Microsoft’s Brad Smith On The Rise Of Artificial Intelligence

On March 2, 2018, President and Chief Legal Officer of Microsoft, Brad Smith, spoke at Princeton University. Smith discussed the rise of artificial intelligence, as well as the impact AI will have on our society. According to Smith, AI will become an integral part of our lives in 20 years time, and penetrate every pore of our society, impacting engineering, agriculture, technology, healthcare, the economy, and the environment.

As stated in Brad Smith’s biography on Microsoft’s official website, Smith joined the company in 1993. Today, he leads a team of more than 1,400 professionals. The New York Times called him “a de facto ambassador for the technology industry at large.”

A summary of Brad Smith’s talk was published on Freedom to Tinker, a website hosted by Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy. The author of the article, Nathan Matias, live-blogged Smith’s talk.

According to Smith, when making predictions about artificial intelligence, we need to think a few decades ahead. He compared the imminent rise of AI to the rapid technological evolution our society has experienced over the past 20 years. For example, 30 years ago people would begin their day by turning on the radio. Today, the first thing most of us reach for, as soon as we wake up, are our smartphones. Likewise, in 20 years time, we will be living with artificial intelligence. So, instead of looking at a dozen different weather, news, or traffic apps in the morning, our Black Mirror-like digital assistants will have that information ready as soon as we get up.

AI, Smith claims, won’t arrive at once. Things will naturally progress to the point of AI etching itself into the very fabric of our society. But, as exciting as AI is, we need to look at the future through a critical lens. No one has the crystal ball, Smith said, so it is impossible to predict what will happen. What we can do, however, is learn from history. In about 100 years, we went from horse carriages to autonomous self-driving cars.

Others think alike. A few days ago, the Economist published a special report, addressing our journey “from here to autonomy.” The Economist talked to Daryn Nakhuda. Nakhuda is the co-owner and CEO of Mighty AI, an artificial intelligence-focused company, which has an online community of 300,000 people who work for a range of automotive clients, labeling images, helping cars obtain, as Nakhuda puts it, “human judgment.” While the public remains concerned about the ethical dilemmas inherent to the concept of self-driving cars, as well as cyber attack threats, industry insiders insist autonomous vehicles are less dangerous than ordinary cars.

Microsoft’s Brad Smith didn’t shy away from comparing the rapid evolution of AI to the changes in the automobile industry, but he also warned that the effects of the automobile were not all good. Same goes for artificial intelligence.

We need to try and understand the impact AI will have on the economy, Smith said. Work will change, and AI will replace certain jobs. Many jobs involving, for example, learning, translation, transport, and fast food orders will be replaced by AI. Other jobs, which require empathy and human understanding, will not. This poses a few ethical dilemmas, but according to Smith, the ultimate question will not be what AI can do, but what AI should do.

This is why, he thinks, we need to ensure AI accountability and transparency. Machines need to be accountable to people. Furthermore, Smith argued, this will inspire an evolution of public policy, as well as the evolution of the law.

All of this, Brad said, is a window into an AI-powered future. That is why we need to learn new skills, create new social contracts and new labor laws, and rethink government policies and regulations.