It’s rare for a tech executive to cue up a video mocking themselves — but that’s just what Microsoft President Brad Smith did on Tuesday at the Cascadia Innovation Corridor conference in Seattle. Smith played a clip from The Daily Show in which comedian Jon Stewart lampooned his and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s interviews about AI’s impact on jobs.
The segment poked fun at the idea that displaced workers might become “prompt engineers” — a new job Stewart rebranded as “types questions guy.”
It was a self-aware feature of a talk that balanced enthusiasm for artificial intelligence’s potential with sober reflections on its hype and potential pitfalls.
The Microsoft leader called AI the “next great general purpose technology” on par with electricity. He said AI will transform sectors including health, education, biotech, aerospace, agriculture, climate and others.
That was a theme during Tuesday’s event. Former Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire, who leads the Cascadia Innovation Corridor group, kicked off the day by calling AI “a defining technology of our generation.”
Smith, who in his three decades at Microsoft has witnessed tech bubbles and bursts, also offered a “breadth of perspective” on AI that he hinted might be lacking in Silicon Valley.
“In so many ways, the sky is the limit,” Smith said. “That is exciting, but I don’t want to just be another tech bro who says, ‘Hey, great, here it comes. Get ready, get out your wallet.’”
AI-driven employment threats are becoming increasingly real in the tech sector and beyond. Amazon on Tuesday announced a huge round of layoffs, slashing 14,000 corporate and tech jobs. Earlier this year Microsoft laid off 15,000 employees worldwide. The cuts aren’t all tied to AI, but many executives are talking about worker efficiency gains thanks to the tech.
Despite the recent layoffs, many industry and elected leaders in the Cascadia region, which stretches from Vancouver, B.C., through Seattle and down to Portland, see AI as a promising economic engine that can build on the area’s strong tech foundation. That includes Microsoft and Amazon as well as a growing slate of AI startups, plus institutions such as the University of Washington, University of British Columbia, Allen Institute for AI and others.
But Smith — who manages to strike a persona blending tech evangelist, politician and favorite uncle — also acknowledged concerns about disparities in AI access, whether looking locally at rural versus urban divides, or the gap between AI use in affluent and low-income countries that lack widespread electricity and internet connections.
He also tackled the meta questions around the responsible use of AI and encouraged society to get out in front of the technology with appropriate guardrails.
“What are we trying to do as an industry, as a region, as a planet, as a species? Are we trying to build machines that are better than people? Are we trying to build machines that will help people become smarter and better?” he asked.
“If the experience that we’ve all had with social media over the last 15 years teaches us anything at all,” Smith continued, “it is that the best time to ask these questions and to debate them is before technology answers them for us.”
RELATED: Cascadia’s AI paradox: A world-leading opportunity threatened by rising costs and a talent crunch
