Shouldn’t We See How The AI Sausage Gets Made?
Once again, Google and Microsoft are battling for the AI spotlight — this time with news around their offerings for developers and the enterprise. These are decidedly less sexy markets — you won’t find breathless reports about the death of Google search this time around — but they’re far more consequential, given their potential reach across the entire technology ecosystem.
Highlighting that consequence is Casey Newton’s recent scoop detailing layoffs impacting Microsoft’s “entire ethics and society team within the artificial intelligence organization.” This team was responsible for thinking independently about how Microsoft’s use of AI might create unintended negative consequences in the world. While the company continues to tout its investment in responsible AI (as does every firm looking to make a profit in the field), Casey’s reporting raises serious questions, particularly given the Valley’s history of ignoring inconvenient truths.
In leaked audio that Casey reviewed, John Montgomery, Microsoft corporate vice president of AI, explains why the team was being disbanded: “The pressure from [CTO] Kevin [Scott] and [CEO] Satya [Nadella] is very very high to take these most recent openAI models and the ones that come after them and move them into customers hands at a very high speed.”…
