Satya Nadella says strong leadership is required to mitigate dangers of AI

Nadella added that while AI development is happening quickly, it’s moving fast in the right direction and humans continue to play a major role in the process. “Humans are in the loop versus being out of the loop. It’s a design choice, which, at least, we have made,” he stated.

However, despite people remaining integral to the process thus far, Nadella acknowledges that real displacement can happen in the job market. Although, this can be offset to some degree as AI will also help create new jobs.

“I mean, there can be a billion developers. In fact, the world needs a billion developers,” he said. “So the idea that this is actually a democratising tool to make access to new technology and access to new knowledge easier so that the ramp-up on the learning curve is easier.”

In the lines of a previous interview where Nadella predicted that AI will benefit education, he reiterated here that children will have access to an “AI tutor” that will break down information and eliminate the fear of learning. He added that while critical thinking will still be handled by humans, there is an opportunity to take advantage of new tools.

“Steve Jobs had this beautiful, beautiful line, right, which is ‘computers are like the bicycles for the mind,’” Nadella concluded. “We now have an upgrade, we have a steam engine for the mind.”