Johns Hopkins University and Amazon.com Inc. have teamed up to advance artificial intelligence research in Baltimore.
The new JHU + Amazon Initiative for Interactive AI will center on what founding director Sanjeev Khudanpur calls “interactive AI”, which focuses on making interactions between humans and AI more natural through language technology and visual improvements.
"This is about making AI so humans can interact naturally with machines, rather than having to know various things about the AI or navigate various menus," said Khudanpur, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Hopkins' Whiting School of Engineering. "So you can interact with the AI the way you interact with other people."
Khudanpur said the initiative will advance research in three different ways: fellowships to students, faculty grants where professors may work on a project with an Amazon scientist and sponsored research projects. Officials declined to disclose how much money Amazon is investing in the initiative.
Fellowship students will also be offered Amazon internships, and have the opportunity to work with researchers from the company. The fellowship applications will be reviewed by a joint committee featuring staff from Hopkins and Amazon. The initiative plans to serve 10-12 students in its first year.
Hopkins will retain the rights to research from fellowships and faculty grants, with Amazon co-owning intellectual property from any sponsored projects. Khudanpur said Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures, the tech commercialization arm of JHU, could be involved in creating startups around the products. He said the initiative is set to begin funded research in August.
“The engineering faculty at Johns Hopkins are committed to applied research, and Amazon is at the forefront of product development in this field,” Seth Zonies, a director of business development for Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures said in a statement. “We expect this collaboration to result in deployable, high-impact innovation."
The initiative will also hold events for the general public, such as lectures, workshops and competitions.
"There are a lot of companies around the area doing AI-related work, some for the government and some for the private sector," Khudanpur said. "If they're aware of what we're doing, they can come here and find the right students to hire."
Khudanpur hopes the initiative will expand as other stakeholders and branches within Amazon work with Hopkins. Amazon’s initial investment will last for five years.
“I think Hopkins has a lot of potential that's untapped in AI,” Khudanpur said. “We are an AI powerhouse, we just need to make sure the world sees it.”
