Microsoft wants AI to fill your blind spots, not take over your job

Hot on the heels of Google, Microsoft has launched an initiative that it hopes will enable humans and artificial intelligence to complement each other more effectively. At an event in London on Wednesday, Microsoft announced that it's bringing together a new team of 100 engineers and researchers under the umbrella of Microsoft Research AI at its headquarters in Redmond, Washington. The move echoes a similar announcement earlier this week from Google (50 Smartest Companies 2017), which launched its new People AI Research (PAIR) program to try to improve the way humans and machines work with each other. For its part, Microsoft (50 Smartest Companies 2017) says it wants to focus on how AI can help fill the gaps in human intelligence, rather than simply re-creating it in silico.