Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says, “Everyone is a stakeholder” in artificial intelligence
Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive, said Wednesday that opposition to artificial intelligence is visible across the United States, but that the technology will increase wages and that “everyone is a stakeholder” in AI.
“You can’t deny the perception is terrible,” Mr. Nadella, 58, said during a live interview in San Francisco with “Hard Fork,” The New York Times’ tech podcast. He acknowledged that jobs could be displaced due to artificial intelligence, but pointed to the technology’s power and benefits.
Mr Nadella added that he is not opposed to people sharing in the wealth of AI companies. The idea was recently floated by Bernie Sanders, a progressive senator from Vermont, who called AI a “public resource” that Americans should own. On Wednesday, President Trump also floated the idea for the second time in a week, saying that Americans could get rich by sharing the wealth from AI firms.
Mr Nadella spoke out as AI has become an increasingly political issue. A national movement of parenting groups, religious leaders, environmentalists and former Tea Party activists criticized the technology and the construction of AI data centers across the country. Many have criticized the technology for how it could displace jobs, threaten national security and affect people’s mental health.
Mr. Nadella has steered Microsoft, one of the world’s largest public companies, into a fierce race in artificial intelligence. The tech giant, along with Google, Amazon and Meta, has spent billions building data centers to get enough computing power to develop the technology.
In 2019, Mr. Nadella oversaw Microsoft’s initial investment in OpenAI, a bet that proved prescient when the AI lab’s ChatGPT chatbot took the world by storm in late 2022. Microsoft ended up investing an additional $12 billion in OpenAI. The partnership gave Microsoft an early lead in artificial intelligence
But as competition intensified, Mr. Nadella recently renegotiated Microsoft’s relationship with OpenAI to make the companies less dependent. Microsoft remains the start-up’s main shareholder and its biggest financial backer
Mr. Nadella talked about the need to carefully allocate Microsoft’s resources — especially computing — to serving customers, supporting OpenAI, and developing Microsoft’s own AI products and systems.
(The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging copyright infringement of news content related to AI systems. Both companies have denied the suit’s claims.)
At an event on Wednesday, Mr. Nadella said Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI remains important to his company, noting how the startup continues to provide it with intellectual property.
Mr. Nadella also addressed a note that the new leaders of Xbox, Microsoft’s video game division, sent a message to employees on Wednesday about a reset over the next 100 days. The challenge for Xbox was making money from entertainment content, he said, and also having to deal with the rising cost of materials for the video game consoles it makes.
“Semiconductor supply shortages and memory shortages, in particular, are having a huge impact on consumer electronics,” Mr Nadella said.
He added: “We have to make this a sustainable business that provides what is fundamentally one of the best sources of entertainment.”
Karen Weise contributed reporting from Seattle.