A Privacy Dustup at Microsoft Exposes Major Problems for A.I.

The results you get when you search for an image on Google have something in common with Siri's ability to listen to your commands. All of these features are fed by enormous piles of data. These datasets might contain thousands of pictures of faces or gigabytes of audio logs of human speech. They are the raw material used by nearly everyone who wants to work with A.I., and they don't come cheap. It takes expertise and investment to build them.