Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has launched a USD 125 million philanthropic fund, AI2050, to tackle problems like bias, harm and misuse and conflict in artificial intelligence. The fund will back research projects in the next five years.

The AI2050 fund is led by Schmidt along with Google’s head of technology, James Manyika. The ultimate goal of this project is to prove that AI technology is beneficial to society by 2050 despite the scepticism surrounding its adverse impacts. “A lot of people have expressed concerns about AI but very few people are working on solutions to them,” said Schmidt.

The fund money will be used to research how AI can be used to measure and mitigate socio-economic inequalities and develop liquid neutral networks, a new kind of algorithm.

Last year, Schmidt and his wife Wendy donated USD 150 million to build a research institute in collaboration with Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. The center will be named after Schmidts and will rope in experts from companies like Google, Microsoft, AstraZeneca and institutions like Oxford University.