Ex-Google Eric Schmidt launches $125mln fund to back AI research in hard problems

These include issues of bias, harm and misuse, geopolitical conflicts, and scientific limitations of the technology.

Also referred to as “AI2050”, the fund which is co-led by Eric Schmidt alongside Google’s head of technology James Manyika, will be paid out over the span of five years to individual academics, according to the Financial Times newspaper.

The goal of the project is to establish AI technology that is beneficial to society by 2050. 

This comes as skepticism regarding AI, its consequences, and societal impacts have been raised recently by several corporations and governments.

“A lot of people have expressed concerns about AI but very few people are working on solutions to them,” the FT reported, citing Schmidt.

That said, the fund will be directed into research tackling how AI can help measure and mitigate socio economic inequality as well as developing new up to date algorithms, also known as liquid neutral networks.