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Google AI and search chief steps down as part of overhaul
Google's quest to conquer AI is leading to a major change in leadership. The Information has learned that AI and search leader John Giannandrea is leaving his role, which will be split into two: Google Brain leader Jeff Dean will run a dedicated AI wing in addition to his Brain position, while search engineering boss Ben Gomes will lead search as the division's Vice President. Giannandrea is staying around, but reportedly wants to be "more hands on with technology" than he was before.
Google built a hardware interface for its AI music maker
Music and technology go together hand in hand; drum machines and modular synths are just some of the more recent music technologies to emerge. Last year, a Google Brain project called Magenta created NSynth (Neural Synthesizer), a set of AI and machine learning tools that learn the characteristics of sound and create entirely new sounds from those attributes. Now, in collaboration with Google Creative Lab, the team has built NSynth Super, hardware to interface with NSynth using up to four source sounds at once to algorithmically create new sounds.
Google voice recognition could transcribe doctor visits
Doctors work long hours, and a disturbingly large part of that is documenting patient visits -- one study indicates that they spend 6 hours of an 11-hour day making sure their records are up to snuff. But how do you streamline that work without hiring an army of note takers? Google Brain and Stanford think voice recognition is the answer. They recently partnered on a study that used automatic speech recognition (similar to what you'd find in Google Assistant or Google Translate) to transcribe both doctors and patients during a session.
Google hires a legendary Apple engineer to tackle AI
Legendary programmer Chris Lattner has had a roller coaster of a year. He left Apple (where he developed the Swift programming language) to help build Tesla's Autopilot technology, only to leave months later after realizing that he wasn't a good fit. However, Lattner might be settling down. He just announced that he's joining Google (namely, the Brain team) to make AI "accessible to everyone." While Lattner doesn't specify exactly what he'll be doing, Bloomberg sources say he'll be working on the TensorFlow language Google uses to simplify AI programming.
Google uses AI to sharpen low-res images
Deckard's photo-enhancing gear in Blade Runner is still the stuff of fantasy. However, Google might just have a close-enough approximation before long. The Google Brain team has developed a system that uses neural networks to fill in the details on very low-resolution images. One of the networks is a "conditioning" element that maps the lower-res shot to similar higher-res examples to get a basic idea of what the image should look like. The other, the "prior" network, models sharper details to make the final result more plausible.
Google's AI created its own form of encryption
Researchers from the Google Brain deep learning project have already taught AI systems to make trippy works of art, but now they're moving on to something potentially darker: AI-generated, human-independent encryption. According to a new research paper, Googlers Martín Abadi and David G. Andersen have willingly allowed three test subjects -- neural networks named Alice, Bob and Eve -- to pass each other notes using an encryption method they created themselves.
Google's new tools let anyone create art using AI
Google doesn't just want to dabble in using AI to create art -- it wants you to make that art yourself. As promised, the search giant has launched its Magenta project to give artists tools for bringing machine learning to their creations. The initial effort focuses around an open source infrastructure for producing audio and video that, ideally, heads off in unexpected directions while maintaining the better traits of human-made art.
Google's 'Magenta' project will see if AIs can truly make art
Google's next foray into the burgeoning world of artificial intelligence will be a creative one. The company has previewed a new effort to teach AI systems to generate music and art called Magenta. It'll launch officially on June 1st, but Google gave attendees at the annual Moogfest music and tech festival a preview of what's in store. As Quartz reports, Magenta comes from Google's Brain AI group -- which is responsible for many uses of AI in Google products like Translate, Photos and Inbox. It builds on previous efforts in the space, using TensorFlow -- Google's open-source library for machine learning -- to train computers to create art. The goal is to answer the questions: "Can machines make music and art? If so, how? If not, why not?"
