8 Google Employees Invented Modern AI. Here's the Inside Story

Eight names are listed as authors on "Attention Is All You Need," a scientific paper written in the spring of 2017. They were all Google researchers, though by then one had left the company. When the most tenured contributor, Noam Shazeer, saw an early draft, he was surprised that his name appeared first, suggesting his contribution was paramount. "I wasn't thinking about it," he says. It's always a delicate balancing act to figure out how to list names--who gets the coveted lead position, who's shunted to the rear.