Artificial intelligence is having a big moment right now in the technology industry. OpenAI’s ChatGPT has recently become the fastest growing application in history. Big tech companies like Google are taking steps to bring AI into their core products.
With things moving so fast in this AI boom, safeguards and ethical rules to protect users will be especially important. As companies try new things with AI, it’s important not to let the user fall gracefully.
This is why it is so disturbing to hear news like this. As I originally mentioned before Curriculum(Opens in a new tab) Earlier this week, Microsoft released its entire Community and AI Ethics team amidst its latest Layoffs. In total, 10,000 employees were let go from the company.
It’s certainly a questionable decision from Microsoft, a company that may have worked more completely on artificial intelligence than any of the other big tech companies. The computer giant has already integrated chatbots and AI-powered assistants into many of its products, such as bingthe edge Web Browser and File Collection Microsoft 365 Products such as Word, Powerpoint and Outlook.
One notable individual who has questioned Microsoft’s decision is Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter.
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“Microsoft launched an AI security team?” Musk tweeted, along with A connection(Opens in a new tab) Ars Technica reports on the news.
Musk was completely(Opens in a new tab) My voice critic(Opens in a new tab) affiliate Present(Opens in a new tab) The state of AI, so his post isn’t entirely surprising.
There is no regulatory oversight of artificial intelligence, which is a Main problem,” chirp(Opens in a new tab) Musk in December. “I’ve been advocating AI safety regulation for over a decade!”
Musk said in another newspaper tweet(Opens in a new tab), referring to his time with OpenAI in its early days. “But now it is a closed-source, profit-maximizing company that is effectively controlled by Microsoft.”
However, what’s interesting is that Musk brought Twitter’s AI security team back together Novemberjust days after he acquired the company. Wired(Opens in a new tab) He originally spoke with members of the ML Ethics, Transparency and Accountability team at Twitter shortly after Musk laid off workers at the company. Another former member of the team chirp(Opens in a new tab) By the time all but one had been shot. It is unclear if this individual is still employed by the company after Musk executed a series to additional Layoffs.
The team has been involved in important projects and research on how the company can use artificial intelligence. For example, in 2020, many Twitter users started noticing that the platform was demoing racial prejudice How to crop images. Twitter’s algorithm was automatically focusing on white faces when clipping how the image was shown in the feed. Twitter’s ethical AI team researched what happened, posted their findings for all to read, and began filing Bug bonus For users in order to better fix this specific problem.
According to the Platformer, Microsoft still has an active AI office in charge. However, the specific team being laid off “reportedly played a significant role in ensuring that the company’s responsible AI principles were actually reflected in the design of the products shipped.”
Elon Musk is right to point out Microsoft’s questionable decision to let this team go. But this begs the question: Why did Musk let go of a team tasked with the same job at Twitter? This also seems to be a questionable decision.
