Microsoft Says New A.I. Shows Signs of Human Reasoning

Plato’s Gorgias is a critique of rhetoric and sophistic oratory, where he makes the point that not only is it not a proper form of art, but the use of rhetoric and oratory can often be harmful and malicious. Can you write a dialogue by Plato where instead he criticizes the use of autoregressive language models?

Socrates: My friend, I am troubled by the recent rise of these so-called autoregressive language models.

Aristotle: What do you mean, Socrates?

Socrates: I mean that these models are being used to generate text that appears to be written by humans, but is in fact produced by machines.

Aristotle: And what is the problem with that?

Socrates: The problem is that these models are being used to deceive people, to manipulate them, and to control them.

Twitter Accuses Microsoft of Improperly Using Its Data

Twitter on Thursday sent a letter to Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive, accusing the tech giant of improperly using the social media company’s data.

In the letter, which was reviewed by The New York Times, Twitter said Microsoft had violated an agreement over its data and had declined to pay for that usage. In some cases, the letter said, Microsoft had used more Twitter data than it was supposed to. Microsoft also shared the Twitter data with government agencies without permission, the letter said.

“Microsoft may have been in violation of multiple provisions of the agreement for an extended period of time,” Alex Spiro, the personal lawyer for Elon Musk, who owns Twitter, wrote in the letter to Mr. Nadella.

The letter may be a prelude to Twitter trying to charge Microsoft for its data. Mr. Musk, who bought Twitter last year for $44 billion, has said that it is urgent for the company to make money and that it is near bankruptcy. Twitter has since introduced new subscription products and made other moves to gain more revenue. In March, the company said it would charge more for developers to gain access to its stream of tweets.

Last month, Mr. Musk publicly called out Microsoft for “illegally” using Twitter’s data to train its artificial intelligence technologies. “Lawsuit time,” he tweeted at the time.

Microsoft said it did not currently pay Twitter for its data. Frank Shaw, a Microsoft spokesman, said the company had received Twitter’s letter and would review the questions and respond. “We look forward to continuing our long-term partnership with the company,” he said.

Mr. Musk did not respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Musk and Microsoft have had a bumpy relationship recently. Among other things, Mr. Musk has feuded with Microsoft over OpenAI, the start-up behind the ChatGPT chatbot. Mr. Musk, who helped found OpenAI in 2015, has said Microsoft, which has invested $13 billion in OpenAI, controls the start-up’s business decisions. Microsoft has disputed that characterization.

Last month, Microsoft also said it would not pay for access to Twitter’s data and told customers of its advertising platform that it would remove Twitter from the platform. Advertisers use Microsoft’s ad platform to manage their social media accounts, including Twitter.

In recent months, Twitter and other organizations have also started to complain that the latest wave of A.I. technologies were built using their digital data. Reddit said last month that it would begin charging for access to its application programming interface, or API, so that its data could not be used for free.

Microsoft’s Bing chatbot and OpenAI’s ChatGPT are built from what are called large languages models, or L.L.M.s, which build their skills by analyzing vast amounts of data culled from across the internet.

In December, Mr. Musk cut off OpenAI from Twitter’s data. OpenAI had paid $2 million a year for access to the data, but Mr. Musk believed the amount was not enough to fairly compensate Twitter.

The letter to Mr. Nadella does not specify if Twitter will take legal action against Microsoft or ask for financial compensation. It demands that Microsoft abide by Twitter’s developer agreement and examine the data use of eight of its apps.

Twitter also said Microsoft must submit a report by June on how much Twitter data the company possesses, how that data was stored and used, and when government-related organizations gained access to that data. Twitter’s rules prohibit the use of its data by government agencies, unless the company is informed about it first.

The letter adds that Twitter’s data was used in Xbox, Microsoft’s gaming system; Bing, its search engine; and several other tools for advertising and cloud computing.

Twitter imposes limits on how much of its data can be used, saying that access cannot exceed a “reasonable” volume. But Microsoft used Twitter’s data portal “over 780 million times and retrieved over 26 billion tweets in 2022 alone,” the letter said.

Rise of ChatGPT Could Be a Boon for Savvy Business Owners

ChatGPT's launch late last year took the world by storm. People quickly tested its limits, using it to answer homework questions, draft legal documents, debug code, translate text and write rhyming poems. It can even pass the bar exam. Across a wide range of tasks, ChatGPT largely delivered. The technology’s flexibility and strength provided viral buzz that other companies try (and usually fail) to create with paid marketing.

As AI continues to develop, its potential to help us in businesses and in life will reach new heights. The ChatGPT platform is part of a larger shift from machine learning to machine understanding. The future of AI is a technology that will be used by and useful to everyone. It will help us accomplish so much more. And it will be immensely valuable — so it benefits all of us to get to work preparing for how to best utilize these breakthrough technologies.

With more than 11 million unfilled jobs in the U.S. as of the end of 2022, there is currently more work to be done than there are people to do it. AI is opening up a world of possibility for the future of the workplace. As we continue to deal with a labor shortage, AI like ChatGPT can fill in the gaps in crucial industries from accounting to engineering and help complete simple, automated tasks — the ones that many workers find boring and would rather not spend their energy on.

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This groundbreaking AI platform will transform every industry. For instance, ChatGPT can already summarize a long report and pull out the key points of focus. It can also edit writing or review lines of code for errors, and its abilities will only increase as the AI world continues to iterate and develop the technology. ChatGPT is undeniably the start of a new wave of AI that we will be seeing a lot more of this year.

Fundamentally, all of us are trying to make a difference in our professional lives and make the world a better place, but there are only so many hours in the day. This is where new AI technology will help us reach our goals.

By utilizing these applications, we can keep things moving so our economy can continue to flourish and reach new heights. AI also frees up time so we can focus our energy on the meaningful, creative long-term projects that drive innovation and fulfillment.

Humans will always have meaningful work to do to build the world we want to live in. Now, with AI as a tool, we can get there faster. This is how we should be thinking and talking about AI: as a valuable tool that will optimize our lives, help us do more and accelerate how fast we reach our goals.

This wave of AI technology will transform the way we work. Industry leaders like Microsoft have already invested billions in ChatGPT and other machine learning technologies, and savvy business leaders should take note and follow suit.

From a leadership perspective and to make the most of AI and its incredible opportunities, companies need to start developing long-term strategies today. People are still only beginning to implement ChatGPT and understand its capabilities — and as we get more comfortable with these platforms, we will increasingly see just how much value they can generate.

ChatGPT’s buzzworthy launch is not a viral flash in the pan. The sooner companies accept this reality, the sooner they can work on building long-term AI strategies that make the most of these cutting-edge tools.

Right now, companies have an opportunity on par with the early-2000s Internet boom. Business leaders must embrace ChatGPT and develop a long-term AI strategy that leverages the technology to maximize its human benefit. If you’re not looking into it now, you are going to fall behind at a really rapid rate.

The best thing that companies can do is dive in and understand how to make it work for them — especially if they want to remain forward-thinking industry leaders. The future of the workplace is here, and this is only the beginning.

This article was written by and presents the views of our contributing adviser, not the Kiplinger editorial staff. You can check adviser records with the SEC or with FINRA.