MIT and IBM launch AI research lab

IBM and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have announced a 10-year partnership on research in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), and the creation of the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab. The Lab, aimed at achieving ‘fundamental scientific breakthrough at the heart of AI’, will be focused on four research pillars: AI algorithms, the physics of AI, the application of AI to industries, and advancing shared prosperity through AI. As explained by IBM’s Vice President of AI and IBM Q, Dario Gill, the Lab will try to address some of the main ethical and societal concerns surrounding AI, by working on ’the creation of AI systems that can detect and mitigate human biases, building trustworthiness and explainability into AI systems, ensuring that AI systems complement worker skills that might be in short supply and exploring how productivity gains will be distributed across firms, workers and consumer’. The company plans to invest $240 million in the Lab over the next 10 years.