Apple has joined the Partnership on AI as a founding member

Back in September last year, Amazon, DeepMind/Google, Facebook, IBM, and Microsoft announced that they will create a non-profit organization, the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society (Partnership on AI),  that will work to advance public understanding of artificial intelligence technologies (AI) and formulate best practices on the challenges and opportunities within the field.

Today, they provided an update on this partnership. Apple was the only major technology company missing on the initial list and now Apple has also joined the Partnership on AI as a founding member. They also announced a diverse and balanced Board of Trustees that extends and broadens their existing leadership.

They are announcing six new Independent board members. These new members are Dario Amodei (OpenAI), Subbarao Kambhampati (Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence & ASU), Deirdre Mulligan (UC Berkeley), Carol Rose (American Civil Liberties Union), Eric Sears (MacArthur Foundation), and Jason Furman (Peterson Institute of International Economics).

The new members will join Greg Corrado (Google/DeepMind), Tom Gruber (Apple), Ralf Herbrich (Amazon), Eric Horvitz (Microsoft), Yann Lecun (Facebook), and Francesca Rossi (IBM) on their Board of Trustees, to create a board that strikes a balance between corporate and not-for-profit memberships. All Board members will share equal voting rights.

The first meeting of the Board of Trustees is taking place on Friday, February 3rd in San Francisco and they will announce more details on this program including how other people and organizations can participate and join the Partnership, as well as the initial program of research and activities.

Learn more about it here.