AI can play key role in good governance: Microsoft official

Artificial intelligence or AI as it is called in cyber parlance, and believed to be the next big thing in information and technology, can play a key role in good governance, a senior Microsoft official has said. "We are seeing that governments are benefitting through Artificial Intelligence and are able to bring (governance) closer to people in their countries," Dave Forstrom, director of communications for the Artificial Intelligence (AI) group at Microsoft, told PTI. "Absolutely," he answered when asked if AI can be a tool in good governance. "In terms of helping create good governance we're seeing an approach industry--wide right now where it's focused on ethical design and those principles that will help to really govern that," he said on the sidelines of the Microsoft's annual developers conference Build 2017. Microsoft's India-born CEO Satya Nadella has identified AI as the center piece of the company's growth strategy. Forstrom said Microsoft is having partnerships with a number of governments in this regard. "Singapore is one that we recently worked with last year to actually help them create bots to better engage their customers," he said.