DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman on leave

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are transforming the technology industry. That's why Google gave away $ 650 million to British company DeepMind in 2014. DeepMind's co-founder, Mustafa Suleyman, has been at the heart of the sector's research and outreach efforts. was put on leave from the company he created with current CEO Demis Hassabis. DeepMind has been vague about the situation, but Bloomberg says this decision stems from the controversy over some Suleyman projects.

It's hard to overestimate the vital importance of neural networks such as those developed by DeepMind for a company like Google: it's more than machines that can crush the human players of StarCraft II and Go. Google uses networks neurons to generate natural speech, categorize photos and process them. Artificial intelligence is what pushed Google's smartphones to become cutting-edge products.

At DeepMind, Suleyman led the Applied AI group, which was trying to find uses of the company's technology in areas such as energy and health. This has led Suleyman to become a key figure in communicating the company's intentions and ethical controls on the use of AI. It did not always go smoothly, though. An initiative of the Artificial Intelligence Group in 2016 included collaboration with the UK's National Health Service. The team wanted to create a mobile application called Stream to predict acute kidney problems. The company had access to 1.6 million patient records, but a UK court later ruled that the deal violated patients' privacy. DeepMind and Suleyman both excused themselves.

In 2018, Google announced that it was absorbing the Streams team, creating a new division called Google Health. DeepMind Health ceased operations and Suleyman was excluded from the daily operation of the unit. It seems unlikely that the latest development is always a rollback of Streams. Suleyman is important for DeepMind and DeepMind is important for Google. In some ways, the company spends $ 500 million a year, but Google is looking heavily into the future of AI.

DeepMind spokespersons say that Suleyman "takes time now after 10 hectic years". They describe this decision as a mutual decision that will only last a few months, and that could be quite true. However, this would not be the first time that PR would have gone through a nasty break, as the Bloomberg report suggests. Bloomberg does not dive into the nature of the "controversy", letting everyone speculate.

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