Ethics and AI not compatible Microsoft lays off team responsible for developing AI ethically
Ethics and AI not compatible Microsoft lays off team responsible for developing AI ethically
It seems that Microsoft has decided that AI and ethics are not really compatible, especially in a business, and that it is completely fine to throw AI’s ethics out of the window.
Most tech companies that are dealing with Machine Learning and are developing AI bots and AI tools are very wary of the ethics of AI, of where exactly should one draw the line. Microsoft on the other hand seems to have come to the conclusion that such considerations is nothing but dead weight.
Microsoft lays off its AI and Ethics team
Microsoft has laid off the entire staff devoted to steering AI progress towards ethical, responsible, and sustainable long-term consequences. According to a report by Platformer, the elimination of the ethics and society team is part of a recent round of layoffs that impacted 10,000 employees across the business.
Also read: Explained: Why is Microsoft laying off thousands of more employees from today?
The elimination of the team comes as Microsoft invests billions more dollars into its partnership with OpenAI, the startup behind the art and text-generating AI systems like ChatGPT and DALL-E 2.
Microsoft is also revamping its Bing search engine and Edge web browser to be powered by a new and better, next-generation large language model that is “more powerful than ChatGPT and customized specifically for search.”
Microsoft’s intentions come under the spotlight
The decision brings into question Microsoft’s dedication to ensuring that its product design and AI principles are inextricably linked at a time when the company is releasing controversial AI tools to the public.
Microsoft continues to operate its Office of Responsible AI (ORA), which establishes guidelines for responsible AI through oversight and public policy work. Employees informed Platformer, however, that the ethics and society team is in charge of ensuring that Microsoft’s responsible AI principles are mirrored in the design of products that they ship.
The team had lately been working to spot the risks presented by Microsoft’s integration of OpenAI’s technology across its product portfolio.
After a restructuring in October last year, only about seven individuals remained on the ethics and society staff.
According to Platformer, the remaining employees were under immense pressure from chief technology officer Kevin Scott and CEO Satya Nadella to get the most recent OpenAI models, as well as the next versions, into clients’ hands as soon as possible, with little to no regard for any sort of oversight.
During the reorganisation last year, the majority of the ethics and society staff was moved to other departments. On March 6, AI’s executive vice president, John Montgomery, informed the surviving members that they would be eliminated after all.
Why did Microsoft let go of their Ethics team?
Members of the team told Platformer that they were let go because Microsoft was more concerned with releasing AI goods ahead of the competition and less concerned with long-term, socially responsible reasoning.
Teams like Microsoft’s ethics and society department frequently exert control over large tech companies by highlighting possible social repercussions or legal implications.
Microsoft may not have wanted to hear go for a nuanced and careful approach that would have them go back to the drawing board again and again, as it became hell-bent on getting a piece from Google’s search engine share.
Every 1 per cent of market share that Microsoft is able to steal away from Google could potentially result in $2 billion in yearly revenue, according to the firm.
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