The Tech Giant Microsoft Layoffs Entire Team Responsible for AI Moderation

Following Microsoft decision to lay off its entire ethics and society team, the company's commitment to ethical and responsible AI has been called into question. Only seven employees were impacted by the move, which was part of a larger round of layoffs that saw 10,000 employees lose their jobs.

Platformer reported that Microsoft's ethics and society team was in charge of putting Microsoft's AI principles into practice. Any dangers that could arise from incorporating OpenAI's technology into the company's product portfolio would be evaluated by the group. While Microsoft maintains its Office of Responsible AI, which focuses on governance and public policy work, the company's commitment to responsible AI has been questioned by the decision to eliminate the ethics and social team.

Microsoft's Investment in OpenAI

This decision is made at the same time that Microsoft is investing billions of $ into its partnership with OpenAI, the company behind popular AI systems like DALL-E 2 and ChatGPT. A new, next-generation large language model that is "more powerful than ChatGPT and customized specifically for the search" powers the company's Bing search engine and Edge web browser, both of which are currently in testing.

The Platformer report proposes that strain from the central innovation official Kevin Scott and Chief Satya Nadella was vital to calculate the choice to wipe out the morals and social group. Microsoft wants to get its AI products into customers' hands as soon as possible. The company has a rare opportunity to challenge Google's market dominance in search engines.