Apple said on Monday it has employed former distinguished Google scientist Samy Bengio, who left the search giant amid turmoil in its artificial intelligence study division.

Bengio is anticipated to lead a new AI study unit at Apple below John Giannandrea, senior vice president of machine mastering and AI method, two people today acquainted with the matter explained. Giannandrea joined Apple in 2018 following paying about eight many years at Google.

Apple declined to comment on Bengio’s part. Bengio did not reply to a request for comment.

Bengio who left Google final week after about 14 many years explained final month he was pursuing “other fascinating possibilities”.

His determination followed Google’s firings in current months of fellow scientists Margaret Mitchell following alleging she transferred electronic files out of the business and Timnit Gebru following she threatened to quit rather than retract a paper.

Mitchell and Gebru had co-led a crew studying ethics problems in AI, and had voiced concern about Google’s workplace diversity and method to reviewing study. Bengio had expressed assistance for the pair.

As one particular of the early leaders of the Google Brain study crew, Bengio superior the “deep mastering” algorithms that underpin today’s AI programs for analysing photos, speech, and other information.

© Thomson Reuters 2021