In a session at the World Economic Forum, Microsoft chairman and CEO Satya Nadella highlighted that a ‘golden age of AI’ is upon us and that it will redefine work as we know it.
“The future of work is not just about technology and tools,” he said. It’s about new management practices and sensibilities to the workplace.”
In the recent past, it has been widely reported that the tech giant is ramping up its investments into ChatGPT, an AI-powered and large language model developed by OpenAI that can be used for natural language processing tasks.
The AI platform site amassed 1 million users in just five days after its recent launch. It is being touted by the industry as one of a dozen AI-driven so-called “killer apps” that will transform human productivity and the future of work.
ChatGPT answers complex questions via short prompts on a vast array of topics, and even writes lyrics and poetry. Underpinned by generative models such as GPT-3 and GPT-3.5, it is an example of a technology dubbed generative AI.
“Microsoft is opening up access to new AI tools like ChatGPT,” said Nadella. “I see these technologies acting as a co-pilot, helping people do more with less.”
Sharing recent use cases of GPT technology, Nadella noted that ChatGPT was used by an expert coder from Silicon Valley who improved their productivity by 80% by using the model to help write better code faster. It was then also used by Indian farmer who was able to use a GPT interface to access an opaque government programme via the internet, despite only speaking a local dialect.
“AI is just at the beginning of the S-curve,” said Nadella. The near-term and long-term opportunities are enormous, he added.
Earlier this week, Microsoft has announced that it will expand the Azure OpenAI Service and will ‘soon’ integrate OpenAI’s artificial intelligence bot ChatGPT in it. It was also reported that a $10 billion investment into ChatGPT from Microsoft is in the works, however, the company has yet to confirm any such deal.
