14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is one of the companies that are aggressively investing in artificial intelligence (AI), and despite concerns that sooner or later robots could have a major impact on the industry, CEO Satya Nadella says there’s no reason to think this would happen.
In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Nadella says robots won’t steal people’s jobs, despite being able to perform an increasing number of activities, sometimes even more effectively than humans.
“What I think needs to be done in 2018 is more dialogue around the ethics, the principles that we can use for the engineers and companies that are building AI, so that the choices we make don’t cause us to create systems with bias … that’s the tangible thing we should be working on,” Satya Nadella explained.
The CEO went on to explain that Microsoft’s business model works entirely on technologies that are needed by customers, therefore if there’s something that shouldn’t be on the market, the company has no other option than to adjust its plans.
Microsoft business model
But for the time being, Microsoft is becoming increasingly focused on enterprises, and AI investments are well-received because they help automate a wide variety of activities.
“Our business model is based on our customers being successful, and if they are successful they will pay us. So we are not one of these transaction-driven or ad-driven or marketplace-driven economies,” Nadella explained.
Microsoft’s investments in AI will continue, and other tech giants are also pouring billions of dollars in this side of the market, proving that despite concerns, artificial intelligence will keep evolving in the coming years.
By making sure that humans and robots can work together, however, Microsoft “is on the right side of history,” Nadella explains, as customers are the one dictating the trends the company should follow.