François Chollet, one of the most influential figures in the world of artificial intelligence (AI), has announced that he is leaving Google after nearly a decade at the company. In a post shared on X (formerly Twitter), Chollet, the French-born AI expert, revealed that he will be starting a new venture alongside a friend, although he kept most details under wraps. His departure marks the end of an era for Google, where Chollet played a pivotal role in shaping the company’s AI initiatives.

Chollet’s legacy in AI is substantial, with his most notable contribution being the creation of Keras, an open-source high-level application programming interface (API) designed for building and training deep learning models. Keras, which has gained widespread use across the tech industry, powers numerous high-profile products, including Waymo’s autonomous vehicles and the recommendation algorithms for YouTube, Netflix, and Spotify. The tool has accumulated over 2 million users globally, making it a cornerstone of modern machine learning.

In addition to Keras, Chollet’s work has extended to advancing AI research and development. In 2019, he introduced the Abstraction and Reasoning Corpus for Artificial General Intelligence (ARC-AGI), a benchmark that challenges AI systems to solve complex reasoning tasks. This year, Chollet launched the ARC Prize, a $1 million competition designed to encourage breakthroughs in AI’s ability to think and reason like humans. While the prize remains unclaimed, it reflects Chollet’s long-standing belief that AI must go beyond simply processing large amounts of data.

Throughout his career, Chollet has consistently challenged the prevailing methods in AI development, particularly the approach of training models on ever-growing datasets. He has argued that the key to achieving truly intelligent AI lies not in increasing computational power but in creating systems that can reason more like humans. His advocacy for neuro-symbolic AI—an approach that combines neural networks with symbolic reasoning—has set him apart from many of his peers in the AI community.

Chollet’s departure from Google comes at a time when AI is undergoing rapid growth and transformation. In 2021, he received the prestigious Global Swiss AI Award for his contributions to the field. This year, he was also named one of Time's 100 most influential people in AI. Despite his exit from Google, Chollet’s impact on the AI industry will likely continue to resonate. His vision of artificial general intelligence (AGI)—a super-intelligent AI capable of advancing human knowledge—remains a driving force behind much of his work.

Chollet has expressed his confidence in Jeff Carpenter, a machine learning engineer at Google, who will be taking over as the new team lead for Keras. He assured the AI community that he would remain involved with the project, albeit from an external position, and praised the talented Keras team for their ongoing efforts to push the boundaries of deep learning.

As Chollet embarks on this new chapter in his career, the AI world will be watching closely to see how his next venture unfolds. His expertise in building intelligent systems that can reason and understand will likely influence the next generation of AI technologies, and his departure from Google signals the beginning of an exciting new phase in his pioneering journey.

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