Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Beijing time on March 29 evening news, It is reported that as artificial intelligence (AI) technology in consumer products more and more widely used, People are increasingly worried about the safety of this new technology, Especially in large technology companies have cut "AI ethics" team situation.

Today, Microsoft, Meta, Google, Amazon, and Twitter are among the companies that have cut back on "responsible AI teams" that advise on the safety of consumer products that use AI.

Industry experts say the decision by tech companies to lay off workers is worrying because as more people try out new artificial intelligence tools, people find that the technology can be abused. This concern was further exacerbated after OpenAI launched its AI chatbot ChatGPT and achieved success.

Andrew Strait, a former ethics and policy researcher at DeepMind, an AI research company owned by Alphabet, and deputy director of the Ada Lovelace Institute, said: "It's shocking that members of these teams are being fired at a time when it can be said that more of these teams are needed than ever before. "

In January, Microsoft disbanded its Ethics and Society team, which led Microsoft's early work in related areas. Microsoft said fewer than 10 layoffs were made and that hundreds of people were still working in the company's offices responsible for artificial intelligence.

Natasha Crampton, head of AI at Microsoft, said: "We've significantly increased our 'responsible AI' efforts and worked to institutionalize them company-wide. "

Meanwhile, under new boss Elon Musk, Twitter has cut its workforce by more than half, including its AI ethics team. The team had fixed a bias in Twitter's algorithm that cropped images in favor of white faces.

Twitter has yet to comment.

Amazon-owned streaming platform Twitch last week downsized its AI ethics team, holding all teams developing AI products accountable for bias-related issues, another person familiar with the matter said.

Twitch declined to comment.

Last September, Facebook parent Meta disbanded its Responsible Innovation team. The team consists of about 20 engineers and ethicists whose main task is to assess civil rights and ethics on Instagram and Facebook.

Meta has yet to comment.

Josh Simons, a former AI ethics researcher at Facebook and author of Algorithms for People, said: "Responsible AI teams are one of the only internal bastions of large technology companies. The speed with which they are abolished leaves the algorithms of big tech companies at the mercy of advertising interests, to the detriment of children, the welfare of vulnerable people and our democracy. "

At the same time, another worrying issue is that the large language models behind chatbots such as ChatGPT will make some false statements, even to the point of "fake," which may be used for evil purposes such as spreading false information or cheating on exams.

Michael Luck, director of the Institute for Artificial Intelligence at King's College London, said: "We are beginning to realise that some of the consequences of these new technologies cannot be fully foreseen and must be closely watched. "

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