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AI Chatbots Must Learn to Say 'Help!' Says Microsoft Exec

A Microsoft logo is seen in Los Angeles, California US November 7, 2017. (Reuters)
A Microsoft logo is seen in Los Angeles, California US November 7, 2017. (Reuters)
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AI Chatbots Must Learn to Say 'Help!' Says Microsoft Exec

A Microsoft logo is seen in Los Angeles, California US November 7, 2017. (Reuters)
A Microsoft logo is seen in Los Angeles, California US November 7, 2017. (Reuters)

Generative AI tools will save companies lots of time and money, promises Vik Singh, a Microsoft vice president, even if the models must learn to admit when they just don't know what to do.
"Just to be really frank, the thing that's really missing today is that a model doesn't raise its hands and say 'Hey, I'm not sure, I need help,'" Singh told AFP in an interview.
Since last year, Microsoft, Google and their competitors have been rapidly deploying generative AI applications like ChatGPT, which produce all kinds of content on demand and give users the illusion of omniscience.
But despite progress, they still "hallucinate," or invent answers.
This is an important problem for the Copilot executive to solve: Singh's corporate customers can't afford for their AI systems to go off the rails, even occasionally.
Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, this week said he saw many of his customers increasingly frustrated with the meanderings of Microsoft's Copilot.
Singh insisted that "really smart people" were trying to find ways for a chatbot to admit "when it doesn't know the right answer and to ask for help."
'Real savings'
A more humble model would be no less useful, in Singh's opinion. Even if the model has to turn to a human in 50 percent of cases, that still saves "tons of money."
At one Microsoft client, "every time a new request comes in, they spend $8 to have a customer service rep answer it, so there are real savings to be had, and it's also a better experience for the customer because they get a faster response."
Singh arrived at Microsoft in January and this summer took over as head of the teams developing "Copilot," Microsoft's AI assistant that specializes in sales, accounting and online services.
These applications have the gargantuan task of bringing in revenue and justifying the massive investments in generative AI.
At the height of the AI frenzy, start-ups driving the technology were promising systems so advanced that they would "uplift humanity," in the words of Sam Altman, head of OpenAI, which is mainly funded by Microsoft.
But for the time being, the new technology is mainly used to boost productivity, and hopefully profits.
According to Microsoft, Copilot can do research for salespeople, freeing up time to call customers. Lumen, a telecom company, "saves around $50 million a year" doing this, said Singh.
Singh's teams are working on integrating Copilot directly into the tech giant's software and making it more autonomous.
"Let's say I'm a sales rep and I have a customer call," suggested the executive. Two weeks later, the model can "nudge the rep to go follow up, or better, just go and automatically send the email on the rep's behalf because it's been approved to do so."
'First inning'
In other words, before finding a solution to global warming, AI is expected to rid humanity of boring, repetitive chores.
"We're in the first inning," Singh said. "A lot of these things are productivity based, but they obviously have huge benefits."
Will all these productivity gains translate into job losses?
Leaders of large firms, such as K Krithivasan, boss of Indian IT giant TCS, have declared that generative AI will all but wipe out call centers.
But Singh, like many Silicon Valley executives, is counting on technology to make humans more creative and even create new jobs.
He pointed to his experience at Yahoo in 2008, when a dozen editors chose the articles for the home page.
"We came up with the idea of using AI to optimize this process, and some people asked 'Oh my God, what's going to happen to the employees?'" said Singh.
The automated system made it possible to renew content more quickly, thereby increasing the number of clicks on links but also the need for new articles.
"In the end," said the executive, "we had to recruit more editors."

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Technology

EU Wants to Break Up with US Tech

To help European firms edge out foreign rivals, the EU is set to unveil new rules covering the cloud, AI and chip sectors on June 3. (AFP file)
To help European firms edge out foreign rivals, the EU is set to unveil new rules covering the cloud, AI and chip sectors on June 3. (AFP file)
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EU Wants to Break Up with US Tech

To help European firms edge out foreign rivals, the EU is set to unveil new rules covering the cloud, AI and chip sectors on June 3. (AFP file)
To help European firms edge out foreign rivals, the EU is set to unveil new rules covering the cloud, AI and chip sectors on June 3. (AFP file)

Wary of being vulnerable to the whims of foreign governments, the European Union is preparing far-reaching new moves to ditch American digital companies and Chinese chips in favor of European alternatives.

The EU's technological sovereignty package is among many measures taken by Brussels to slash dependence on foreign firms and boost local manufacturing -- but risks opening up a new front in transatlantic tensions.

The hotly awaited package of new rules on chips, cloud computing and AI will be presented on Wednesday as part of the EU's effort to "reclaim its place in the global race for geoeconomic power", a draft strategy document seen by AFP said.

Of particular concern is how much the European Union relies on US cloud providers, which account for around 70 percent of Europe's market.

Since President Donald Trump returned to the White House last year, Europeans worry that critical digital infrastructure could be brought to a halt by an American "kill switch" if tensions ever reached fever pitch.

Top EU officials don't directly name their target as the United States, but American tech dominates, from cloud computing to social media to e-commerce.

"We need to develop our own capacities. We cannot allow someone trying to influence our own decisions, our own values, our own well-functioning economy and services," EU competition tsar Teresa Ribera said this month.

EU officials often point to Washington's sanctions against International Criminal Court judges -- imposed by Trump in February 2025 -- to illustrate the grip of US firms. Judge Nicolas Guillou has described how he lost access to his Visa card since it is an American system.

But US envoy to the EU Andrew Puzder has warned against any protectionist moves, while American companies have urged Europe not to keep them out.

"Europe will not be able to pull itself into the AI economy by bringing other people down," Puzder told AFP last month when asked about the plans.

- Sweeping package -

Wednesday's package will include:

-- the "Cloud and AI Development Act", aimed at speeding up the deployment of data center infrastructure

-- a "Chips Act" proposal to reinforce the security of supply for semi-conductors by reducing dependence on foreign providers

-- a push for public authorities to use more open-source software solutions as a way to gain greater control and flexibility and avoid being locked in.

EU lawmaker Oliver Schenk told AFP the package was "not about opposing our trading partners or closing markets", but said: "Europe must avoid becoming structurally dependent on any single external actor" for AI, cloud and chips.

The draft strategy, which could still change before the announcement, said governments would be expected to conduct "sovereignty risk assessments" for cloud and AI to "improve resilience" and spot European alternatives.

"Europe must ensure that public investments in AI and cloud infrastructure strengthen European innovation capacity, resilience and security," Schenk said.

According to a second draft document on chips, the commission wants the power to intervene in the event of a crisis by forcing "manufacturers to prioritize orders for crisis-critical products, overriding existing contracts".

It also proposes common purchasing, which means the EU would act as "a central buyer for multiple member states facing severe shortages".

- 'No kill switch' -

Aaron Cooper of tech industry group Business Software Alliance sought to offer reassurances to Europeans who fear any US administration could act to hurt the bloc at times of tension, following past frictions, including over tariffs.

"There is no such thing as a kill switch," Cooper told AFP, adding companies "want to comply with laws wherever they're doing business".

American tech companies have been keen to shift the focus of the debate, insisting Europeans would be in charge of their data while using US services.

"Digital sovereignty is about control, not just borders," said Ana Paula Assis, chair for IBM Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific, adding that the company helps its clients "maintain authority over their entire IT estate".

The EU says the package will drive innovation and help Europe catch up with the United States and China in the AI race.

But Ben Brake, director general of DOT Europe, whose members include Amazon and Apple, said "retaliating against US corporations in response to trade disputes will neither drive innovation nor strengthen Europe's competitiveness".

Technology

Huawei Bets on Speed Over Shrinking Transistors to Sidestep US Chip Sanctions

A logo for Huawei is seen during the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe hosted by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) in Paris, France, March 20, 2024. (Reuters)
A logo for Huawei is seen during the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe hosted by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) in Paris, France, March 20, 2024. (Reuters)
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Huawei Bets on Speed Over Shrinking Transistors to Sidestep US Chip Sanctions

A logo for Huawei is seen during the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe hosted by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) in Paris, France, March 20, 2024. (Reuters)
A logo for Huawei is seen during the KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Europe hosted by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) in Paris, France, March 20, 2024. (Reuters)

Huawei's new chip design principle focused on boosting transmission speed rather than continuing to shrink semiconductors offers a path for China to build cutting-edge chips despite US sanctions, though whether it represents a true breakthrough remains to be seen.

China has been barred since 2019 from importing ASML's most advanced extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines, curbing the ability of its chipmakers to keep up with global leaders like Taiwan's TSMC in relying on ever-smaller manufacturing processes that make chips more powerful.

For decades, the semiconductor industry has been governed by Moore's Law - the observation that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles roughly every two years.

Huawei this week unveiled an alternative approach: cutting the time signals take to move through chips and larger computing systems using a principle it calls the Tau Scaling Law.

Its central technique, LogicFolding, aims to arrange logic, analogue and memory circuits in stacked, more tightly connected structures, potentially improving density, efficiency and clock speeds over the next decade.

Proponents see it as ‌a way to ‌extend chip progress as manufacturing advances begin to slow.

"For Huawei, chips face two key constraints. ‌One ⁠is inevitable that Moore's ⁠Law will hit a physical 'wall' within the next decade," He Tingbo, the president of Huawei's semiconductor business, told China's People's Daily this week.

"The other is accidental because of the external restrictions that Huawei encountered this 'wall' earlier than its peers," she said, in a likely reference to US sanctions on importing advanced EUV machines.

But others argue that reducing latency has always been part of semiconductor design and that many of the underlying ideas resemble existing work in three-dimensional (3D) stacking, advanced packaging and system optimization.

"This is a breakthrough for Huawei, but it's not a threat for TSMC," Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told reporters in Taipei on Thursday. "TSMC has been using die stacking and 3D packaging for how long now? Almost ⁠10 years. And so TSMC's technology is very advanced."

NOT A NEW CONCEPT?

In the race to ‌build more powerful computing systems, the chip industry has already embraced advanced packaging technologies ‌that stack chips vertically.

TSMC has been at the forefront with its packaging technology called SoIC, which enables more tightly integrated heterogeneous chiplets to reduce ‌size and improve performance.

Memory chip makers such as SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics also use advanced 3D stacking and packaging technologies ‌to produce multi-layer memory chips, a key component of AI chipsets, and to improve power efficiency and performance.

Huawei believes LogicFolding may actually go beyond the techniques commonly used in 3D integrated circuit stacking, thanks to "very finely and carefully split the critical paths of logic circuits across multiple layers," according to Liao Heng, chief scientist at Huawei Semiconductor.

But Bernstein analysts cautioned in a note that while stacking multiple chip layers boosts transistor density, it also increases power ‌density and risks overheating chips. Production yields and costs will be another barrier for adoption, they added.

Huawei's own roadmap also points to those challenges. Huawei's He said the approach would require ⁠new semiconductor design tools suited to ⁠folded chip architectures, as well as better ways to manage heat across devices ranging from smartphones to large AI data centers.

"With the methodology of not optimizing the area on a chip level, but on a system level based on time, that will dramatically change the capability requirements for the EDA (electronic design automation) vendors," said Handel H. Jones, CEO of International Business Strategies, during a panel discussion on Tau Scaling on Tuesday.

Mainstream EDA software produced by vendors like Cadence Design Systems and Synopsys plays a crucial role in creating blueprints for sophisticated semiconductor devices.

EYES ON NEW KIRIN CHIP

Huawei's most concrete claims centered on a new Kirin smartphone chip that will be launched later this year, which would be the first to use its LogicFolding architecture.

Compared with its earlier single-layer design, the new chip would improve power efficiency by 41%, and raise the chip's peak operating speed by nearly 13%, Huawei's He said in a speech on Monday.

Those figures would be significant if achieved at commercial scale. But Huawei did not provide production yield information, cost comparisons or a clear explanation of how the gains would compare with rival chips made using more advanced process nodes.

"There's nothing concrete that can be independently verified or benchmarked against other players at the moment," said Lian Jye Su, chief analyst at tech research firm Omdia.

Technology

Humanoids Dance and Thread Needles as Japanese Robotics Developers Look to Outdo Chinese

A humanoid robot poses for photo at the Humanoids Summit 2026 in Tokyo, Thursday, May 28, 2026. (AP)
A humanoid robot poses for photo at the Humanoids Summit 2026 in Tokyo, Thursday, May 28, 2026. (AP)
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Humanoids Dance and Thread Needles as Japanese Robotics Developers Look to Outdo Chinese

A humanoid robot poses for photo at the Humanoids Summit 2026 in Tokyo, Thursday, May 28, 2026. (AP)
A humanoid robot poses for photo at the Humanoids Summit 2026 in Tokyo, Thursday, May 28, 2026. (AP)

Mechanical hands dexterous enough to thread a needle, childlike dancing robots and adult-sized ones to help with deliveries were on display Thursday as the Humanoids Summit Tokyo opened.

Among the dozens of companies taking part, including well-known players like Boston Dynamics and Toyota Motor Corp., the big stars now were clearly the Chinese.

Chinese newcomers, like Booster Robotics and LimX Dynamics, took the technology initially developed in Japan and the US and fine-tuned it, often for cheaper mass production. It’s a repeat of what happened in other Japanese industries, from consumer electronics to cellphones and electric vehicles. In humanoids, Japan was initially ahead but then failed to produce major commercial solutions.

Tim Hornyuk, author of “Loving the Machine: The Art and Science of Japanese Robots,” who was at the event, categorized it as the so-called “Galapagos syndrome,” referring to how innovative Japanese products evolve in isolation and end up not translating for the international market.

“I really hope that Japan can come up with a Ford Model T-version of humanoid roots. But I think China has already stolen their lunch. It’s a bit too little too late,” he said.

The dancing and wiggling Mini Pi Plus robot from High Torque of China, for instance, still can’t help at an auto plant or do your dishes. But it’s cute. And it doesn’t come with an eye-popping price tag, starting at $5,500.

One telling example of Chinese robotics use in Japan was GMO, a Tokyo-based AI and robotics company working on a humanoid with camera eyes that will help with Japan Airlines cargo and other chores at an airport.

The key is to have the robot do the work in the same way as people so they would be interchangeable, an initiative meant to tackle the labor shortage problem that is increasingly serious in Japan.

The inner robotics workings were all courtesy of Unitree, a Chinese outfit, which is also working on a four-legged dog-like “stellar explorer.”

Experts say Japan, with its finesse in manufacturing, proved a good breeding ground for robotics development. The sociological backdrop of a public receptive to robotics also helped.

A recent Pew global survey showed that people in Japan are highly aware of AI but are less anxious about it, at about 28%, than people in the US at 50%.

Japanese automaker Honda Motor Co., a leader in robotics with its walking humanoid Asimo, first shown in 2000, was demonstrating a motorized four-fingered robotic hand that could screw on and off tiny bolts, or thread a needle.

It didn’t seem to bother Keisuke Tsuta, assistant chief engineer, that similar mechanical hands were on display galore near his booth, many of them from Chinese makers.

Japanese robotics show their prowess

The technology Honda had developed is more durable and powerful than rival offerings, and the Japanese have historically shown they can excel at quality mass production, according to Tsuta.

The looming threat of a Chinese robotics domination didn’t seem to phase Osaka University Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, who has worked on humanoids for decades, including one that’s his clone.

“What’s significant is that Japan has a culture that’s receptive to robotics. If we’re going to really start using robots in society, Japan is the ideal place,” he said, stressing that Japanese don’t discriminate against robots.

His robotic counterpart, dressed all in black like the professor, did as good a job, if not better, of answering a key existentialist question on the meaning of robots.

“I think robots will coexist with people. Robots are the mirror of human beings,” the robot replied in a slightly monotonous but human-like voice.

Earlier, the professor had answered a similar question, but a bit differently.

“No one is interested in me. All everyone cares about is my robot,” he said, sitting next to his twin-like humanoid.

“As long as people identify with what I have produced, I am a success,” he added.