The unit has been in the works for the last 18 months with eight staff members and six external fellows, and is expected to grow to around 25 people over the coming year. The team will focus on six areas: privacy, transparency and fairness; economic impacts; governance and accountability; managing AI risk; AI morality and values; and the way AI can address global challenges.

This is not the first ethics-orientated unit Google has put together within the AI sphere. There's also the highly secretive AI Ethics Board, DeepMind Health's Independent Review Panel, and the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society. But the creation of DMES shows that AI is obviously a major focus for Google right now, and it seems it's committed to getting what can be a contentious issue right.