Home General Microsoft Says European Companies are more Prepared for AI Roll Out

Microsoft Says European Companies are more Prepared for AI Roll Out

While releasing a new study regarding AI ’s roll out in the UK, Microsoft said stringent privacy laws in Europe are keeping enterprises ready for the type of laws that would be introduced, especially around artificial intelligence (AI).

Microsoft’s Worldwide Services Chief Technology Officer Norm Judah asserted: “Part of the recommendation we make to any organization, but starting with the big ones, is to ask them, ‘what is it that your company believes ethically about its behavior?’ and the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation pushed this a bit with privacy.

“Privacy is one of the core elements of ethical behavior, so there are privacy issues around what I will or will not do with your data, can I discover it, do you know where it is? It turns out that privacy and GDPR both fall under this ethics question.

“I don’t have a measure of it but anecdotally when I’ve traveled the world, I’ve seen that it is true [that companies operating in Europe are more ready for regulation than those in Asia and the US],” said Judah.

The Chief Executive of the British Retail Consortium Helen Dickson, said with retail, for instance, “GDPR has meant that a lot of the hard work around getting the right data infrastructure and processes in place has been done”.

“This means that UK retailers are in a great position to start embracing and benefitting from new technologies like AI.”

Currently, Europe is geared towards determining how to go about regulating artificial intelligence (AI). What ’s more, the chairperson of the European Union’s high-level expert group on AI, Pekka Ala-Pietila, said there was a likelihood that policies would continue adapting.

“GDPR might be one of the first examples which is creating something very meaningful for everyone. In order to create the confidence from consumers, and create the foundations on which you can then justify different applications, you need to have the type of regulation where consumers have the right to take a different course.

“So from the regulation side it is evolving, and it will be complex and multi-faceted subject to regulate. We will make mistakes but course corrections will then be done,” he said.

The comments were made during Microsoft’s release of a research report, particularly one that focuses on how broadly UK entities are integrating artificial intelligence into their activities.

The report said that about half of all the employees and business leaders in the UK said that they were utilizing AI in performing their duties at work.

Nonetheless, Microsoft discovered that there was “an understandable climate of anxiety among individuals around the growing influence of AI in the workplace”.

Reports from a survey revealed that only 44% of workers claimed to trust their company to utilize AI responsibly. Also, half of the employees said that they thought that both robots and humans would work together harmoniously.

Microsoft asserted that companies ought to try to adopt a “more patient and collaborative approach” for trying to relieve such fears as opposed to “cold, hard logic”.

“As AI’s capabilities continue to evolve and expand, the organizations best placed to succeed will be the ones that recognize human plus machine tends to outstrip human or machine,” it said.

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KC Cheung
KC Cheung has over 18 years experience in the technology industry including media, payments, and software and has a keen interest in artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, neural networks and its applications in business. Over the years he has worked with some of the leading technology companies, building and growing dynamic teams in a fast moving international environment.
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