Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Google Applies For Patents That Touch On Fundamental AI Concepts

Posted by timothy on from the locked-up-for-its-own-good dept.

mikejuk writes: Google may have been wowing the web with its trippy images from neural networks but meanwhile it has just revealed that it has applied for at least six patents on fundamental neural network and AI [concepts]. This isn't good for academic research or for the development of AI by companies. The patents are on very specific things invented by Geoffrey Hinton's team like using drop out during training, or modifying data to provide additional training cases, but also include very general ideas such as classification itself. If Google was granted a patent on classification it would cover just about every method used for pattern recognition! You might make the charitable assumption that Google has just patented the ideas so that it can protect them — i.e. to stop other more evil companies from patenting them and extracting fees from open source implementations of machine learning libraries. Google has just started an AI arms race, and you can expect others to follow.

12 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. Re:How does it hurt academic research? by donaggie03 · · Score: 3, Informative

    What's stopping academic research on ideas covered by patents?

    The source of the grants/funding?

    --
    Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin
  2. End of the World! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Despair! all is lost!

    These are american patents, just don't deal with america if they won't play nice.

  3. Google has a 14 step plan by goombah99 · · Score: 4, Funny

    0 GOOGLE
    1 GOGGLE
    2 GIGGLE
    3 JIGGLE
    4 JINGLE
    5 JUNGLE
    6 BUNGLE
    7 BUNGEE
    8 BUNGED
    9 BUNKED
    10 BANKED
    11 BACKED
    12 PACKED
    13 PICKED
    14 WICKED

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
  4. Fuck the system by AndyKron · · Score: 2

    This is one of the reasons I don't give a fuck trying to invent anything. The system is broken, and there's nothing anybody can do about it.

  5. Re:What if the brain itself uses these algorithms? by PPH · · Score: 2

    I'm afraid you will just have to stop thinking.

    Fortunately, this seems to be the goal of most of Google's advertisers. Just sit back and enjoy the cat videos.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  6. Doesn't surprise me one bit. by GoodNewsJimDotCom · · Score: 2

    It took working with the self driving car to finally get to the realm of AI. AI in essence is one part complicated sensors, and one part video game AI. If you can know where stuff is in your environment, then the other part is just acting on that stuff with your current robot's body/abilities. AI is way simpler than anyone thought it was back in the days of Tron or simulating animal brains. All you need is the ability to know and map your environment then act on it. Everything in between like natural language kinda is coded along side it. I have a webpage www.botcraft.biz which really simplifies stuff. Now don't get me wrong, some of the software that is needed to be coded is big and complex, but none of it is out of the realm of human understanding. If a corporation really wanted AI,they could have it in 7 years or so, but most corporations don't look that far out. I think the race to make a self driving car will naturally lead into AI. And what is funny is that you could have robot delivery service for lawn care, parties, law enforcement backup, etc, because they could use the self driving car to get to the locations.

    I'd go so far as to predict the self driving car will turn into AI because I posted it on another forum, but I post so much on forums, its hard to back track and point at references.

    --
    God spoke to me
  7. Stop the Patents by pubwvj · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It is way past time to end all patents.
    Ideas are a dime a dozen.
    I have ten before breakfast and at least one is great.
    I invent things. I don't patent it, I implement.
    Time to end all patents.

    1. Re:Stop the Patents by monkeyxpress · · Score: 2

      It is way past time to end all patents. Ideas are a dime a dozen. I have ten before breakfast and at least one is great. I invent things. I don't patent it, I implement. Time to end all patents.

      I agree with your sentiment, but saying we should end all patents is like asking for people to stop fighting wars. Just not going to happen. The problem with taking it as a position is that it is easy to attack. For example, there is a robust argument for why some pharmaceuticals need to have protections to make them economic to develop. If you go into a debate wanting to stop patents, the opposition just wheels out some kid who got cured from cancer due to a drug that cost billions to develop and your get made to look like a hater of sick children.

      Sadly the patent system has been destroying technological progress for a long time now, and it is unlikely that will change in our lifetime. The best we can hope for is a few changes to push back against the growing lawyer fest. The easiest I could see to get implemented (though probably still impossible) is to have a graduated system for patent length. Something like 5-7 years should be the default under the standard application process, and if you want a longer term you have to go through a much more involved application that asks you to justify why you need longer monopoly rights to ensure you get an adequate return on your investments. This could include a review by an independent judicial panel that weights up the net benefit to society from giving you a longer patent term and makes the decision based on that. The goal of the system would then be to protect the incentive to innovate, not to give people arbitrary monopoly rights (why is 20 years correct for all patents?). I find America's embrace of the latter (which is basically what the current system does) quite bizarre given that it is the antithesis of free markets.

  8. Re:For 100 points... by MacDork · · Score: 4, Informative

    "Google has a gun pointed at my head. They haven't promised not to pull the trigger, but they haven't pull the trigger yet. So I've got that going for me." -- AI software developer

    Request for prior art on Google patent application. Don't let Google point a gun at our heads. Get their patent applications rejected with prior art.

  9. Re:Just another good example... by HiThere · · Score: 2

    Not true. If there are large up front costs, then patents are valuable. This, however, is not true of software. Working software is either small scale or is developed incrementally from intermediate working forms. Rather like evolution. Patents are not needed.

    You could, of course, claim that drugs (e.g.) should be developed the same way, but the damage that an unevaluated drug can do has lead to regulations that have caused there to be an expensive up front cost.

    --

    I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  10. Re:How does it hurt academic research? by HiThere · · Score: 2

    It's actually worse than that. It's illegal for you to create an item that is covered by a patent whether or not you ever use it or sell it. Of course if you never use it or sell it, you can probably hide it, as long as it's only never on a device that's connected to the internet.

    --

    I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
  11. Re:How does it hurt academic research? by reve_etrange · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That's one good thing that comes from patents. Public disclosure of the ideas.

    Or, as in this case, mostly pointless obfuscation of ideas previously disclosed by other, less greedy, people.

    --
    .: Semper Absurda :.