5 big tech companies form group to foster good AI

Some of the top names in tech have formed a consortium aimed at fostering the promise of artificial intelligence while keeping its less savory side-effects in check.

Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, Google and Facebook announced Thursday the formation of the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society. Noticeably absent as founding members are companies such as Apple and Tesla.

"We look forward to working arm-in-arm on best practices and on such important topics as ethics, privacy, transparency, bias, inclusiveness, and safety,” Eric Horvitz, managing director of Microsoft Research, said in a statement. 

Ralf Herbrich, director of machine learning science at Amazon, said that while the industry is in an AI "golden age, we are still a long way from being able to do things the way humans do things. ... This partnership will ensure we’re including the best and the brightest in this space in the conversation to improve customer trust and benefit society."

The Partnership's website features a mission statement that focuses on supporting AI best practices, collaboration between people and AI systems, and ensuring the trustworthiness, reliability and robustness of the technology.

Google releases its AI-infused messaging app Allo

Artificial intelligence, or AI, has moved quickly from being the name of a 2001 sci-fi film by Steven Spielberg to an increasingly commonplace technology that consumers interact with when they use voice recognition systems such as Amazon's Alexa and Microsoft's Cortana or music services such as Pandora and Spotify.

Google uses AI to power its new Allo messaging app; IBM has deep-thinking Watson; and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is building his own at-home AI-based assistant modeled on Jarvis in Iron Man. 

Although Apple has been vocal of late about the importance of AI, arguing it one of the first out of the gate with the tech via Siri, and CEO Tim Cook has staked his leadership on big societal issues ranging from privacy to LBGTQ issues, it did not join the new Partnership.

The growth of AI is anchored to the exponential boom in computing power and the cloud, which combine to give companies machine-learning capabilities that can power everything from predictive consumer experiences to self-driving cars that learn from their road-going mistakes.

But the promise of AI also comes with caveats about sentient machines and job loss. Among those both using AI and cautioning about its pitfalls are Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Salesforce founder Marc Benioff. 

In 2014, Musk tweeted that "we need to be super careful with AI," which are "potentially more dangerous than nukes." Musk has since started OpenAI, an open-source research non-profit aimed at increasing "the probability that the future will be good," Musk told attendees at Recode's Code Conference in June.

Tesla and Apple did not respond to a request for comment. 

Salesforce, which is not part of the new consortium, recently introduced Einstein, AI-powered services that crunch data found in emails and calendars in order to predict what sales leads might hold the most promise.

Benioff told USA TODAY that AI would unleash human potential, but he also urged caution as engineers further develop the technology.

"We are designing a system that will help people do their jobs better, but the notion of AI taking people's jobs away is a real issue," Benioff said. "We've all seen these movies. You put one and one together and you get two. We have to strongly watch what we're doing."

Follow USA TODAY tech reporter  Marco della Cava @marcodellacava.