Microsoft AI wants you to know that its superintelligence work is about keeping humans “at the top of the food chain.” IN long blog post on ThursdayMicrosoft’s head of artificial intelligence, Mustafa Suleyman, highlighted the creation of a fresh team dedicated to the development of “humanistic superintelligence” that is “designed solely to serve humanity.”
According to Suleiman, this type of superintelligence will not be “an unrestricted and unconstrained entity with a high degree of autonomy” and will instead be “carefully calibrated, contextualized and within defined limits.” Suleyman joined Microsoft last year as general manager of Microsoft AI, which only recently launched its first in-house text, voice and image generation models.
Although Suleyman’s blog post says Microsoft’s AI will “reject race-to-AGI narratives,” the competition between Microsoft and OpenAI is about to get much more intense. As part of the fresh agreement with OpenAI, Microsoft can now “self-implement AGI on its own or in collaboration with third parties.” As my colleague Hayden Field pointed out, “Microsoft has every right to use the OpenAI IP to develop its own AGI and try to win the race.”
Suleyman, however, has a vision for a “humanistic” superintelligence with three main applications, which include acting as an artificial intelligence companion that will support people “learn, act, be productive and feel supported”, offering assistance in the healthcare industry and creating “new scientific breakthroughs” in the field of immaculate energy.
“At Microsoft AI, we believe that people are more important than artificial intelligence,” Suleyman writes. “Humanistic superintelligence keeps us humans in the spotlight. It is the artificial intelligence that is on the team of humanity, the subordinate, controlled artificial intelligence that will not, that cannot open Pandora’s box.”