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Microsoft Engineer Raises Concerns Over AI Image-Generator to US Officials and Company's Board
A Microsoft engineer has raised concerns about offensive and harmful imagery generated by the company's AI image-generator tool. The engineer has sent letters to US regulators and Microsoft's board of directors, urging them to take action. The engineer specifically highlighted the risk of the tool generating sexually objectified images, violence, political bias, and other inappropriate content.
A Microsoft engineer has raised concerns about the potential for offensive and harmful imagery generated by the company's artificial intelligence (AI) image-generator tool. Shane Jones, a principal software engineering lead at Microsoft, has sent letters to US regulators and the tech giant's board of directors, urging them to take action.
Jones considers himself a whistleblower and has also met with US Senate staffers to share his concerns. The Federal Trade Commission has confirmed receiving his letter but declined to comment further.
In response, Microsoft stated that it is committed to addressing employee concerns and appreciates Jones' efforts in testing their latest technology for safety. The company recommended that he use their internal reporting channels to investigate and address the issues.
Jones specifically raised concerns about Microsoft's Copilot Designer, a tool that generates images from written prompts. He highlighted the risk of the tool generating harmful content, including sexually objectified images of women, violence, political bias, and other inappropriate content. Jones has repeatedly asked Microsoft to either remove the product from the market or change its age rating to indicate it is for mature audiences.
In his letter to Microsoft's board, Jones called for an independent investigation into whether the company is marketing unsafe products without disclosing known risks to consumers, including children.
This is not the first time Jones has voiced his concerns. Initially, Microsoft advised him to take his findings to OpenAI, their close business partner. When that approach failed, Jones publicly posted a letter to OpenAI on Microsoft-owned LinkedIn. However, he was later asked by Microsoft's legal team to delete the post.
Jones has also brought his concerns to the attention of the US Senate's Commerce Committee and the state attorney general in Washington, where Microsoft is headquartered.
Jones clarified that while the core issue lies with OpenAI's DALL-E model, users of OpenAI's ChatGPT, which generates AI images, do not experience the same harmful outputs due to additional safeguards implemented by the two companies.
The emergence of impressive AI image-generators, such as OpenAI's DALL-E 2 and ChatGPT, has sparked public fascination and put pressure on tech giants like Microsoft and Google to release their own versions. However, without effective safeguards, the technology poses risks, including the creation of harmful "deepfake" images that falsely depict real people in compromising situations.
In response to public outrage, Google has temporarily suspended its Gemini chatbot's ability to generate images of people, particularly due to concerns about racial and ethnic depictions.
A Microsoft engineer has raised concerns about offensive and harmful imagery generated by the company's AI image-generator tool.
The engineer has sent letters to US regulators and Microsoft's board of directors, urging them to take action.
The engineer specifically highlighted the risk of the tool generating sexually objectified images, violence, political bias, and other inappropriate content.
Source: AP NEWS