It seems that we are witnessing significant progress in the development of AI systems and technologies almost daily. Behind the scenes, there are many dedicated organizations, laboratories, and research centers that are working arduously towards finding solutions to pressing issues. There are the well-known big tech giants, whose labs include Microsoft AI Lab, Google AI, OpenAI, DeepMind,  Baidu Research, Tencent AI Lab, that are renowned for focusing their efforts towards developing not only AI products that appeal directly to us as customers, but also on research that digs deep into improving the functionality of AI in general. These companies spend massive amounts of resources on research and development to create these new technologies. However, there are many more AI research laboratories across the world that are also contributing to investigating new forms, improvements, and ethical guidelines related to AI. A key actor in this endeavor is the academic sector, which is receiving more funding to focus on enhancing AI. Top universities across the world have also started research centers which contribute (through publications and research) to a better understanding of AI technologies. These include Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, MIT- Watson AI Lab, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory University of Tsukuba, Makerere Artificial Intelligence Lab , UMA AI Lab, UNAM Laboratorio de Inteligencia Artificial y Alta Tecnología. Other universities have also created alliances and laboratories, such as the Alan Turing Institute.  Given the need for continued research and knowledge production on AI, many independent laboratories have also sprung up and are currently contributing to the field through their work. These laboratories are normally composed of a mix of actors from different fields and sectors that have gathered to bring their expertise. These labs include AILab.One, Midjourney, IA Latam, NAIXUS, AI21Labs and many others. 

What is AI and why is AI Research Important? 

Why are so many institutions invested in developing research for AI? Why has it become so important? In 1950 Alan Turing asked a very important question that would expand the limits in which humans would utilize machines, which was: “Can machines think?”. Based on this simple inquiry, efforts towards creating more advanced and complex machines and systems began. To define it simply, Artificial Intelligence is a field in which computer science, machines, and robust datasets are leveraged to enable problem solving systems that mimic the human mind. At its core, AI systems are fed information that allows them to perceive environments, make decisions, solve complex problems, imitate patterns, and recognize objects. Using these methods and techniques like Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL), AI systems can facilitate innovative solutions to various real-world problems. 

The importance of AI lies in its intrinsic characteristics, which allows it to constantly learn on the large amounts of data it is given, and create automated solutions or responses to different problems, including in fields such as healthcare, finance, agriculture and even art. Moreover, AI has proven to facilitate and automate many daily tasks humans do and has therefore become an invaluable tool in streamlining many common operations. For this reason, we are seeing an increasing number of companies, academic institutions, government agencies and other sectors getting involved in researching and applying AI in their work. However, AI is not a silver bullet to all of humanity’s problems. AI systems raise many ethical considerations and issues with data bias, security, and privacy that affect how the systems perform are also relevant. This is where the importance of research in AI comes in. The research centers focus not only on how to create more innovative AI systems, but also in improving the existing systems and accounting for ethical issues, such as data-set biases and privacy concerns. In this research field, the work of independent researchers and research centers is extremely important, particularly when big tech companies do not seem committed to enacting principles of Ethical AI. Therefore, it is crucial to continue on the quest of researching new and different AI systems, their ability to solve problems, and ways they can be improved in accordance with ethical principles. 

Join us in this 40th anniversary version of Links We Like, as we discover different AI research laboratories across the world and the work they are doing to create new AI systems and conduct research to improve those that already exist.