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Microsoft Launches AI Business School (venturebeat.com)

Posted by msmash on from the how-about-that dept.

Microsoft today introduced the AI Business School, a series of case studies and free instructional videos made to help business executives design and successfully implement an AI strategy within their organization. From a report: The Microsoft AI Business School is born out of three years of conversations with customers and follows the launch of an AI school for developers and AI School first introduced last year. The AI Business School follows the lead of similar instructional guides, such as the AI Transformation Playbook from Andrew Ng. Unlike others, AI Business School material draws on three years of conversations with customers implementing AI, as well as lessons learned from AI solutions Microsoft introduced internally, Microsoft vice president of AI marketing and productization Mitra Azizirad told VentureBeat in a phone interview. Course content will focus on four main areas: strategy, culture, technology basics, and responsible AI. And courses will include tools for things like evaluating a business' AI maturity level to understand what's required to successfully implement AI.

28 comments

  1. Software school by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Too bad there's no such thing as 'AI', I guess. Calling it 'software school', which is what it is, didn't have the same zing, I suppose. Good grief, Silicon Valley and its ilk are pathetic.

    1. Re:Software school by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How else do you expect them to find a problem for this brilliant solution?

    2. Re:Software school by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well just ask creimer! He knows everything and he just announced he launches his own business school to compete with Microsoft. Who would have thought he was so successful?

    3. Re:Software school by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is it going to be a long tail revenue stream business school that monetizes and exploits people like Stan Lee beyond the grave?

    4. Re:Software school by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a buzzword, and economy is all about buzzwords and appearances and marketing (Here in real land we call them hyperbole and lies)... Like 4G and 5G.

    5. Re:Software school by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Claiming you have AI is just false advertising. Neural networks and machine learning techniques have been around for years. The only thing new today is that the hardware has finally become fast enough to store, analyze, and retrieve large amounts of data. But even the systems described as being AI's can only work with small and specifically targeted amounts of data. You have a medical AI's, chess AIs', photo recognition AI's, navigation AI's, farming AI's,â¦.. and each subset requires feeding specific data to these systems that the AI can regurgitate fast enough to appear like something new. We would all be better off if people were working just as hard on improving the rapidly decreasing reliability and performance of Human Intelligence.

  2. MS AI Business School by gtall · · Score: 2

    Instructor: Hi there, so you want to learn how to apply AI in your business.

    Class: (silence)

    Instructor: Excuse me, now that won't do, will it. When I ask you a question, you must respond. SO YOU WANT TO LEARN HOW TO APPLY AI IN YOUR BUSINESS.

    Class: YES MASTER!

    Instructor: That's better. Now pull out your book, MS Master Class in AI, and fire up your Microsoft Approved AI Software.

    Class: Uggggg! WHAT A TURD....MASTER!

    Instructor: Hmmm...I see I must report your grades back to your companies.

    CLASS: WHAT A TRULY UNIQUE AND MAGNIFICENT TURD, MASTER!

    Instructor: That's better. Now repeat after me, MS is my master, I shall not think.

    CLASS: (thud....thud....thud...)

    Instructor: I did not give you permission to commit suicide.

    1. Re:MS AI Business School by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, considering the "best principles" currently used in business are often compared to Sociopathy, I'm not sure this is going to take AI in the direction people want.

    2. Re:MS AI Business School by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My thoughts exactly

      Current Business Ethics (developed by Milton Friedman within the Chicago School of Economics) seeks only ONE thing, increased revenues (aka enhancing shareholder value) and will allow for breaking laws and killing people as long as it does not bring net revenues down.

      Imaging the lessons that this would hold for an AI

      It certainly breaks all of Asimov's ideas for ethical AI, and will eventually result in humans being used for compost (as soon as they create AI consumers).

  3. Think I'll Skip by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Play hookie with my hooka. Get nookie from my hooker sounds better though.

  4. Next up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bing Business School!

    1. Re: Next up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "It looks like you are writing an AI business plan..."

    2. Re: Next up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      haha awesome :)

      (or:

      "It looks like you are writing a program."

  5. What's this? by OneHundredAndTen · · Score: 2

    Something to learn how AI is used to generate fads, buzzwords and content-free expressions, in general? I am sure current AI is well-suited for the job.

  6. the test cost is where they get you! by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    $250 test
    $30,000 for the degree

  7. Good, the PHB will have a new hobby. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Woe to thou who art not "ai business" buzzword compliant.

  8. You misunderstand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is microsoft trying to replace workers by small PowerShell[tm] scripts. Turns out PowerShell[tm] refuses to do anything without a manager present.

  9. dont need a school by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    to learn AI for business...

    Step 1: find some problem where an algorithm can easily solve
    Step 2: implement said algorithm
    Step 3: call it AI.

  10. Know your idioms by bobstreo · · Score: 1

    "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach."

    1. Re:Know your idioms by gtall · · Score: 1

      Except in Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry, Biology, etc.

    2. Re:Know your idioms by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apparently, I was lucky to only have had programming instructors who were also programmers.

      The fellow who taught my first C Programming course had spent his career at Honeywell developing a secure computer system (Multics), which has been largely forgotten in favor of insecure piles of crap like Unix and MS-DOS (Linux and Windows did not exist yet).

      He had a great joke that Unix was actually named Eunuchs because it was the result of cutting the balls off of Multics (heh, it was before PC culture also).

      He introduced interesting ideas like testing your program by setting a book on the keyboard (buffer overflow), strictly enforcing the boundaries of your allocated memory and NOT trusting novel toys like trinary operators (unless you knew exactly how it would behave under ALL conditions).

      It was a case of massive overload at the time, but the concepts have stuck with me for nearly 40 years now, I just wich more people had that sort of exposure early in their careers.

  11. AI MBA by jfdavis668 · · Score: 2

    This is where AIs go to enhance their career by earning an MBA.

  12. Trump University 2.0 by JaneTheIgnorantSlut · · Score: 1

    'Nuf said.

    1. Re: Trump University 2.0 by zozo22 · · Score: 1

      see I must report your grades back to your companies. CLASS: WHAT A TRULY UNIQUE AND MAGNIFICENT TURD, MASTER! https://audacity.onl/ https://findmyiphone.onl/ https://origin.onl/

  13. They are launching a B.S.? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    All business related education is just bullshit, most of it inspirational and mindful holistic quotes with basic administration with hyperbolic meanings...
    Economy is publicized and viewed as a game and that just makes it dangerous, we are relying in economics so much that basically we gave power and control of everybody's life to a selfish teenager that want to impress his rich friends the easy and fast way.

  14. Microsoft by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So Microsoft's AI Business School will:

    1. Buy someone else's OS for cheap and then make a deal to pre-install it on all PCs as your own with a per-license fee.
    2. Fall behind on internet browsers, so buy someone else's browser and pre-install it on your OS giving it an unfair advantage so as to kill off any competitors since your browser isn't as good as theirs.
    3. Use unpublished internal APIs so your office software comes to market at the same time as your new OS version, killing off any office software competitors.
    4. Go on a rant where you scream "Developers, Developers, Developers" over and over while raining sweat on everyone.
    5. Come late to the game on portable music players and lose when you finally do get one on the market. Also, deride your competitor's new smartphone because it does not have a physical keyboard. And again, bring your own smartphone to the market way too late so it fails too.
    6. All the time keep touting your own "innovations" when you have very few to show.
    7. Do all this using only AI.

    Sign me up!

  15. MBA Graduates Lack Natural Intelligence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So they need artificial intelligence to fill the space for rent between their ears.

  16. business by Farton · · Score: 0

    Business school will help to get education in the field of making money. I think it's a good idea. In addition, many people dream about their own business, but they do not have enough knowledge to write a business plan. Those who are planning their own business, I advise you to look at the site TopCreativeBusinessIdeas.com to Choose the Best for Yourself an interesting business project.