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Saturday 28 OctOber 2017 TECHNOLOGY
A24

Being Bing: Microsoft’s overlooked AI tool

By MATT O’BRIEN ries, but they don’t have
AP Technology Writer all the other queries where
Microsoft’s Bing search people are asking every-
engine has long been a day things,” Cornett said.
punch line in the tech in- PRACTICAL EFFECTS
dustry, an also-ran that Neither Bing nor Microsoft’s
never came close to chal- AI efforts have yet made
lenging Google’s dominant significant contributions
position. to the company’s overall
But Microsoft could still earnings, though the com-
have the last laugh, since its pany repeatedly points out
service has helped lay the “we are infusing AI into all
groundwork for its burgeon- our products,” including
ing artificial intelligence ef- the workplace applications
fort, which is helping keep it sells to corporate custom-
the company competitive ers.
as it builds out its post-PC The company on Thursday
future. reported fiscal first-quarter
Bing probably never stood In this Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2016, file photo, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, center, answers a profit of $6.6 billion, up 16
a chance at surpassing question from the audience at the annual Microsoft shareholders meeting as Brad Smith, left, percent from a year earlier,
Google, but its 2nd-place president and chief legal officer, and Amy Hood, chief financial officer, look on, in Bellevue, Wash. on revenue of $24.5 billion,
spot is worth far more than Associated Press up 12 percent. Meanwhile,
the advertising dollars it of which range from its nett, a former executive crosoft better understand Bing-driven search adver-
pulls in with every click. Bil- voice assistant Cortana to for Yahoo’s search engine. language, images and text tising revenue increased by
lions of searches over time email-sorting features and “Whether it was intentional at a large scale, said Steve $210 million, or 15 percent,
have given Microsoft a the machine-learning algo- or not, having hundreds of Clayton, who as Microsoft’s to $1.6 billion — or roughly 7
massive repository of ev- rithms used by businesses millions of queries a day is chief storyteller helps com- percent of Microsoft’s over-
eryday questions people that pay for its cloud plat- exactly what you need to municate the company’s all business.
ask about their health, the form Azure. power huge artificial intel- AI strategy. That’s OK by current Mi-
weather, store hours or di- It’s been stepping up its ligence systems.” “It’s so much more than a crosoft current CEO Satya
rections. overt efforts recently, such Bing launched in 2009 as a search engine for Micro- Nadella. He doesn’t look
“The way machines learn as with this year’s acqui- rebranding of Microsoft’s soft,” he said. “It’s fuel that back to talk much about
is by looking for patterns sition of Montreal-based earlier search engines. Just helps build other things.” Bing, but he knows plenty
in data,” said former Mi- Maluuba , a company aim- weeks later, Yahoo and Bing serves dual purposes, about it. Nearly a decade
crosoft CEO Steve Ballmer, ing to create “literate ma- Microsoft signed a deal he said, as a source of data ago, he was the executive
when asked earlier this year chines” that can process for Bing to power Yahoo’s to train artificial intelligence tapped by Ballmer to head
about the relationship be- and communicate infor- search engine, giving Mi- and a vehicle to be able to Bing’s engineering efforts.
tween Microsoft’s AI efforts mation more like humans crosoft access to Yahoo’s deliver smarter services. In his recent autobiogra-
and Bing, which he helped do. greater search share, said While Google also has the phy , Nadella describes the
launch nearly a decade Some see Bing as the over- Cornett, who worked for advantage of a powerful search engine as a “great
ago. “It takes large data looked foundation to those Yahoo at the time. Similar search engine, other com- training ground for build-
sets to make that happen.” efforts. deals have infused Bing panies making big invest- ing the hyper-scale, cloud-
HIDDEN FOUNDATION “They’re getting a huge into the search features for ments in the AI race — such first services” that have
Microsoft has spent de- amount of data across a Amazon tablets and, until as IBM or Amazon — do allowed the company to
cades investing in various lot of different contexts recently, Apple’s Siri. not. pivot to new technologies
forms of artificial intelli- — mobile devices, image DUAL PURPOSES “Amazon has access to a as its old PC-software busi-
gence research, the fruits searches,” said Larry Cor- All of this has helped Mi- ton of e-commerce que- ness wanes.q

G7 backs internet industry effort to detect, blunt extremism

By PAOLO SANTALUCIA try as a whole to do more. ingly been used to recruit
and NICOLE WINFIELD “Internet companies will jihadis, radicalize young
Associated Press continue to take a proac- people, share fake news
ISCHIA, Italy (AP) — The tive role and ensure deci- and incite extremism, they
Group of Seven industrial- sive action in making their have come under pres-
ized nations threw their sup- platforms more hostile to sure from governments to
port behind a new technol- terrorism, and will support take action. Facebook,
ogy industry alliance aimed actions aimed at empow- Google, Twitter and You-
at detecting and blunting ering civil society partners Tube in June created the
online propaganda, saying in the development of al- Global Internet Forum to
Friday it had a “major role” ternative narratives online,” Combat Terrorism, which
to play in combatting ex- the statement said. got an early boost when
tremism on the internet. G7 Social media companies British Prime Minister The-
interior ministers meeting in have long seen themselves resa May used a speech
Italy invited representatives as neutral platforms for oth- to the UN General Assem-
from Google, Microsoft, er people to share informa- From left, European Commissioner for Security Union Julian King, bly to applaud the initia-
Facebook and Twitter to a tion, and have traditionally United States’ Secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke, tive and demand internet
session Friday dedicated to been cautious about tak- Canada’s Minister of Public Safety Ralph Edward Goodale and companies develop tech-
the fight against terrorism. ing down objectionable Italy’s Minister of Interior Marco Minniti attend the G7 Ministers of nology to more quickly
In a final communique, the material. But as social me- the Interiors meeting on the island of Ischia, near Naples, Friday, identify and remove terror-
Oct. 20, 2017.
ministers pressed the indus- dia platforms have increas- Associated Press ist content..q