Microsoft president: We said no to Cali cops' face-recog tech – and we won't craft killer robots

If the updates to the facial recognition software are on par with their Windows updates then the cops are going to be cuffing lots of innocent people and missing the crims.

When AI Will Be Ready

Artificial Incompetence is touted to ready in 5 to 10 years but it seems the 5 to 10 years is always 5 to 10 years away. This reminds of navel gazing about fusion power generation being about 20 years away over 50 years ago and it is still '20 years away'. AI is the fusion power of the IT industry; always promised but never arrives.

One of the problems alluded to in the post is the quality of the dataset and the suitability of the dataset for 'training' the AI system. They are not identical problems. Datasets are often not as good as assumed so there is always a certain amount of garbage in that will polluted the system. Another problem, even if you have relatively high quality data, is often it was not originally collected for use with an AI system. So it is incomplete for the purposes of AI but may be more than adequate for other purposes.

I wish

"Microsoft president Brad Smith has revealed that the company turned down an order from California cops for any of its software over human rights concerns".

we won't craft killer robots

Well, at least we now know when Microsoft will unveil the Windows Killer Robot Edition from their underground bunker : just after the surface of the Earth is a piie of smouldering rubble.

At least Microsoft had some sense to understand the limits/problems of their technology

Google would happily go along with it and only reluctantly pull out when it became public and their employees revolted.

Facebook would be all-in with Zuckerberg blaming everyone but himself when things went horribly wrong and the software flagged an innocent man as a criminal leading to cops rolling up on him with a hair trigger leading to a fatal result.

Two questions

In which location could facial recognition most likely be used without negative PR impact, California, or China?

In which location could facial recognition be sold with profits sizeable enough to matter to Microsoft, California, or China?

Diversity

"tech companies need staff who represent the world - women, African-Americans"

How about some AFRICANS. A bunch of different coloured wealthy educated Americans does not create diversity it creates a monoculture.