Amazon joins Partnership on AI

We’re in a golden age of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI). As a scientific community, we are still a long way from being able to do things the way humans do things, but we’re solving unbelievably complex problems every day and making incredibly rapid progress.

This week, we announced we will partner with Facebook, Google/DeepMind, IBM and Microsoft to work together to advance public understanding of artificial intelligence technologies and address opportunities and challenges with AI technologies to benefit people and society.

Partnership on AI is a nonprofit organization that will focus on conducting research, recommending best practices and publishing research under an open license in areas such as ethics, fairness and inclusivity; transparency, privacy and interoperability; collaboration between people and AI systems; and the trustworthiness, reliability and robustness of the technology.

For Amazon, AI is one of the most important technologies we use to innovate on behalf of our customers. It allows us to automate parts of our fulfillment and delivery network and is the backbone of how Alexa helps customers play music, get the news and weather, turn on the lights, order a pizza or a ride, and more, simply by using their voice.

We believe that AI will fundamentally improve the way we deliver convenience, low prices, and selection to our customers. Through rigorous research, the development of best practices and an open and transparent dialogue, we are excited to join the founding members of the Partnership on AI in working to maximize the potential of AI and ensure it benefits as many people as possible.