Google Artificial Intelligence Research 2020: Takeaways for Nonprofits

Google released its 2019 wrap-up and 2020 predictions report recently. Here are our quick hits on the report to save the busy nonprofit professional time. A few items came out of the report that were interesting. Here is a brief recap for nonprofits:

1. Google continues to focus its research ethics on its 2018 artificial intelligence (AI) principles.
2. Google created ways to reduce bias in machine learning data with its fairness indicators.
3. Understandingly, Google is taking a major focus on the issue of deep fakes.
4. Flood forecasting is a key area for Google research, along with other climate related projects.
5. Google launched the Bolo app to tutor kids in real-time in 200 villages in India. 

An example of the fairness indicators. | Credit: Google

A sample of videos from Google’s contribution to the FaceForensics benchmark. To generate these, pairs of actors were selected randomly, and deep neural networks swapped the face of one actor onto the head of another. | Credit: Google

As well, Google did some deep dives into a few other topics including:

1. AI Google Impact Challenge — Doctors Without Borders and Rainforest Connection included
2. Health projects with a focus on tumor identification
3. Augmented reality with a focus on translation
4. Quantum computing and the future of processing
5. Machine learning models and theory
6. Machine perception and robotics
7. Open datasets

For 2020, Google’s primary area of focus are focused on its principles:

1. Building machine learning systems that can handle millions of tasks simultaneously rather than having to build a myriad of models
2. Greater focus on avoiding bias, increasing interpretability and improving privacy 
3. Major focus on key scientific advancement areas (e.g. health, environment) 
4. Increase diverse community of researchers

We look forward to including Google’s work in our “State of Artificial Intelligence in the Nonprofit Sector” (SAINS) in 2020.  

Free Resource: Have you downloaded the SAINS report yet? It’s the most comprehensive analysis of artificial intelligence for social good available.