Google leads in the race to dominate artificial intelligence

Tech giants are investing billions in a transformative technology

Commanding the plot lines of Hollywood films, covers of magazines and reams of newsprint, the contest between artificial intelligence (AI) and mankind draws much attention. Doomsayers warn that AI could eradicate jobs, break laws and start wars. But such predictions concern the distant future. The competition today is not between humans and machines but among the world’s technology giants, which are investing feverishly to get a lead over each other in AI.

Machine learning is the branch of AI that is most relevant to these firms. Computers sift through data to recognise patterns and make predictions without being explicitly programmed to do so. The technique is now used in all manner of applications in the tech industry, including online ad targeting, product recommendations, augmented reality and self-driving cars. Zoubin Ghahramani, who leads AI research at Uber, believes that AI will be as transformative as the rise of computers.

One way to understand AI’s potential impact is to look at databases. From the 1980s these made it cheap to store information, pull out insights and handle cognitive tasks such as inventory management. Databases powered the first generation of software; AI…