Google DeepMind co-founder put on leave after controversy over some of his projects

The co-founder of DeepMind, the artificial intelligence lab owned by Google's parent company, Alphabet, has taken leave in the midst of an apparent controversy over some of his projects and on the company's finances .

Mustafa Suleyman was head of DeepMind's Applied AI division, which is looking for practical uses of the company's technology to solve some of the most pressing health, energy and other issues.

The 34-year-old North Londoner, known as "Moose", is considered the public face of society. Unlike his co-founder, Suleyman has no scientific or technological experience, but rather specializes in the company's business activities and ensures that their work with Amnesty International remains safe and ethical.

"Mustafa is pausing now after 10 years of hectic activity," a DeepMind spokesperson told DailyMail.com

She did not say why he had taken leave but Bloomberg reported that some of her projects have been the focus of controversy in recent years.

It is expected that he will return towards the end of the year in what she termed "mutual decision".

Suleyman founded DeepMind in 2010 alongside current Managing Director Demis Hassabis.

Four years later, Google bought the company for $ 486 million, resulting in an expensive race in Silicon Valley for specialists in the field of artificial intelligence.

Reports on Suleyman's break Wednesday have suggested a divide between Google and DeepMind on the marketing of their AI products.

The Suleyman team was primarily responsible for finding ways to earn money for DeepMind, working on voice synthesis for Google Cloud, and reducing Google data center cooling costs.

However, earlier this month, the Financial Times announced that DeepMind's losses had increased 55% to $ 571 million, largely due to a series of aggressive acquisitions launched by Suleyman to protect the spirits the brightest in the world in terms of artificial intelligence.

The artificial intelligence company has been found in deep water several times over the last five years, even with its very first product, a mobile app called Streams, sparking much controversy.

Stream's ambitious idea, developed in collaboration with the British National Health Service, was to develop an application that allows doctors to predict and detect acute kidney problems.

However, a demand for access to private information later revealed that the company had access to private medical data from more than 1.6 million NHS patients. A British court later ruled that the agreement violated the confidentiality of the patient.

Suleyman and DeepMind both issued statements apologizing for the invasive nature of the project.

Based in London, Streams shares operations with the US-based Google Health unit, but Google says that patient data remains under the control of DeepMind and that the move to Google does not affect anything.

In late 2018, Google announced that the original Streams team would join a new Google division called Google Health.

Forbes reported that Suleyman had pleaded for the London-based company to operate independently of Google, according to former DeepMind employees.

Suleyman, a self-proclaimed social activist who studied philosophy and theology at Oxford, said in a profile in 2018 that he "stands out from many founders of today's technology in that it truly seems worry about the well-being of everyone on the planet. "

The company that he created could belong to one of the largest companies in the world. However, Suleyman added that he thought "capitalism is a failing society" and stated that his ambition with DeepMind was to "solve the world's toughest problems", without making any mention of how such companies might to be profitable.

"We think today that, in a way, capitalism has given us so much in the last two centuries," said Suleyman at an event organized by Google ZeitgeistMinds in London last year. . "And yet, in many areas, capitalism fails us.

"We in fact need a new kind of incentives to tackle the most urgent and urgent social problems.We also need a new type of tool, from a new type of distributed intelligence, scaled up, accessible, to try to understand the complexity that overwhelms us.

According to Suleyman's guide, DeepMind's complex mission is to essentially solve intelligence, and then use that solution to solve all other global problems.

Over the past decade, DeepMind has built complex algorithms that can learn on their own using techniques similar to those found in the human brain.

Eventually, the company hopes to end up with something that works like an artificial hippocampus – the part of the brain associated with long-term memory.

"It was clear to me that we needed new institutions, creativity and knowledge to navigate the growing complexity of our social systems. Reapplying existing human knowledge was not going to be enough, "said Suleyman.

"Creating a new type of organization for the sole purpose of developing artificial intelligence and using it to solve the world's toughest problems was our best asset for having a transformative impact on a large scale on the most pressing challenges. of the society."

The 34-year-old, regarded as highly regarded by the British technology sector, admitted that such an ambitious company would not be without ethical concerns, particularly with regard to the societal impact that advanced AI could have. , calling it "one of the most urgent areas of investigation".

Mustafa Suleyman has not responded to a request for comment from DailyMail.com.