Google's 'Skynet' goes online: Firm puts its machine-learning software in the cloud to create a huge AI program

  • Powerful machine learning platform enables users to easily build models
  • A limited preview of the service is now available for users to trial 
  • It also gives access to Google's image analysis and speech recognition
  • The program is reminiscent of the fictional Skynet in the Terminator films
  • For more of the latest Google news visit www.dailymail.co.uk/google

By Ryan O'Hare for MailOnline

Published: 10:40 GMT, 24 March 2016 | Updated: 15:53 GMT, 24 March 2016

Following in the wake of the recent trouncing of humans by artificial intelligence platform AlphaGo, Google has announced the launch of a cloud-based machine learning platform.

The search giant's new large-scale platform will be able to learn and make predictions 'across a whole variety of scenarios', and is reminiscent of the fictional Skynet service from Terminator.

A limited preview of the service is now available for users to build their own machine-learning models 'that work on any type of data, of any size'.

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Users can either build their own models on the platform, or can opt for one of the pre-trained models offered by Google. Following an initial training phase, in which the models ingest the data, analyse it and make predictions, the models are ready to run (illustrated)
Users can either build their own models on the platform, or can opt for one of the pre-trained models offered by Google. Following an initial training phase, in which the models ingest the data, analyse it and make predictions, the models are ready to run (illustrated)

Following in the wake of the recent trouncing of humans by artificial intelligence platform AlphaGo, Google has announced the launch of a cloud-based machine learning platform. The search giant's new large-scale platform will be able to learn and make predictions 'across a whole variety of scenarios'

A limited preview of the service is now available for users to build their own machine-learning models 'that work on any type of data, of any size'. However, it's far-reaching nature is reminiscent of the fictional Skynet service from the Terminator movies - an AI program that became self-aware (still pictured)

A limited preview of the service is now available for users to build their own machine-learning models 'that work on any type of data, of any size'. However, it's far-reaching nature is reminiscent of the fictional Skynet service from the Terminator movies - an AI program that became self-aware (still pictured)

Users can either build their own models on the platform, or can opt for one of the pre-trained models offered by Google.

Following an initial training phase, in which the models study the data, analyse it and make predictions, the models are ready to run.

In an official blog post, the firm said: 'Cloud Machine Learning will take care of everything from data ingestion through to prediction.'

But in the background, Google's deep learning algorithms are always there, and always learning.

GOOGLE LAUNCHES CLOUD-BASED LEARNING PLATFORM

Google has launched its new large-scale cloud-based machine learning platform which will be able to learn from available information and make predictions 'across a whole variety of scenarios'.

Users can either build their own models on the platform, or can opt for one of the pre-trained models offered by Google. 

In addition, the platform enables users to access Google's powerful tools for image analysis, speech recognition and translation. 

Google said it wants to make the technology as easy to use as possible for developers, creating open-source versions of its tools to help people adapt them for their own uses.

While the most public display of the power of machine learning was AlphaGo, which beat word champion Lee Sedol at board game Go, it has far reaching capabilities.

AlphaGo was designed by Google-owned DeepMind, and demonstrated the capabilities of machines to learn complex moves and probabilities and adapt to changing situations. 

It proved so successful that it won the competition four games to one.

But the increased use of machine learning to make predictions on large datasets has reached deep into a number of sectors, from financial and medical to consumer trends.

Google claims its machine learning services have 'better training performance and increased accuracy compared to other large scale deep learning systems'.

In addition, the platform enables users to access Google's powerful tools for image analysis, speech recognition and translation.

A video on the firm's blog sees these functions combined in a tabletop robot which can recognise speech commands as well as text, to carry out actions.

Google's cloud platform enables developers to use its powerful tools, or APIs, such as using speech recognition, image analysis and translation features to relay commands to simple robots (illustrated)

Google's cloud platform enables developers to use its powerful tools, or APIs, such as using speech recognition, image analysis and translation features to relay commands to simple robots (illustrated)

A video shows the cloud-based APIs used by a tabletop robot which can recognise speech commands and text

A video shows the cloud-based APIs used by a tabletop robot which can recognise speech commands and text

According to TechCrunch, Google said it wants to make the technology as easy to use as possible for developers, creating open source versions of its tools to enable people to adapt them for their own uses. 

On its blog, Google's support staff wrote: 'The Cloud Platform team is super excited about 2016. 

'Some of the biggest brands in the world like Spotify, Atomic Fiction and Khan Academy are using our big data services. 

'We look forward to seeing the innovative ways you'll use these new products.'

The announcement was made at the Google Cloud Platform Next user conference in San Francisco earlier this week.  

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