A Look At Uber's New AI Research Team

Uber, the popular ride-sharing platform that's also heavily engaged in the race to building a self-driving car, is building a new R&D team in Toronto, Canada.

According to a Bloomberg report, Uber's new unit will fall within its Advanced Technologies Group. The team will be led by Raquel Urtasun, a notable leader in artificial intelligence, machine learning and computer vision at the University of Toronto.

Under Urtasun's leadership, Uber will be working on creating software which will better allow its self-driving cars to perceive the world around them. Specifically, self-driving cars aren't fully versed in understanding aspects such as the color of a spotlight or to decipher if a traffic cop is waving a car to proceed or signaling it to stop.

Ongoing Lawsuit With Google A Concern

Uber is proceeding with its new team despite an ongoing lawsuit with Alphabet Inc GOOG GOOGL that has major implications on Uber's self-driving activities.

Uber was slapped with a lawsuit which alleges a former Google engineer named Anthony Levandowski stole 14,000 confidential documents below leaving Google to accept an executive position at Uber.

The judge preceding over the case, Judge William Alsup, could decide in the coming days to issue a preliminary injunction against Uber's driving car program.

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Uber's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad 2017

Palihapitiya: Uber Can Be A 'Fantastic' Company, As Long As It Fixes The Culture