Ever since ChatGPT and after it Bing Chat took the internet by storm, Google has been scrambling to come up with a competent answer. The company quickly held a thrown-together AI event in Paris, even though it announced its big ChatGPT competitor,Google Bard, a day before in a blog post. In an effort to further streamline its AI strategy, the company has now announced a restructured DeepMind division, gathering its AI experts in one central place to accelerate development.
The newly created division will carry the name “Google DeepMind,” adding its own stamp to the name of the company Alphabet originally bought in 2014. The team will be augmented by the Brain team from Google Research, andit aims to“drive one of the greatest social, economic and scientific transformations in history,” among other aspirational goals. In the end, the new division is mostly meant to accelerate and unify Google’s AI strategy, simplifying the decision making process.
The new division will be lead by DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, while Jeff Dean, Google’s former lead of Google AI, will take on the role of Google’s Chief Scientist and report directly to Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Google Research isn’t going away completely.Pichai notes thatIt will still work on “fundamental advances in computer science across areas such as algorithms and theory, privacy and security, quantum computing, health, climate and sustainability and responsible AI.”
At the same time, Google employees are worried about the approach its company is taking. According to a Bloomberg report,a worker called Google Bard“a pathological liar,” saying that some of its instructions are plain wrong and could lead to death, like when asking it for instructions on how to land a plane or how to scuba dive. Many employees would prefer to see the company take a more cautious approach that wouldn’t put users at risk. We can only hope that the restructured DeepMind division will guide Google on this path.
