back to article Microsoft promises to tighten access to AI it now deems too risky for some devs

Microsoft has pledged to clamp down on access to AI tools designed to predict emotions, gender, and age from images, and will restrict the usage of its facial recognition and generative audio models in Azure. The Windows giant made the promise on Tuesday while also sharing its so-called Responsible AI Standard, a document [PDF …

  1. elsergiovolador Silver badge

    Demo-cracy

    So unelected Microsoft is de-facto creating laws that Law Enforcement must abide by?

    Okay.

    1. NapTime ForTruth

      Re: Demo-cracy

      No. Largely no one is creating laws to track or limit the development and application of AI and similar "black-box" technologies. At the intersection of that regulatory void and trending social influences, Microsoft is ostensibly establishing internal guides and limits for the application of nascent versions of such tools.

      Through a cynical lens, we might note that first-movers and whole industries often "self-regulate" as a way to gain controlling influence over future laws as well as to suggest to legislators that self-regulation is sufficient protection. From a practical perspective, it's worth recognizing that laws inevitably follow discovery and innovation; to reliably do otherwise would require perfect future knowledge to avoid drowning in a churning sea of what-ifs and incorrect assumptions.

      History, as ever, offers ample precedent for this: everything - from farming to explosives, from automobiles to aircraft - began as unregulated experiments that created societies and industries, incurred disasters, and eventually required external regulation. But regulation was almost always ex post facto.

      For better or for worse, "the best way to predict the future is to create it' remains true.

    2. fajensen

      Re: Demo-cracy

      Yeah, it really sucks to be law enforcement, knowing there's something bigger, stronger, that you just can't bully into compliance.

    3. doublelayer Silver badge

      Re: Demo-cracy

      Well, this demonstrates that you don't understand what laws are. Hint: if I say "I'm not going to do this", that's not a law.

    4. Black Betty

      Re: Demo-cracy

      No, Microsoft is saying that until the proper regulatory framework is in place, they won't allow anyone, law enforcement included, open access to a technology that has such an enormous potential for abuse and misuse. Odds are that they're doing this, because they don't want to end up on the wrong side of a lawsuit, but whatever their motivation, it's still the right thing to do.

  2. Boolian

    Spokes-person?

    Hmm... sounds like something a Neural Voice might say.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Spokes-person?

      Or a wheelwright.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Move over AI

    a new techno bubble is arriving

    Quantum Computing is where it is at now.

    AI (or what people mistakenly call AI as there is no intelligence anywhere to be seen) is getting so... passe and the horse has disappeared over the horizon when it comes to stopping its use for identifying people who are LGBTQ (other embarrassing crimes are available) and exposing them to all manner of threats in the new GQP USA.

    It is time for the next 'greatest thing ever' to rise up and soak a few hundred billion and get precisely nowhere. But hey, a lot of people will be able to afford those retirement homes up in the mountains (away from the rising sea levels) very soon.

    Cynical? Yep you betcha.

    1. big_D Silver badge

      Re: Move over AI

      Quantum Computing has been "where it is at" for as long as I can remember. There were great articles on how it was the next big thing, when I was growing up and reading Byte and PCW in the 80s... It is still the next big thing today.

  4. Pascal Monett Silver badge
    Trollface

    "our laws are lagging behind"

    I'm pretty sure that, as soon as some senator finds himself in a porno video that he never participated in, the laws will catch up pretty quick.

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