Microsoft focuses on reading and writing systems with acquisition of AI company

Microsoft has acquired the Canadian company Maluuba, which develops artificial intelligence. With the purchase, Microsoft wants to focus on systems that can read and write just like a human being.

According to Microsoft, Maluuba has an advanced research center for understanding natural language. In addition, the company has knowledge of systems that can make their own decisions and answer questions. Microsoft says that after developing speech and image recognition systems, it will focus on systems that can read and write on their own.

In addition, Maluuba, like Microsoft, would strive for a system that can think and communicate just like a human being. Microsoft cites the example of an artificial intelligence that can search large amounts of internal company documents and answer questions about it. In addition, the system must be able to ‘understand’ the documents and not just search for keywords, as is currently the case. In a post of his own, Maluuba writes that his work is based on how the human brain works, which would mean that his systems can conclude and decide in the same way.

The organizations will not disclose the amount involved in the acquisition. As part of the agreement, deep learning expert Yoshua Bengio will provide Microsoft with advice, as he already did for Maluuba. Microsoft is not the only company to further focus on artificial intelligence with acquisitions. Apple, Google, Twitter and Intel, among others, are doing the same.

Demonstration of the Maluuba system for understanding language and answering questions