artificial intelligence

Microsoft axes team ensuring responsible AI principles reflected in products

Victor Barreiro Jr.

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Microsoft axes team ensuring responsible AI principles reflected in products

MICROSOFT. Microsoft signage is seen at the company's headquarters in Redmond, Washington, USA, on January 18, 2023.

Matt Mills McKnight/Reuters

While Microsoft still maintains its Office of Responsible AI, the ethics and society team was in charge of ensuring the company's responsible AI principles were reflected in the designs of products shipped

MANILA, Philippines – Microsoft has laid off a team set up to guide innovations in artificial intelligence (AI) that would be ethical, responsible and otherwise sustainable, according to a report on Platformer on Tuesday, March 14 (March 13, US time).

These layoffs are part of a reorganization push announced in January, which would slash about 10,000 jobs. They also follow a multibillion-dollar investment by Microsoft into OpenAI.

Microsoft said in a statement it was “committed to developing AI products and experiences safely and responsibly, and does so by investing in people, processes, and partnerships that prioritize this.”

“Over the past six years we have increased the number of people across our product teams and within the Office of Responsible AI who, along with all of us at Microsoft, are accountable for ensuring we put our AI principles into practice. […] We appreciate the trailblazing work the Ethics & Society did to help us on our ongoing responsible AI journey.”

While Microsoft still maintains its Office of Responsible AI, its ethics and society team was in charge of ensuring the company’s responsible AI principles were reflected in the designs of products shipped.

Said a former employee, “People would look at the principles coming out of the office of responsible AI and say, ‘I don’t know how this applies.'”

“Our job was to show them and to create rules in areas where there were none,” he added.

Platformer said the ethics and society team was not large at this point – numbering seven people after layoffs in October – and that there was increased pressure from CEO Satya Nadella and chief technology officer Kevin Scott to get OpenAI and its assorted products to the public.

This same team designed a game – Judgment Call – which would help designers envision the potential harms that could result from AI and discuss them during product development. This game was publicly announced as part of an overall “responsible innovation toolkit” it had set up. – Rappler.com

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Victor Barreiro Jr.

Victor Barreiro Jr is part of Rappler's Central Desk. An avid patron of role-playing games and science fiction and fantasy shows, he also yearns to do good in the world, and hopes his work with Rappler helps to increase the good that's out there.