After being criticized for its AI policy, Microsoft has made it clear how it intends to maintain its ethical responsibility for the technology.
In a Microsoft blog post, Chief Responsible AI Officer Natasha Crampton explained that the “ethics and society team” was disbanded because one team for a responsible or ethical AI would not achieve a goal.
Instead, it has adopted a new approach that relies on assigning senior employees to lead responsible AI within each core business group in the company, as well as a large network of responsible AI developers with skills.
Furthermore, Crampton said Microsoft has approximately 350 people working in AI in charge, with just over a third of those dedicated full-time, and the rest having AI responsibilities as a core part of their jobs.
After Microsoft disbanded its "Ethics & Society" team, Crampton noted that some members of the team were later integrated into other teams in the company. However, seven members of the group were fired as part of Microsoft's broad job cuts that led to 10,000 layoffs at the start of 2023.
The company's latest blog is certainly aimed at alleviating these concerns among the public following the closure of the "Ethics and Society" team. Rather than abandoning its AI efforts entirely, the company appears to be seeking to ensure that teams across the company are in regular contact with experts in the field of responsible AI, according to the MSN website.