Google launches AI software to help spur the development of applications and research that have positive impacts on the field and society at large. With the Google AI Impact Challenge, Google is committing resources and $25 million to address societal challenges. The company has created an AI for Social Good program internally with two aims.
The competition called the Google AI Impact Challenge was announced at an event called AI for Social Good held at the company’s Sunnyvale, California office. Accompanied by the challenge, The Company says it will award up to $25 million dollars to a number of grantees to “help transform the best ideas into action.” As part of the contest, Google will offer cloud resources for the projects as well.
This initiative is using AI to solve problems in areas like environmental science, healthcare, and wildlife conservation. According to Google, AI is already used to help pin down the location of whales by tracking and identifying whale sounds, which can then be used to help protect from environmental and wildlife threats.
At a media event on Monday, Google showcased existing projects similar to those it wants to inspire. In one, Google’s computers recently learned to detect the singing of humpback whales with 90 percent precision from 170,000 hours of underwater audio recordings gathered by the U.S. government.
Apart from Google’s AI, the competition follows a public pledge published in early June, in which the company said it would never develop AI weaponry and that its AI research and product development would be guided by a set of ethical principles. The company also said its AI research would primarily focus on projects that are “socially beneficial.”
Starting from the day itself organizations can submit ideas of how AI can be used to address challenges in the world. Winners will be announced at Google I/O 2019, and benefit from Google AI and Google Cloud experts.
