Email Microsoft Didn't Want Seen Reveals Rushed Decision to Invest in OpenAI
Freeman writes:
In mid-June 2019, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and CEO Satya Nadella received a rude awakening in an email warning that Google had officially gotten too far ahead on AI and that Microsoft may never catch up without investing in OpenAi.
With the subject line "Thoughts on OpenAI," the email came from Microsoft's chief technology officer, Kevin Scott, who is also the company's executive vice president of AI. In it, Scott said that he was "very, very worried" that he had made "a mistake" by dismissing Google's initial AI efforts as a "game-playing stunt."
[...] As just one example, Scott warned, "their auto-complete in Gmail, which is especially useful in the mobile app, is getting scarily good."
Microsoft had tried to keep this internal email hidden, but late Tuesday it was made public as part of the US Justice Department's antitrust trial over Google's alleged search monopoly.
[...] In an order unsealing the email among other documents requested by The Times, US District Judge Amit Mehta allowed to be redacted some of the "sensitive statements in the email concerning Microsoft's business strategies that weigh against disclosure"-which included basically all of Scott's "thoughts on OpenAI."
[...] Mere weeks later, Microsoft had invested $1 billion into OpenAI, and there have been billions more invested since through an extended partnership agreement. In 2024, the two companies' finances appeared so intertwined that the European Union suspected Microsoft was quietly controlling OpenAI and began investigating whether the companies still operate independently. Ultimately, the EU dismissed the probe, deciding that Microsoft's $13 billion in investments did not amount to an acquisition, Reuters reported.
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