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The final two days have been busy ones at Redmond: yesterday, Microsoft introduced its new Azure OpenAI Service for presidency. Today, the tech large unveiled a brand new set of three commitments to its prospects as they search to combine generative AI into their organizations safely, responsibly, and securely.
Each represents a continued transfer ahead in Microsoft’s journey towards mainstreaming AI, and assuring its enterprise prospects that its AI options and method are reliable.
Generative AI for presidency businesses of all ranges
Those working in authorities businesses and civil providers on the native, state, and federal degree are sometimes beset by extra information than they know what to do with — together with information on constituents, contractors, and initiatives.
Generative AI, then, would appear to pose an incredible alternative: giving authorities staff the potential to sift by their huge portions of information extra quickly and utilizing pure language queries and instructions, versus clunkier, older strategies of information retrieval and data lookup.
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However, authorities businesses usually have very strict necessities on the know-how they will apply to their information and duties. Enter Microsoft Azure Government, which already works with the U.S. Defense Department, Energy Department and NASA, as Bloomberg famous when it broke the information of the brand new Azure OpenAI Services for Government.
“For government customers, Microsoft has developed a new architecture that enables government agencies to securely access the large language models in the commercial environment from Azure Government allowing those users to maintain the stringent security requirements necessary for government cloud operations,” wrote Bill Chappell, Microsoft’s chief know-how officer of strategic missions and applied sciences, in a weblog submit asserting the brand new instruments.
Specifically, the corporate unveiled Azure OpenAI Service REST APIs, which permit authorities prospects to construct new purposes or join current ones to OpenAI’s GPT-4, GPT-3, and Embeddings — however not over the general public web. Rather, Microsoft permits authorities shoppers to connect with OpenAI’s APIs securely over its encrypted, transport-layer safety (TLS) “Azure Backbone.”
“This traffic stays entirely within the Microsoft global network backbone and never enters the public internet,” the weblog submit specifies, later stating: “Your data is never used to train the OpenAI model (your data is your data).”
New commitments to prospects
On Thursday, Microsoft unveiled three commitments to its all of its prospects when it comes to how the corporate will method its growth of generative AI services and products. These embody:
- Sharing its learnings about growing and deploying AI responsibly
- Creating an AI assurance program
- Supporting prospects as they implement their very own AI programs responsibly
As a part of the primary dedication, Microsoft mentioned it should publish key paperwork, together with the Responsible AI Standard, AI Impact Assessment Template, AI Impact Assessment Guide, Transparency Notes, and detailed primers on accountable AI implementation. Additionally, Microsoft will share the curriculum used to coach its personal workers on accountable AI practices.
The second dedication focuses on the creation of an AI Assurance Program. This program will assist prospects be sure that the AI purposes they deploy on Microsoft’s platforms adjust to authorized and regulatory necessities for accountable AI. It will embody parts corresponding to regulator engagement assist, implementation of the AI Risk Management Framework revealed by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), buyer councils for suggestions, and regulatory advocacy.
Lastly, Microsoft will present assist for purchasers as they implement their very own AI programs responsibly. The firm plans to ascertain a devoted staff of AI authorized and regulatory consultants in numerous areas world wide to help companies in implementing accountable AI governance programs. Microsoft may also collaborate with companions, corresponding to PwC and EY, to leverage their experience and assist prospects in deploying their very own accountable AI programs.
The broader context swirling round Microsoft and AI
While these commitments mark the start of Microsoft’s efforts to advertise accountable AI use, the corporate acknowledges that ongoing adaptation and enchancment will probably be obligatory as know-how and regulatory landscapes evolve.
The transfer by Microsoft is available in response to the issues surrounding the potential misuse of AI and the necessity for accountable AI practices, together with current letters by U.S. lawmakers questioning Meta Platforms’ founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg over the corporate’s launch of its LLaMA LLM, which consultants say may have a chilling impact on growth of open-source AI.
The information additionally comes on the heels of Microsoft’s annual Build convention for software program builders, the place the corporate unveiled Fabric, its new information analytics platform for cloud customers that seeks to place Microsoft forward of Google’s and Amazon’s cloud analytics choices.
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