Artificial Intelligence Learns Faster Than Intended, Google Ups The Stakes By Hiring AI Rock Stars

University of Toronto researchers recently created an artificial intelligence that surpassed their parameters when it came to learning and Google just hired two brilliant AI experts to help with its cloud computing endeavors. It’s the age of the machine and no amount of AI fears is going to stop companies from cashing in on the lucrative venture.

The Canadian AI study was done by Parham Aarabi and Wenzhi Guo, both of whom are engineers, Phys.org reports, and they broke the mold by actually having the algorithm learn from human instructions. They had the AI try to identify elements of hair using photographs. Based on the results, the machine did not only surpass findings by conventional methods by 160 percent, it even exceeded the expectations of the engineers.

"Our algorithm learned to correctly classify difficult, borderline cases—distinguishing the texture of hair versus the texture of the background," Aarabi said. "What we saw was like a teacher instructing a child, and the child learning beyond what the teacher taught her initially."

Just for perspective, traditional methods of teaching AIs involve providing them with a certain set of data and making them decide based on certain parameters. What the University of Toronto duo did is directly teaching the algorithm by telling it what to do. This method is considered promising in helping advance AI, affecting such aspects as neural networks.

Speaking of advancements in AI, Google just hired Fei-Fei Li, who is the director of the Artificial Intelligence Lab at Stanford University and Jia Li, who is Snap Inc.’s head of research. These two are considered to be at the top of their field when it comes to teaching AI how to recognize objects, patterns, and images, Fortune reports.

This is the company’s latest step in advancing its research into AI, which is indispensable for growing its cloud computing business. Google wants to become a leader in the industry, and having two of the most renowned AI experts in the world is how it believes it will achieve this goal.