Humans Need to 'Remain in Control' of AI Technology, Says Microsoft’s Smith
In an "innovation-led economy," innovation must “flourish,” but with AI "the protection of people” is critical, Microsoft Vice Chairman-President Brad Smith told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce State of American Business 2024 webinar Thursday. “We need to ensure that humans…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
remain in control of this technology,” Smith said during a Q&A with Harold Kim, the Chamber’s executive vice president-chief legal officer. “We need to have safety and security standards,” he said. Smith found “fascinating” that the Chamber’s report on AI said that unless the government enacts regulation, “we’re likely to have market failure,” he said. “That is not a sentence that most people would expect to see in the executive summary” of a Chamber report, “and yet it is precisely right.” He added, “Most healthy markets for everyday products that can impact people’s safety do have a degree of safety regulation in place,” he said. “The key is to strike the right balance.” At Microsoft, “we’re very much focused on doing this on a global basis,” he said. “We’re interacting with governments in, easily, a few dozen countries at this point as each country is considering this.” Smith didn't mention the New York Times’ AI copyright infringement lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI, announced Dec. 27 (see 2312270044), and Kim didn’t ask him about it.