Noam Shazeer, one of the earliest employees at Google, left the company to start Character.AI. Recently, Google acquired Character.AI for $2.7 billion and brought Shazeer back to take on the role of vice president, leading Gemini, Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) project. Google’s significant investment in AI has raised questions about the motivation behind the acquisition. Some speculate whether Google’s primary goal was to bring Shazeer back into the company. These questions have sparked discussions in Silicon Valley about tech companies’ substantial investments in AI.
Noam Shazeer joined Google in 2000 as a software engineer and later served as a principal software engineer. He is recognized for his contributions to AI research, including work on a chatbot designed to revolutionize human-AI interaction. However, when Google decided not to release the chatbot due to safety and fairness concerns, Shazeer left Google to establish Character.AI, focusing on creating chatbot assistants for individuals experiencing depression and loneliness.
Google’s acquisition of Character.AI not only resolved the company’s financial challenges but also brought Shazeer’s expertise back to Google as the VP engineer and co-lead of Gemini. This move has raised questions about the reasons behind Google’s substantial investment in an ex-employee with an AI background.
