Facebook to double its artificial intelligence research by 2020

The US-based social media giant, Facebook, has announced plans to double its artificial intelligence (AI) research.

The firm intends the operations within its Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR) unit to expand by twice as much within two years.

The company’s Chief AI Scientist, Yann LeCun, confirmed the plan during an interview in the New York office, according to Forbes.

FAIR currently employs around 180-200 members of staff, but as the firm expands its implementation of AI research it is expected to reach 400 employees by 2020.

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When LeCun was asked if Facebook’s FAIR division would expand within the timeframe, the Chief AI Scientist responded: “Yes, probably. That’s a pretty safe bet.”

FAIR is responsible for research within the AI field, which is predominantly conducted for academic purposes.

Some of the successful applications from the research team are then applied to Facebook’s platforms, which include Instagram and Whatsapp, by the applied machine learning (AML) team.

The successful developments from the team include algorithms used for MRI scan analysis and online gaming.