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Facebook Launching More AI Research Labs in Seattle and Pittsburgh
In addition to its current AI labs in Menlo Park, Calif., New York, Tel Aviv, Montreal, Canada, and Paris, France, Facebook announced last week that it's opening two more AI research labs (known as FAIR) -- this time in Seattle, Wash., and Pittsburgh, Pa.
Leading the Seattle lab will be Luke Zettlemoyer, an artificial intelligence professor at the University of Washington where he specializes in "the intersections of natural language processing, machine learning, and decision making under uncertainty."
The Pittsburgh location will be jointly lead by Carnegie Mellon University computer science professors Abhinav Gupta and Jessica Hodgins. Gupta specializes in the connection between images and reasoning and Hodgins in robotics, among many other topics.
"We practice open research at FAIR, which makes it easy to collaborate with academic groups," commented Facebook's Director of AI Research Yann LeCunn in his announcement of the new labs. "Professors gain a different type of experience in industry that can have a positive impact on their students and on their research. Additionally, their connection with industry helps produce new scientific advances that may be difficult to achieve in an academic environment, and helps turn those advances into practical technology."
Timelines for the lab launches were not provided.
About the Author
Becky Nagel is the vice president of Web & Digital Strategy for 1105's Converge360 Group, where she oversees the front-end Web team and deals with all aspects of digital projects at the company, including launching and running the group's popular virtual summit and Coffee talk series . She an experienced tech journalist (20 years), and before her current position, was the editorial director of the group's sites. A few years ago she gave a talk at a leading technical publishers conference about how changes in Web browser technology would impact online advertising for publishers. Follow her on twitter @beckynagel.