I was at the PASS Data Community Data Summit and not surprisingly Microsoft spent a significant amount of time talking about AI.
They talked about all the steps they take to make sure that AI is ethical. Don’t get me wrong, that’s important and good to see.
Considering the general IP concerns that have emerged when it comes to how various LLMs and AI firms in general have acquired data for their models, I think there is an underestimation of concerns about how the data used to train and populate models may be used in other ways.
At one time, Microsoft seemed interested in expanding into various industries, such as travel (consider their interest in Expedia. If you are a company in the travel industry, it’s understandable that you might be hesitant to put your data into a model managed by Microsoft.
While I’m not suggesting Microsoft intends to misuse customer data, the risk certainly exists. I think Microsoft needs to do a better job of ensuring and explaining how customer specific data does not end up as part of some sort of larger model outside of the scope of the customer.
