Microsoft Humanist Superintelligence offers Aims to Revolutionize Global Healthcare

Microsoft apparently just made a giant leap in the AI competition. This time though, it is not about the usual writing essays or producing images, instead it is about saving human lives. Microsoft believes that intelligence alone is not longer enough, rather it has a greater ambition of making machines wise.

The tech behemoth has set up a new division, the MAI Superintelligence Team, and its purpose is to create superintelligent AI that would be capable of beating human experts in particular areas, starting with medical diagnostics.

By establishing the MAI Superintelligence Team, the tech giant is not engaging in the fantasy of a god like, world controlling AI, instead it is about ethical AI that can slowly kick off with the area of medical diagnostics. The project will be supervised by Mustafa Suleyman, who is the DeepMind co-founder and current AI chief of Microsoft.

He believes that the company is going to invest “a lot of money” into the humanist Superintelligence project. It’s a step that is daring, almost metaphysical, one that aims to combine the precision of machines with moral responsibility.

Microsoft’s Bold Medical Bet

Microsoft is not the only one among the big tech companies that are looking towards the dream of artificial general intelligence, where machines would be able to learn and evolve infinitely. But Microsoft’s strategy is more down to earth and cause driven.

Suleyman is not going with the idea of an uncontrollable AI scenario, which is the main argument against the dream of limitless power of AI. He rather sees systems that are skillful in a particular area that would be able to identify and tackle very impactful problems much quicker than human beings, for instance, early detection of diseases or speeding up the research in medicine.

This can be considered as a combination of ambition and caution, targeting “superhuman performance” while not increasing existential risk. If it works, Microsoft’s AI will have a revolutionary impact on preventive healthcare, where they can detect illnesses before it becomes fatal, along with offering the possibility of an increase in global life expectancy.

A Calculated Leap of Faith

There is a certain beauty in the fact that Microsoft has named this a “humanist superintelligence.” It’s a technology that constantly reminds us that its purpose is to uplift human beings instead of outsmarting them. However, the firm’s statement does certainly raises the following issues. Will AI really be revolutionary and at the same time safe?

Will a system that is so powerful that it could even diagnose diseases, be unbiased and free from misuse or not? Suleyman’s vision isn’t just a matter of brilliant technology, rather it also requires a lot of virtues like humility, honesty, and the everlasting dedication of making sure that intelligence is a servant to humanity rather than the other way around.

Bottom Line

What Microsoft is calling “humanist superintelligence” might just be a trendy word these days, but it definitely is an indication of the tech industry’s changing perception of power. It is an effort that combines ambition with responsibility, which is an indicator that it is not only about the AI of the future being the smart one, but is also about the wise humans leading them.

The question of whether or not the experiment in ethical superintelligence will be a success is still open, yet one thing is clear that if AI can indeed diagnose diseases quicker than doctors, why not let it also teach the tech world a bit about patience, purpose, and the essential worth of human life.