Facebook Opens Fourth AI Lab in Canada

Facebook is opening its first artificial intelligence (AI) lab in Montreal, Canada. The announcement made by Yann LeCun, Chief AI Scientist at Facebook. Facebook is coming to Montreal as part of its overall investment in the Montreal AI community. Montreal become hub of AI research and start-ups, and christened by some observers as the “Silicon Valley of the North.”

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The FAIR (Facebook AI Research Montreal lab) is already open, with the goal of having 20-30 researchers by next year. It’s one of four FAIR labs. Although, the others are in Silicon Valley, Paris and New York. Montreal’s FAIR lab is only the second one outside of the U.S.

Joëlle Pineau is co-director of the Reasoning and Learning Lab. Her work focuses on developing new models and algorithms for planning and learning in robotics. Pineau told she wanted to join the Facebook AI Research (FAIR) lab because interested in basic research and an open and collaborative approach between the public and private sectors.

Artificial intelligence address chronic disorders using clinical data

Prime Minister Trudeau told the crowd that creativity is the engine of the new economy. “Artificial Intelligence already part of our lives and our children become users of FB in the future. Our scientists pioneers in the world of AI,” said Trudeau. “The new lab vote of confidence in Canada and Canadians, and the federal government pleased to see this go ahead.”

LeCun says Facebook attracted to Montreal because there is an ecosystem of AI work being done here that has snowball effect. “FaceBook chooses locations because of talent, we are attracted by talent. Our new research lab will partner with McGill and the University of Montreal, with a foot in industry and academia,” he said. “We will practice open research and open source science. We publish everything we do.”

Further, Pineau is a founding member of two multi-disciplinary ventures that led to the development of robotic assistants for elderly and disabled individuals the Nursebot platform and the SmartWheeler initiative. Moreover, Pineau has developed unique robotic and artificial intelligence expertise to address chronic disorders using clinical data. Angelique Manella, Associate Vice-Principal of Innovation believes Pineau is the perfect person to head the lab.

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However, Facebook already uses AI to provide captions for videos, and help visually impaired user to “see” by describing photos. In addition, AI used by Facebook to remove spam and other objectionable content.