hundreds of revolutionary emerging technologies on global culture, industry and society, is unparalleled. Recognised for the past six years as one of the world’s foremost futurists, innovation and strategy experts Matthew is an international speaker who helps governments, investors, multi-nationals and regulators around the world envision, build and lead an inclusive, sustainable future.

A rare talent Matthew’s recent work includes mentoring Lunar XPrize teams, re-envisioning global education and training with the G20, and helping the world’s largest organisations envision and ideate the future of their products and services, industries, and countries.

Matthew's clients include three Prime Ministers and several governments, including the G7, Accenture, Aon, Bain & Co, BCG, Credit Suisse, Dell EMC, Dentons, Deloitte, E&Y, GEMS, Huawei, JPMorgan Chase, KPMG, Lego, McKinsey, PWC, Qualcomm, SAP, Samsung, Sopra Steria, T-Mobile, and many more.