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In the latest round of layoffs at Microsoft, a team that monitors AI ethics also has to believe it.
Microsoft laid off an entire AI development team. The team had to ensure that artificial intelligence can be used in an ethical, responsible and sustainable way. The layoffs are part of a round of layoffs in which no less than 10,000 jobs are lost.
That Microsoft just fired a team responsible for ethical AI seems highly odd. At the same time, the company is investing millions in OpenAI – the company behind ChatGPT, DALL-E and the technology behind Bing Chat.
Microsoft has another ‘Office of Responsible AI’. This branch kept an eye on various AI systems and had to write clear guidelines to make these AIs work in an ethical way. So it seems like there is no problem at all. The recently fired team was responsible for the implementation of several AI related policies. The team was not very big anymore: it once consisted of thirty people, but in 2023 only 7 of them remained, we hear from Platformer.
With the layoffs, Microsoft’s AI has not immediately become adrift, but there is a lack of a team of people who ensure that the right principles are followed. Especially given the speed with which Microsoft throws itself into a project like Bing Chat or GPT integration in Edge, this can sometimes cause problems.
Whether that speed has anything to do with the layoffs is uncertain. Of course, Microsoft wants to be able to switch quickly and prefers to make a name for itself with AI before someone else can do that. In that case, an ethics committee can often interfere: it is their job to slow down or stop the development process if something is not right. In the last few weeks, the pressure to bring new AI products to users would have been very high.
