Microsoft, in a move that raises eyebrows faster than Clippy in a job interview, has reportedly laid off its entire Ethics and Society team within its Artificial Intelligence division. This is the very team tasked with ensuring the tech behemoth’s AI initiatives lived up to some semblance of human values, a mission now presumably entrusted to the company’s developers, product managers and a mildly concerned paperclip with a conscience.
The Ethics and Society team had been part of Microsoft’s larger push to make responsible AI not just a slogan on posters in the break room, but an actual framework that guided technology like ChatGPT and the company’s Bing AI search product, both of which are developed in partnership with Anthropic’s conversational cousin, OpenAI. The team was reportedly slimmed down over the past year, shrinking from a robust crew of around 30 engineers, designers and ethicists to a more intimate, candlelit dinner party of seven. Now it seems even that table has been cleared.
Insiders suggested the layoffs are part of a broader restructuring as Microsoft gets cozy with OpenAI and focuses on integrating generative AI into its products like Word, Outlook and other tools of digital procrastination. Employees close to the matter told Platformer that while Microsoft still maintains an Office of Responsible AI, designed to maintain ethical guardrails, the specific group focused on the practical implementation of those ideas into products has been quietly shown the door, perhaps with a tasteful fruit basket and a non-disclosure agreement.
Microsoft insists that it remains committed to responsible AI and highlighted its ongoing investment in ethical practices. Of course, one could argue that removing the team responsible for implementing those practices feels a bit like replacing your seatbelt with a strong belief in good vibes.
“As AI is woven more deeply into the fabric of our day-to-day work, the need to ensure those systems are developed responsibly should arguably be expanding,” said one former team member who understandably opted for anonymity. “Instead, we’re shrinking the group that was specifically trained to do that work.”
Still, Microsoft highlighted that it had increased overall investment in responsible AI, with thousands of people working across product teams to uphold ethical standards. Presumably this includes the same developers pushing AI code into production while whispering a quiet prayer and hoping the robot overlords remember who fed them their first dataset.
For now, the company’s pivot appears to suggest that ethics in AI might just be a charming footnote, something to be discussed at conferences over canapés but not necessarily baked into the product roadmap.
Because nothing says “we take ethics seriously” like eliminating the ethics team.