Cybersecurity
Microsoft's corporate policy on AI
March 8, 2021
Question
From our readings, your research and our discussions, should there be an AI governance policy or law? Does your client engage in AI work? Does that firm have a corporate policy on AI?
Answer
Microsoft’s corporate policy on AI can be defined by six key principles: fairness, reliability & safety, privacy & security, inclusiveness, transparency, and accountability. These principles are Microsoft’s cornerstone to innovating responsibly, empowering others, and fostering a positive impact.1
With these principles grounding Microsoft’s approach, the company has engaged in AI work through its product offerings. Their primary AI Platform is through Azure which includes services for Conversational AI (Azure Bot Service), AI Cognitive Services (Vision & Speech), and Knowledge Mining (Search & Anomaly detection).2
Brad Smith, Microsoft’s President, has been outspoken on his support for government regulation of AI. One of his recent articles from 2020 highlighted Microsoft’s support of a law regulating facial recognition in the State of Washington.3
Like Brad Smith, I agree that there should be more government regulation of Artificial Intelligence. I believe that there should be increased regulation, especially at the federal level. In our lecture, Delight Roberts emphasized that Microsoft was “ahead of the game” in regulation, especially as this was extremely valuable to their global reputation of trust and accountability.4 Many organizations are not as upstanding as Microsoft, and it is necessary that this is regulated by an external entity.
This article is part of my Information Assurance and Cybersecurity Series. Learn more here.
Sources
1 Microsoft. (n.d.). Responsible AI principles from. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/ai/responsible-ai?activetab=pivot1%3aprimaryr6
2 Microsoft. (n.d.-a). AI School: Classes & Learning Paths –. Microsoft AI. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/ai/ai-school
3 Smith, B. (2020, December 17). Finally, progress on regulating facial recognition. Microsoft On the Issues. https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2020/03/31/washington-facial-recognition-legislation/
4 Roberts, Delight. “Compliance, Risk, Ethics.” INFO415 Cyber Risk Concepts and Paradigms lecture. 24 February 2021.