Microsoft Acquires Maluuba, A Startup Focused On Learning Humanized AI
Microsoft takes one step further on the road to artificial intelligence. The North American company has announced the acquisition of Maluuba, a pioneer company in AI, based in Montreal.
Maluuba has one of the best research labs in deep learning to understand natural language. Maluuba's experience with both deep learning and reinforcement learning for question-answering systems and decision-making will help IA take forward strides.
Microsoft has managed to advance in the field of speech and image recognition using deep learning techniques, and with this acquisition, it aims to continue to improve. Maluuba's vision is to move towards a more general artificial intelligence by creating literate machines that can think, reason and communicate as humans.
What will Maluuba bring?
The treasure of Maluuba happens to have successfully dealt with some of the fundamental problems pertaining to how artificial intelligence understands language. They have modeled some of the innate capacity of the human brain, from memory and common sense to the curiosity and the choice, according to Tech Crunch.
"I've been in the field of research and development of artificial intelligence for over 20 years and am incredibly excited with the scenarios that this acquisition could enable the conversational field," said Harry Shum, Senior Vice President of Group of Artificial Intelligence Microsoft. Shum exemplified that this type of technology would allow searching for documents and e-mails to find the best tax law experts, rather than manually searching.
The relationship between Microsoft and Maluuba is not new. The two companies created the organization Artificial Intelligence and Research with the aim of impeccable research and engineering in the field. Microsoft will also inform the public about Maluuba's integration into the Redmond giant.
At the moment, the cost of purchase is unknown. It would be interesting to know some of the plans of both companies. Perhaps, the public will get to see a Cortana that becomes more personal, instilled with a layer of common sense.