"Computers need to be accountable to machines," a top Microsoft executive told a roomful of reporters in Washington, DC, on February 10, three days after the company launched its new AI-powered Bing search engine. Computers need to be accountable to people!" he said, and then made sure to clarify, "That was not a Freudian slip." Slip or not, the laughter in the room betrayed a latent anxiety. Progress in artificial intelligence has been moving so unbelievably fast lately that the question is becoming unavoidable: How long until AI dominates our world to the point where we're answering to it rather than it answering to us? First, last year, we got DALL-E 2 and Stable Diffusion, which can turn a few words of text into a stunning image. Then Microsoft-backed OpenAI gave us ChatGPT, which can write essays so convincing that it freaks out everyone from teachers (what if it helps students cheat?) to journalists (could it replace them?) to disinformation experts (will it amplify conspiracy ...

Microsoft is adding new AI features to its popular apps like Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. The new set of tools, called Microsoft 365 Copilot, will let people do things like create PowerPoint decks with a short prompt or summarize meeting recordings. Copilot runs on the same underlying AI technology that powers the buzzy viral chatbot ChatGPT, and is being tested now with a few business partners ahead of a wider release to all users in the "coming months," according to the company. "Today we are at the start of a new era of computing," said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in a livestreamed announcement on Thursday. Nadella said Microsoft's new AI products will "remove the drudgery of our daily tasks and jobs, freeing us to rediscover the joy of creation."

ChatGPT, the revolutionary chatbot powered by artificial intelligence (AI), will soon be able to do much more than send human-like text messages. A Microsoft executive has revealed that the next version - set to be released this week - will be able to turn text prompts into unique videos. The tech giant has invested heavily in ChatGPT, and has already unveiled a host of new products which incorporate it as an AI assistant, like search engine Bing. But this updated version, dubbed GPT-4 and tipped to launch on Thursday, will have'multimodal models', according to Microsoft Germany CTO Andreas Braun. This means that it will be able to generate content in multiple formats, like audio clips, images and video clips, from a text prompt.

Speaking at the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition Conference (ADIPEC) on Wednesday, Omar Saleh said technology disruptions over the past three years had been a "wake-up call" for all oil and gas firms.He said AI would be of "massive importance" over the next to five to 10 years, before adding that of any technology, AI would also have the most impact on the oil and gas sector overall.The U.S. shale revolution paved the way for a three-year oil price downturn that sent crude spiraling from more than $100 a barrel in 2014 to about $60 today. That has piled pressure on the oil-dependent economies of OPEC nations and forced a round of production cuts this year. On Tuesday, Baker Hughes GE CEO Lorenzo Simonelli said " " in the oil and gas industry should be viewed positively. Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that Omar Saleh believes AI will have the greatest technological impact on the oil and gas industry over the coming years. Speaking at the Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition Conference (ADIPEC) on Wednesday, Omar Saleh said technology disruptions over the past three years had been a "wake-up call" for all oil and gas firms.

Artificial intelligence (AI) poses the greatest threat to the oil and gas industry over the next five to 10 years, according to Microsoft's oil and gas director for the Middle East and Africa.

At long last, Microsoft has set a public target of bringing consumer devices--that aren't PCs--to market in 2017 with its personal digital assistant, Cortana, inside of them. On Tuesday, Microsoft announced a way to challenge Amazon's Alexa-powered Dot and Echo devices, as well as Google's Google Home. Microsoft's New Devices SDK will allow to power a new line of connected-car speakers from Harmon Kardon in 2017, executives said, with presumably more partnerships to come. This follows an earlier announcement that Cortana is coming to Windows 10 IoT, Microsoft's operating system for smart devices. Why this matters: Though Apple, Microsoft, and Google all have prominent artificial-intelligence initiatives, it's been Amazon--and, to a lesser extent, Google--that have designed devices around their technology.

At long last, Microsoft has set a public target of bringing consumer devices--that aren't PCs--to market in 2017 with its personal digital assistant, Cortana, inside of them. On Tuesday, Microsoft announced a way to challenge Amazon's Alexa-powered Dot and Echo devices, as well as Google's Google Home. Microsoft's New Devices SDK will allow to power a new line of connected-car speakers from Harmon Kardon in 2017, executives said, with presumably more partnerships to come. This follows an earlier announcement that Cortana is coming to Windows 10 IoT, Microsoft's operating system for smart devices. Why this matters: Though Apple, Microsoft, and Google all have prominent artificial-intelligence initiatives, it's been Amazon--and, to a lesser extent, Google--that have designed devices around their technology.