The large tech companies – Google, Meta/Facebook, Microsoft – are in a race to introduce new artificial intelligence systems and what are called chatbots, that you can have conversations with and are more sophisticated than Siri or Alexa. Microsoft's AI search engine and chatbot, Bing, can be used on a computer or cell phone to help with planning a trip or composing a letter. It was introduced on February 7 to a limited number of people as a test – and initially got rave reviews. But then several news organizations began reporting on a disturbing so-called "alter ego" within Bing Chat, called Sydney. We went to Seattle last week to speak with Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, about Bing and Sydney, who to some had appeared to have gone rogue.

In line with Microsoft's recent announcements in Chile, Brad Smith, President of Microsoft, met with an ESO delegation, headed by its Director General, Xavier Barcons, to sign a new step of their agreement that addresses to optimize and enhance the science made from ESO Paranal Observatory telescopes through Artificial Intelligence (AI). Thanks to this initiative, ESO and Microsoft will work in three areas of great interest for the operations of the Paranal Observatory. The first project is Turbulence Nowcasting, which makes real-time weather and atmospheric predictions to determine whether weather conditions are suitable for different observations. The second project is Anomaly Detection in calibration images taken with ESO s scientific instruments. The visual inspection of the images is replaced by the automatic inspection through Machine Learning algorithms.

Bengaluru: India will inevitably be one of the world's artificial intelligence (AI) superpowers, Brad Smith, president and chief legal officer, Microsoft Corp. said at the ongoing Responsible AI for Social Empowerment (RAISE 2020) event. Smith indicated that India's national strategy on AI is the right foundation, not just to advance AI but also topromote responsible AI built on firm ethical principles. The government of India is in the process of finalizing a national strategy on AI which was released in June 2018. The strategy outlines the proposed efforts in research, development, adoption and skilling in AI. "AI can revolutionize virtually every part of the economy, and I think in so many ways the countries that move the fastest to deploy AI more quickly than others, will find that they will be accelerating economic growth," Smith said. If applied in the right way, AI will not be a competitor to the thinking or work of human beings but a tool that can augment and add to what humans can accomplish.

Over the last year, I have been immersing myself in a lot of Artificial Intelligence research, including reading multiple books on AI and taking an online class from Stanford on the fundamentals of Artificial Intelligence. FYI, this class was taught by an Adjunct Professor at Stanford, Andrew Ng, a co-founder of Coursera.org, All of this study and research has given me a much better understanding of AI, what it can and can't do, and its potential impact on our world. Although I am not an engineer and come from the marketing research side of the tech market, after nearly 40 years dealing with technology at all levels, my depth of understanding of technology and its impact on our world has always been present in my work and research. AI has been around for decades but is even more prevalent in our tech world today.

Artificial intelligence might sound like a futuristic concept, and it may be true that we're years or decades away from a generalized form of AI that can match or exceed the capabilities of the human brain across a wide range of topics. But the implications of machine learning, facial recognition and other early forms of the technology are already playing out for companies, governmental agencies and people around the world. This is raising questions about everything from privacy to jobs to law enforcement to the future of humanity. On this episode of the GeekWire Podcast, we hear several different takes from people grappling right now with AI and its implications for business, technology and society, recorded across different sessions at the recent GeekWire Summit in Seattle. Listen to the episode above, or subscribe in your favorite podcast app, and continue reading for edited excerpts. Smith: I think it's fair to say that artificial intelligence will reshape the global economy over the next three decades probably more than any other single technological force, probably as much as the combustion engine reshaped the global economy in the first half of the 20th century. One of our chapters is about AI in the workforce, and we actually start it by talking about the role of horses, the last run of the fire of horses in Brooklyn in 1922. And we trace how the transition from the horse to the automobile changed every aspect of the economy. I think the same thing will be true of AI, so we should get that right.

For decades, sci-fi movies have predicted a future in which humans lose control of intelligent machines and chaos ensues. Those apocalyptic portrayals of artificial intelligence may seem like a distant or unrealistic future. But the seeds of a reality in which we lose control of the machines we build are being sown today. "What is the biggest software-related issue to impact the economy in Puget Sound in 2019?" "Software in the cockpit of an airplane, software that the pilots couldn't turn off," Smith said. Smith was referring to the multi-billion dollar fallout from Boeing's faulty 737 Max software that resulted in two crashes killing 346 people. Boeing's manufacturing center is based in Renton, Wash.

Inside a sunny conference room on the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Wash., a small team of employees is describing how technology can save the world. Microsoft's Digital Diplomacy unit consists of two dozen policy experts who work on everything from the ethical use of artificial intelligence to protecting the 2020 presidential election from foreign cyberinterference. Brad Smith, Microsoft's president, sits in the middle of the table, sipping coffee from a mug bearing the name of his hometown, Appleton, Wis. The group updates Smith on a tech-industry initiative co-founded by Microsoft to combat terrorist messaging on the Internet. Smith pushes for more ideas. "We need something that will create a new mold," he says.

Inside a sunny conference room on the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Wash., a small team of employees is describing how technology can save the world. Microsoft's Digital Diplomacy unit consists of two dozen policy experts who work on everything from the ethical use of artificial intelligence to protecting the 2020 presidential election from foreign cyberinterference. Brad Smith, Microsoft's president, sits in the middle of the table, sipping coffee from a mug bearing the name of his hometown, Appleton, Wis. The group updates Smith on a tech-industry initiative co-founded by Microsoft to combat terrorist messaging on the Internet. Smith pushes for more ideas. "We need something that will create a new mold," he says.

AI can reveal how many cigarettes a person has smoked based on the DNA contained in a single drop of their blood, or scrutinize Islamic State propaganda to discover whether violent videos are radicalizing potential recruits. Because AI is such a powerful tool, Microsoft president Brad Smith told the crowd at Columbia University's recent Data Science Day that tech companies and universities performing AI research must also help ensure the ethical use of such technologies. AI is now an invisible but inextricable part of life for hundreds of millions of people. The rise of machine learning algorithms combined with cloud computing services has put massive computer power at the fingertips of companies and customers worldwide. These trends have also enabled the rise of data science that applies AI methods to constantly analyze information from online services and Internet-connected devices. In his talk, Smith emphasized the need for policies and laws that hold these systems and machines accountable to humans.

You can add Microsoft to the growing list of companies whose staff are objecting to the use of their technology for some military purposes. A group of Microsoft workers has published an open letter to CEO Satya Nadella and legal chief Brad Smith asking them to end a $479 million HoloLens contract with the US Army. They contnded that Microsoft is effectively developing weapons by helping the Army create a platform that helps its soldiers train and fight using augmented reality. It not only helps kill people, but turns war "into a simulated'video game'" that disconnects infantry from the "grim stakes" of combat, the workers argued. They also asserted that Microsoft's ethics review process was "opaque" to employees and not strong enough to discourage weapon-related work.