A Week at the Mothership: Reflecting on Responsible AI After Microsoft’s MVP Summit 2024

This month, I attended the Microsoft MVP summit in Redmond, Washington at the Microsoft head office. I was one of approximately 1,500 people who had come from all over the world to talk about the latest updates in product and strategy at Microsoft. While I am under NDA and cannot discuss specifics, I can confirm that of 350 available presentations, 340 of them had something to do with AI. As an AI MVP, the things that impressed me was not the developer conversations, but rather the conversations around ethical and responsible AI.?

The AI Race?

Many companies will get into the AI race focused on cost savings, business efficiencies and doing more with less people. However, smart companies will use it to create innovation, competitive advantage and better customer experience. This may well be where customers win. As with anything though, for companies only focused on squeezing out more margin from customers (i.e.: Telcos), AI might not be something people will hurry to adopt.?

Publicly available tools to replicate your voice are sounding alarms for people who are victims of spoofing. So, it begs the question, who is responsible for policing these activities? Not the developer, not OpenAI, certainly not companies like Telcos, and we know most elected officials can’t even spell AI. So yet again, the weak, the elderly and the vulnerable will be victims of technological advancements.?

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and right now consumers are wearing milk bone underwear in a new era of AI.??

Sure, it’s fun to generate photos of world leaders eating hotdogs at a ball game or ask chatGPT to write a rhyming poem using the names of our pets, but when we get past the novelty, are we truly able to live in a purely automated world??

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Opportunity Knocks?

While we are viewing the negative of AI, let’s also look at the opportunity:?

1. Brands that truly care about their customers will make it easy for people to buy from them, deal with them and consumers will vote with their wallets.?
2. Technology solution providers (#MSPs) who truly care about their customers, will deliver frameworks to deliver #ResponsibleAI to their customers’ businesses.?
3. Marketers who have integrity, will live by the pen and die by it, meaning AI is great for research or tarting up photos, but generic, autogenerated content, void of a unique value proposition and unique strengths will be seen exactly for what it is – useless.?

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Let me be very clear in my position…?

If you are a developer, you have an obligation to produce #ResponsibleAI that does not harm or mislead society.?

If you are a business leader, you have an obligation to bring real and useful solutions to your customers.?

If you are a marketer, you have an obligation to do the work. Avoid the shortcuts and stay true to original and useful content.?

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We Can Do Better?

Of course, as always, we are relying on human beings to do the right thing. History has proven that this is a tall order for humans, especially when there is a lot of money at stake.?

Market leaders like Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Apple need to step up and lead the way. With the majority of the technology market share squarely placed on their shoulders, they can do the right thing.?

If I could go back in time, I would have questioned Mark Zuckerberg hard about the benefits of building an application to rate the looks of girls on campus. As an example, Facebook has become an obscene example of toxicity, untruths and false data. I sincerely hope we are not using Facebook data to model new AI applications. If so, we are all screwed.?

We have taken it as a core mission at Marketing Copilot? to be a voice in the wilderness for #ResponsibleAI. We want everyone in the tech sector to be aware and responsible for the responsible deployment of AI. We need to all pitch in to eradicate bias, harmful and explicit content, malware development and devious uses of AI that prey on the vulnerable people in our society. We have an opportunity right now to raise the bar and have our voices heard with respect to #ResponsibleAI.?

Whether you are a technologist, business leader or consumer, get out there and educate yourself. Ask tech leaders where they stand on AI and why. If they don’t understand the responsible deployment of AI, they should not be offering it.?

If anyone has heard the story of the War of the Worlds broadcast and the hysteria it created in 1938, I believe that if AI is not kept in check, it could start the next world war.?

If we are this concerned as a society about a photo that Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales, might have touched up with Adobe AI tools on Mother’s Day this year, imagine what would happen if a country started broadcasting AI spoofed news reels in multiple languages around the world.?

Heck, I used an AI video tool to deliver a message in Swedish using my own voice. While in some cases, AI can be used for good, especially in the case of humanitarian efforts around natural disasters like tornadoes, earthquakes and tsunamis, I can’t help but worry about what creative uses fraudsters and unscrupulous characters will come up with.??

We all need to be aware, protect our loved ones and move forward with caution. The world is on the brink of another major transformation in technology which can now be used and embraced by anyone with access to the Internet. I want all of us in the tech sector to be on the right side of history.?

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Moving Forward Responsibly?

Here are three considerations for #ResponsibleAI:?

1. Value & Trust??

2. Fairness & Explainability?

3. Accountability & Compliance?

If you want to learn more, I invite you to check out the Responsible AI Institute. We’ll be following this issue quite closely and will share in our community. Make sure you subscribe to our newsletter here.?

The genie is out of the bottle – there is no going back. Based on the money alone that has been invested in AI, it is not going anywhere. And based on the massive layoffs we have seen in the technology sector in the last 12 months, it’s clear the industry is undergoing massive transformation.?

All I ask is that if we drive on, let’s put on our hazard lights before we accelerate off the onramp to the AI highway. Now is the time to be responsible and think carefully about our future.?

We can do better this time around. Let’s all pitch in and make that happen.?

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Footnote: This blog post was written first by hand with a pen, in a paper notebook. AI was only used to check historical facts to find the right references online quickly and easily. I am a human being and I stand by that.?