Microsoft's Brad Smith Claims AI as the 'Most Important Invention' in MWC 2024

Microsoft's Brad Smith, at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, has declared artificial intelligence (AI) to be the most significant creation of the contemporary era. The two-day event featured thirty keynote speakers, including Smith and Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis, as well as Michael Dell, the CEO and chairman of Dell Technologies.

In his introductory remarks, the president of Microsoft likened AI to a printing press. Since AI is spawning a whole new economic sector known as the new AI economy, he argues that AI is the greatest invention of our time.

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Microsoft's Vice Chair and President Brad Smith (L) and Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov address a press conference at the Europe's largest tech conference, the Web Summit, in Lisbon on November 3, 2022.

Smith says this economy is similar to how the printing press catapulted the printing economy with various moving factors and actors. An economy of publishers, paper providers, writers, etc, that would, later on, generate an unprecedented number of books being published, enabling people to read, know, and learn in a whole new way, Smith adds.

Smith explains that the "AI economy" is doing the same in that AI is now creating an economy that is composed of electricity, connectivity, network developers, AI chips, AI data centers, applications, foundation models, distribution, and users.

AI Governance for the Greater Good

Unveiling the Microsoft AI Access Principles, Smith says what comes with this new economy is a question of how to run the various moving factors and actors within the AI economy. A question that the principles could answer and make sure that the whole world is equally and equitably benefitting from the advantages of AI, whilst also making sure that Microsoft can act principled while navigating the AI economy.

Microsoft's AI Access principles are a collection of 11 comprehensive principles intended to empower people and groups worldwide to develop and utilize Microsoft's AI resources as well as AI in general for the benefit of society.

AI Economy Principles

The 11 principles dominate how Microsoft expands its AI assets and makes its infrastructure accessible, all the while committing to socially responsible activities including adopting ecologically oriented management systems to reduce the energy consumption of Microsoft's AI data centers.

Microsoft's accessibility expansion for its AI assets to developers is the centerpiece of the AI Access principles. According to Microsoft, the goal of one of its principle is to facilitate user access to and use of Microsoft's CoPilot apps in neighboring data centers while also aiding in the training of the next generation of OpenAI models.

This includes the company's promise, irrespective of scale, to support other developers and to train and deploy both proprietary and open-source AI models.

These new principles were made public by Microsoft a few weeks after the business also declared an agreement to utilize cutting-edge technology to detect and stop harmful AI-generated content that aims to sway elections. Eight distinct commitments are outlined in the agreement to combat fraudulent AI-generated information relevant to elections.