Gadgetory

- If you're a Windows fan, you don't need me to tell you that today is the start of the Microsoft Build Developers Conference. But if you are a true Windows fan, you don't need me to tell you that this kind of generic-looking campus is Microsoft headquarters. We came here a week before Build to talk to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, look at the demos that are going to happen at this keynote, and basically get the scoop on what's next for Windows and what's next for Microsoft. Nadella recently reorganized the team that makes Windows, so I wanted to know, how important is Windows to Microsoft now? What even is Windows? - We built operating systems all our life. What is an operating system in a world where every person is going to use multiple devices in their life, they're going to collaborate with many people in their family or at work, what does it even mean to build a platform? We have to confront ... I mean, we're the Windows company after all-- - Right. - So to be able to say, well, Windows and multi-device experiences are not at odds. In fact, let's make every Windows application a multi-device application. It's something we're going to talk a lot about. It's all about being able to recognize that every Windows user also happens to have in many cases, or in all cases, a phone as well. So it means they already have multiple devices. They have a Windows device and perhaps a non-Windows device. How do we make sure that both of devices can work in concert to help the user get the most out of their computers? For example, the timeline feature is a fantastic feature for continuity between devices. - My takeaway from what he just said about Windows is not that Windows is going away because of course Windows isn't going away. Instead, I think Microsoft is going to stop trying to turn everything into Windows. The better plan, the new plan is they're going to try and make everything that's already out there work better if you happen to have a Windows device around. There is a bit of Windows news at Build, but I also wanted to talk to Nadella about AI. - We are moving from celebrating AI breakthroughs to really now saying, "How can we celebrate AI "being deployed everywhere?" Jao Ming, for example, built a device using our cognitive capabilities, both speech recognition and machine translation. Chinese travelers worldwide are going to be the largest population of travelers. Just imagine if they could have far field device that's just there in their pocket and they could put it in front, and the two of us could be conversing, one in Mandarin and the other in English, and in real time have language translator. That's a real application of AI. The DGI drone, where you now have a drone that's flying over oil pipelines, and what we did was we have a machine-learning model which can recognize any breaks in the pipeline that's been downloaded to run on the DGI drone itself. That means Azure Edge is in the DGI drone. That's an example of it. - All this talk about AI can be really abstract. It's hard to get your hands on it. And so Microsoft took us to a place where they actually take this AI and turn it into real stuff, and it's called the Bat Cave because that's a cool name. Anywhere, this is where they demo all the stuff that they're creating to use in their keynotes. And this is it. (upbeat music) - Hey, Dieter. - Hi. - Thanks for joining us. I think probably the best way to show you what we're going to be talking about is to just have you join the meeting with me. Are you down for that? - Yeah, I love meetings. I have so many of them. - (laughs) I'm glad you still have positive feelings about your meetings, even with so many. - [Dieter Voiceover] Microsoft showed me a demo of a futuristic computer meeting. There was a prototype 360 degree camera that recognized me and greeted me when I walked in the door. It provided live transcription of the entire meeting, and it could also do live translation, but I didn't get to see that. It also automatically broke out action items when somebody said something like, "Let me follow up on that." I saw Cortana automatically schedule meetings and hunt for documents based on a conversation inside the Microsoft Teams app, and I also played around with a 3-D render of data inside Hollow Lens. We were looking for why there was a bunch of temperature sensors that were too hot in an office building. - This is the most technologically advanced way to narc on somebody turning the heat up in their office too high that I've ever seen in my life. (group laughs) - Right, right, right. - [Dieter Voiceover] Don't worry, nobody got fired. It was just faulty sensors. The need thing about this demo is that although it's not real for users yet, it's all built on AI technology that Microsoft has already made, so it's not some kitchen of the future thing. It could actually happen for regular users really soon. But AI isn't always about whizzbang features. It also has the potential to be really dangerous. Just look at how Facebook's algorithm has gone haywire for the past year. How is Microsoft going to prevent that sort of thing from happening? - What sort of responsibility do you have to built protections into the AI capabilities you're providing to developers, such that it won't cause completely insane sideways effects? - I would say he have a very broad responsibility as tech companies, and tech platform companies in particular. I think, when I look at it, there are three principle issues, or three issues on which you have to have strong principles guiding you. - Okay. - One is on privacy. You know, fundamentally where the world is going is you've got to recognize that privacy is a human right and that you need to treat it as such. Second, you have to treat security and cyber security as something that is important for everyone. And third, you have to really not just ask what can computers do, but you should ask what should computers do? - Right, right. - So those are the three issues. - Yeah, well I guess the core of the question is, when you start allowing people to build on top of the AI, how much of that responsibility falls on you to limit their capabilities, and how much of it do you think is just encouraging people to not be terrible when they start making their AIs? - Having been in this platform business for all the years at Microsoft, I think the key is for us to be able to guide people to make those design choices. I mean, think good UI. We will always have books that we would always read about what does it mean to create good UI. - Right. - I think we all now have to start reading what does it mean to create good AI. And good AI is not just the technology frameworks. It is also the ethical principles that guide good AI. And I think that's where we have to start. - So, listen, all this talk about cloud and AI brings up something that's kind of hard to express. I call it the gap. It's the gap between what a company is promising is coming and what you're using every day. It's the gap between what you know Microsoft could have been and what it's become. Microsoft in 2018 is a lot more like IBM than it is like Apple. They're just doing different things now. And I get it. It's frustrating, and maybe it's ever a little bit sad. You can imagine an alternate history where Microsoft didn't completely fail at phones and is taking on Android, and, I don't know, where the Xbox isn't getting completely housed by the PS4. But just because Microsoft isn't making a phone doesn't mean that it's not relevant. It's trying to win with Azure Cloud Services, and IOT, and Microsoft 365, and a bunch of other buzzwords that you maybe don't feel are all that applicable to you. It's not as exciting, but Nadella at Microsoft is trying to focus on what's working, and I want an OS that works with whatever phone that I have, and I want a company to focus on the ethics of AI from the jump, instead of waiting until after it screws up an election and then apologizing for it. If we're going to have AI and drones and IOT and everything else, we need real competition to keep everybody in check. But there is that gap between what success means for Microsoft now, and in some other alternate universe that's just not in the cards anymore. And the funny thing is, nobody at Microsoft really seems to be sweating that gap. There's plenty of other technology to fill it. And this new Microsoft is trying to work with that technology instead of against it. Hey everybody, thanks so much for watching, and I want to do, what do you think of this new Microsoft? Let me know in the comments. And then head over to the Verge Science YouTube channel, especially if you like things like rockets or mold. If you like mold, it's really cool.