LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman is joining Suleyman on the venture.

“Reid and I are excited to announce that we are co-founding a new company, Inflection AI,” wrote Suleyman in a statement.

“Inflection will be an AI-first consumer products company, incubated at Greylock, with all the advantages and expertise that come from being part of one of the most storied venture capital firms in the world.”

Dr Karén Simonyan, another former DeepMind AI expert, will serve as Inflection AI’s chief scientist and its third co-founder.

“Karén is one of the most accomplished deep learning leaders of his generation. He completed his PhD at Oxford, where he designed VGGNet and then sold his first company to DeepMind,” continued Suleyman.

“He created and led the deep learning scaling team and played a key role in such breakthroughs as AlphaZero, AlphaFold, WaveNet, and BigGAN.”

Inflection AI will focus on machine learning and natural language processing.

“Recent advances in artificial intelligence promise to fundamentally redefine human-machine interaction,” explains Suleyman.

“We will soon have the ability to relay our thoughts and ideas to computers using the same natural, conversational language we use to communicate with people. Over time these new language capabilities will revolutionise what it means to have a digital experience.”

Interest in natural language processing is surging. This month, Microsoft completed its $19.7 billion acquisition of Siri voice recognition engine creator Nuance.

Suleyman departed Google in January 2022 following an eight-year stint at the company.

While at Google, Suleyman was placed on administrative leave following bullying allegations. During a podcast, he said that he “really screwed up” and was “very sorry about the impact that caused people and the hurt people felt.”

Suleyman joined venture capital firm Greylock after leaving Google.

“There are few people who are as visionary, knowledgeable and connected across the vast artificial intelligence landscape as Mustafa,” wrote Hoffman, a Greylock partner, in a post at the time.

“Mustafa has spent years thinking about how technological advances impact society, and he cares deeply about the ethics and governance supporting new AI systems.”

Inflection AI was incubated by Greylock. Suleyman and Hoffman will both remain venture partners at the company.

Suleyman promises that more details about Inflection AI’s product plans will be provided over the coming months.

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Suleyman co-founded AI giant DeepMind alongside Demis Hassabis and Shane Legg in 2010 before it was acquired by Google in 2014 for $500 million.

DeepMind has become somewhat of an AI darling and has repeatedly made headlines for creating neural networks that have beat human capabilities in a range of games. DeepMind’s AlphaGo even beat Go world champion Lee Sedol in a five-game match.

While at DeepMind, Suleyman was the company’s head of applied AI. He left for Google in 2019 and was most recently the company’s vice president of AI product management and policy.

Suleyman’s career at Google has been somewhat of a rollercoaster.

Suleyman was once placed on administrative leave from Google following bullying allegations. On a podcast earlier this week, Suleyman said that he “really screwed up” and was “very sorry about the impact that caused people and the hurt people felt.”

However, Suleyman has also been praised by many after taking a principled stand against Google’s contract with the US Department of Defense.

Google ended up backing out from that particular initiative – dubbed ‘Project Maven’ – following the backlash it received. The company has recently caused another stir when it announced in November that it would be bidding for the Pentagon’s Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability contract.

Suleyman is joining venture capital firm Greylock Partners where his knowledge of AI is sure to be welcome in helping to determine the companies likely to become the next DeepMind.

“There are few people who are as visionary, knowledgeable and connected across the vast artificial intelligence landscape as Mustafa,” wrote Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman in a post. 

“At Greylock, Mustafa will spend his time advising early-stage companies and investing in promising startups in the AI space.”

Whether Google’s plan to bid for a new military contract played a factor in Suleyman’s decision to move on is unknown, but the timing seems more than coincidental.

In his post, Hoffman noted Suleyman’s moral code: “Mustafa has spent years thinking about how technological advances impact society, and he cares deeply about the ethics and governance supporting new AI systems.”

Google hasn’t always had the best track record when it comes to ethics. After acquiring DeepMind, Google established an ethics board for AI research but hasn’t revealed who actually sits on it.

One early version of Google’s AI ethics board featured right-wing conservative Kay James who is president of the Heritage Foundation. The Heritage Foundation has a history of opposing LGBTQ and immigrant rights.

News of Google’s latest defence contract bid might have been enough to push Suleyman into packing his bags.

(Image Credit: Joi Ito. Licensed under CC BY 2.0)

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo. The next events in the series will be held in Santa Clara on 11-12 May 2022, Amsterdam on 20-21 September 2022, and London on 1-2 December 2022.

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The post DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman departs Google appeared first on AI News.

Google acquired DeepMind for $400 million in 2014 and the firm became a subsidiary of Google’s parent company Alphabet in 2015.

Suleyman co-founded DeepMind and originally became its chief product officer. After Google’s acquisition in 2014, Suleyman became DeepMind’s head of applied AI.

In a tweet, Suleyman announced he’s now moving to Google itself to work on AI policy alongside Ken Walker, Jeff Dean, and others.

Suleyman is a longstanding proponent for AI ethics, so his presence at Google may help to ensure the web giant pushes boundaries in terms of technology but while respecting things like human rights.

Of course, DeepMind’s work hasn’t been without its controversies.

An app called Streams, developed by DeepMind for doctors and nurses, was ruled by the UK government in 2017 to have gained inappropriate access to medical data from 1.6 million patients.

At the time, Suleyman wrote in a blog post:

“DeepMind operates autonomously from Google, and we’ve been clear from the outset that at no stage will patient data ever be linked or associated with Google accounts, products or services.”

Critics believe this promise was broken when Streams was grabbed by Google itself. One thing which can’t be criticised, however, is DeepMind has shown its ability to get working AI solutions into the market. Suleyman appears to be part of Google’s desire to tap some of DeepMind’s ability to ship working AI solutions.

In a blog post, DeepMind co-founder Demis Hassabis spoke highly of the role Suleyman had played at the firm:

“As a serial entrepreneur, Mustafa played a key role over the past decade, helping to get DeepMind off the ground, and launched a series of innovative collaborations with Google to reduce energy consumption in data centres, improve Android battery performance, optimise Google Play, and find ways to improve the lives of patients, nurses and doctors alike,” he said.

“Mustafa leaves DeepMind having helped set us up for long-term success, and I’m looking forward to what he’ll achieve in the years ahead as he joins Google in a new role.”

Suleyman will be starting his new role at Google in January.

(Image Credit: Mustafa Suleyman by Joi Ito under CC BY 2.0 license)

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