Microsoft makes big AI announcements this week

As a disclosure I am not actively working on these projects so this is my personal opinion.

I am pursuing AI for human rights (https://www.AIforhumanrights.org) . I will publish more on this later in the summer once I have my thoughts and research more formulated.

For those new to Microsoft you can sense what is important when there is a large volume of announcements from this week starting from the top. This week is BIG!

Harry Shum (leader of Microsoft AI) wrote the blog below and there are a few newsworthy items

1. The formation of a new group Microsoft Research AI – what this means in practice is moving a lot of VERY BIG brains into this important area and giving them a vision and focus for their work. I know a lot of the Microsoft Researchers and they are phenomenal people – getting them rallied around this work means a lot of cool stuff is coming.
2. The focus on ethics as a central pillar. This is so important as it can be easy for technologists and scientists to pursue new ideas objectively and this focus on ethics and how to truly create powerful AI’s that aid humans is much needed. I deeply believe that AI can be a force for good –if it is developed in a principled and thoughtful manner. You can read more in the AI principles and goals Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella unveiled last year.

Harry’s blog is a great read https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2017/07/12/microsofts-role-intersection-ai-people-society/

This week also saw the announcement of this beauty – AI for Earth – great name and I truly hope it lives up to it! Quoting from the blog: “We are excited by the potential of putting artificial intelligence in the hands of researchers and organizations to drive new data insights that will help solve important issues related to water, agriculture, biodiversity and climate change”.

https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2017/07/12/announcing-ai-earth-microsofts-new-program-put-ai-work-future-planet/

And one more insight I like this week – AI requires new product design thinking. Business week interviewed Emma Williams. She leads a team of world class designers deeply involved in thinking about how AI products should be designed. I love Emma’s quote "Oh my goodness, those computers better talk to us in a way that's friendly and approachable". We all need our AI products to be designed for humans.

https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-research-forms-new-ai-unit-2017-7

Overall, a big week for Microsoft AI. AI is still nascent and many great people in Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Baidu, Google and other great tech companies are doing amazing work. We all need to have a principled and cautious approach to develop AI products and services that service humans. It’s great to see big moves like these.

D