Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1516278
4 NEWS 22.2.2024 THE editorial in Business Today two weeks ago mentioned how a recent survey of US business owners had ex- plored businesses' attitude towards AI, particularly ChatGPT and that de- spite concerns regarding technology dependence, biases, job displacement, misinformation, and privacy, a major- ity of respondents remain optimistic about the potential benefits AI can bring to their operations. The dilemma most probably stems from balancing the act between natu- ral apprehension and the anticipated positive impacts of AI integration in various business sectors. "At Microsoft, we believe AI is the defining technology of our time and we have been making huge invest- ments in AI because we are optimis- tic about what it can do to help peo- ple, industry and society. At the same time, we are also com- mitted to realize the promises of AI responsibly," says Kyle Anastasi from Microsoft Malta. "As with any new technology, any sense of apprehension is justified. However, our AI tools and technol- ogies have been designed to benefit everyone at every level in every or- ganization and today, millions are experiencing the benefits of AI in workplaces, home offices, academic institutions, research labs and man- ufacturing facilities around the world - from scientists and salespeople to farmers, software developers and se- curity practitioners," he added. Microsoft's approach to using AI responsibly Microsoft prioritizes responsible AI development, guided by principles of fairness, reliability, privacy, inclu- siveness, transparency, and account- ability. "Microsoft believes that when you create powerful technologies, you also must ensure that the technolo- gy is developed and used responsibly and we are putting these principles into practice across the company to develop and deploy AI that will have a positive impact on society and help solve some of our most pressing soci- etal problems," says Natasha Cramp- ton, the chief responsible AI officer at Microsoft. "AI systems are the product of many different decisions made by those who develop and deploy them. This is what our practice of responsible AI by design is all about. We ensure that responsible AI considerations are addressed at the earliest stages of system design and then through- out the whole lifecycle so that the appropriate controls and mitigations are baked into the system being built, not bolted on at the end," she added. While this approach does not elim- inate all risks, a commitment to lis- tening, learning and improving is paramount. "We believe proactive, self-regula- tory efforts by responsible companies help pave the way for these new laws, but we recognize that not all organ- izations will adopt responsible prac- tices voluntarily," said Crampton. Microsoft President, Brad Smith recently outlined the importance of the company stepping up to meet the current AI moment, including calling for thoughtful policy. Referring to Microsoft's Respon- sible AI Standard, a framework for translating the company's high-level principles into actionable guidance for its engineering teams, Smith not- ed that like all transformative tech- nologies, Microsoft is aware that AI has its risks. "Some people will use this technol- ogy to exploit the flaws in human nature, target people with false infor- mation, undermine democracy and cause harm. We need to plan for and mitigate these risks." Microsoft AI's success In practice These values have been at the heart of its cutting-edge research in AI and in integrating these powerful, inno- vative AI technologies into products and services such as its Microsoft AI, powered by Azure, Teams, Azure AI, Power Platform, Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Defender and its recent- ly introduced Copilot for Microsoft 365, specifically targeted to help peo- ple focus on uniquely human work. A staggering 77% of users of Copilot say they do not want to give it up. Surveys and experiments have al- ready started showing that the pro- ductivity gains promised by Copilot are real; 70% of Copilot users said they were more productive, 68% said it improved the quality of their work, 29% are faster at specific tasks such as searching, writing and summariz- ing, 64% said that Copilot helps them spend less time processing e-mails, whilst a staggering 77% of users said that once they use Copilot, they do not want to give it up. "Fundamentally, our AI work is grounded in our company mission to help every person and organization on the planet to achieve more and it is undergirded by our steadfast com- mitment to the responsible develop- ment and use of AI," added Natasha Crampton. Microsoft's approach to AI research For over three decades, Microsoft Research has been at the forefront of computing innovation, leveraging in- terdisciplinary collaboration to pio- neer advancements in AI. Research spans areas like conversa- tional speech recognition, machine translation, and natural language un- derstanding. Recent efforts focus on developing large-scale AI models, made feasible by advances in deep learning and ac- cess to powerful AI supercomputing resources on Microsoft Azure. In- novations like DeepSpeed, an open- source deep learning optimization library, exemplify their commitment to pushing boundaries in machine learning. With a focus on enhancing human experience and benefiting society, Mi- crosoft Research aims to continually challenge assumptions and engage with the global research community to drive future advancements. Microsoft's approach to AI Infrastructure "Notwithstanding any current di- lemmas, confidence in AI is indeed growing and while businesses aim to do more with less, customers are looking for a trusted partner to streamline adoption and rapidly ap- ply intelligence across workloads to improve operations, drive efficien- cies and reduce costs," says Kyle An- astasi. Microsoft had forecast this exponen- tial growth in demand for AI systems more than a decade ago and had start- ed to build a special computing infra- structure to handle this demand. Today, Microsoft's AI platform, Azure AI, offers infrastructure opti- mized and purposely built for running large AI models that are ushering in a new era of productivity and creativity. "Thanks to our investments, we can deliver a wide range of AI-powered products that fit the needs of our cus- tomers and also deliver best-in-class performance and scale for the most compute-intensive AI training and in- ference workloads." "And as our AI infrastructure con- tinues to be based on feedback and insights from training and serving AI models at scale, our teams work in lockstep with industry partners on the design of GPUs, networks and data centres that are optimized for AI workloads." "While we recognize AI's potential we also emphasize the importance of ethical considerations to ensure inclu- sivity and to mitigate bias. But diverse data representation and human over- sight in AI projects will remain crucial if we want everyone to benefit," con- cluded Anastasi. The AI dilemma in business... from Microsoft's perspective