Microsoft has just announced a new Corporate Vision Statement. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/02/microsoft-2017-annual-report-lists-ai-as-top-priority.html
Well I hope their marketing vision does not include replacing peoples jobs with AI droids. In the short term that puts those peoples wages in the pockets of the stock holders, which I don't doubt Wall Street thinks is a good thing. What doesn't seem to occur to them when they work to cut payroll is, those were the people that would have been buying their products with those wages.
Microsoft has been buying up a load of AI companies in 2017. This seems to be what they want. 'The intelligent edge' is the interface between the computer and a world of devices, products and machines infused with AI. Data being created and collected by devices at the “edge” of the network are typically funneled into a centralised cloud. Microsoft say that in the future applications will operate across multiple integrated devices that will be able to process ever-increasing amounts of their own data. With more data being collected and used on devices, more computing power will also move over to the “edge”. That opens the way for devices to take on machine learning. People will be able to search their surroundings just like we now search the web. And in time, devices of all sorts will be able to grasp context, recognise images, acquire knowledge, comprehend speech and understand us. They are looking at how machine learning and real-time big data analytics might be used to teach virtual assistants to understand more. Then there are all those IOT devices that 'need to be' infused with AI so people can interact with them. Above, I summarized how the President of Microsoft Asia describes 'the intelligent edge infused with AI'. He summed it up as AI being “Here, There and Everywhere” .
