Manny King John
Microsoft, one of the world’s largest tech companies just laid off an entire team in charge of guiding AI innovation as part of the recent layoffs that have affected 10,000 employees across the company.
Microsoft’s ethics and society team, which had only about seven members after a reorganization last year, has been eliminated.
This move by the tech giant leaves the AI department without a dedicated team to ensure its AI principles are closely tied to product design at a time when the company is leading the charge to make AI tools available to the public.
Microsoft officially released a statement saying “Over the past six years we have increased the number of people across our product teams and within the Office of Responsible AI who, along with all of us at Microsoft, is accountable for ensuring we put our AI principles into practice. We appreciate the trailblazing work the Ethics and Society did to help us on our ongoing responsible AI journey.”
