Two things have happened, Li explains. Generative AI has caused the public to wake up to AI technology, she says, because it's behind concrete tools, such as ChatGPT, that people can try out for themselves. And as a result, businesses have realized that AI technology such as text generation can make them money, and they have started rolling these technologies out in more products for the real world. "Because of that, it impacts our world in a more profound way," Li says. Li is one of the tech leaders we interviewed for the latest issue of MIT Technology Review, dedicated to the biggest questions and hardest problems facing the world.

Microsoft will apply Stasior's AI experience to its current programs such as Cognitive Toolkit, the company's deep learning framework that helps …