Microsoft is struggling with their new Microsoft News AI picking stories which embarrass them

We reported in May that Microsoft was replacing their human editors with an AI which picked their news stories, syndicated from other publications, and then distributed to 500 million readers in 140 countries.

Microsoft News then said it uses AI to scans content, understand “dimensions like freshness, category, topic type, opinion content and potential popularity and then presents it for our editors. Our algorithms suggest appropriate photos to pair with content to help bring stories to life. Editors then curate the top stories throughout the day, across a variety of topics, so our readers get the latest news from the best sources.”

Now Microsoft is struggling with the AI embarrassing them on two fronts.

The first was when the AI published a story about Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall struggling with racism by using a picture of her colleague Leigh-Anne Pinnock, with Thirlwall complaining:

“This sh*t happens to @leighannepinnock and I ALL THE TIME that it’s become a running joke. It offends me that you couldn’t differentiate the two women of colour out of four members of a group … DO BETTER!”

The original story did have the correct picture, making the failure more embarrassing.

To add insult to injury, now the remaining MSN editors are struggling with the AI picking up and republishing stories about MSN messing up, with the human editors being told to delete the story if the AI picks it up, but also that the AI may overrule them and republish it again.

One staff member said Microsoft was deeply concerned about reputational damage to its AI product: “With all the anti-racism protests at the moment, now is not the time to be making mistakes.”

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has always maintained for AI to be used alongside instead of in place of employees, but it seems the story illustrates who is really in charge.

via the Guardian