New Artificial Intelligence (AI) Group: $1B Funding

Artificial Intelligence: Elon Musk, Tech Giants Commit $1B To New AI Research Group

Avaneesh Pandey | December 13, 2015

Elon Musk has been quite vocal with his dire predictions about Artificial Intelligence (AI). Taking another step toward his goal of “keeping an eye on what’s going on” in the field, the Tesla and SpaceX founder announced over the weekend that he had become one of the many big-ticket investors in the newly-minted nonprofit OpenAI.
In a statement released over the weekend, the OpenAI team said that their backers -- a group that includes Musk, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, and Y Combinator’s Sam Altman and Jessica Livingston, and Reid Hoffman -- had committed $1 billion to the project.

OpenAI is a non-profit artificial intelligence research company. Our goal is to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return.

Since our research is free from financial obligations, we can better focus on a positive human impact. We believe AI should be an extension of individual human wills and, in the spirit of liberty, as broadly and evenly distributed as possible.

The outcome of this venture is uncertain and the work is difficult, but we believe the goal and the structure are right. We hope this is what matters most to the best in the field.

Source: https://openai.com/blog/introducing-openai/

<more at http://www.ibtimes.com/artificial-intelligence-elon-musk-tech-giants-commit-1b-new-ai-research-group-2223252; related links: https://openai.com/blog/introducing-openai/ (OpenAI: Introducing OpenAI. December 11, 2015) and http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/11/non-profit-openai-launches-with-backing-from-elon-musk-and-sam-altman/ (Artificial Intelligence Nonprofit OpenAI Launches With Backing From Elon Musk And Sam Altman. December 11, 2015)>