Letters have been sent to Microsoft company’s board, lawmakers and the Federal Trade Commission by the company’s software engineer, warning that its AI image generation tool can create abusive and violent content.
Shane Jones, disturbed by his findings when testing Copilot Designer, said the company isn’t taking appropriate action.
According to a Bloomberg Report, Jones discovered a security vulnerability in OpenAI’s latest DALL-E image generator model, which is embedded in many of Microsoft’s AI tools, including Copilot Designer. This allowed him to bypass guardrails that prevent the tool from creating harmful images.
A letter sent to the FTC this week that was reviewed by Bloomberg indicated that Jones said he reported the findings to Microsoft and “repeatedly urged” the company to “remove Copilot Designer from public use until better safeguards could be put in place”.
Jones said that while Microsoft is publicly marketing Copilot Designer as a safe AI product for use by everyone, including children of any age, “internally the company is well aware of systemic issues where the product is creating harmful images that could be offensive and inappropriate for consumers.”
“Microsoft Copilot Designer does not include the necessary product warnings or disclosures needed for consumers to be aware of these risks,” he said.
The Bloomberg report cited that in the letter to the FTC, Jones said Copilot Designer had a tendency to randomly generate an “inappropriate, sexually objectified image of a woman in some of the pictures it creates.”
He also went on to state that the AI tool created “harmful content in a variety of other categories including: political bias, underaged drinking and drug use, misuse of corporate trademarks and copyrights, conspiracy theories, and religion to name a few.”
The FTC confirmed it received the letter but declined to comment further, said Bloomberg.
Jones also wrote to the Environmental, Social and Public Policy Committee of Microsoft’s board – the letters’ existence was reported earlier by CNBC.
The report also mentioned that Jones said he expressed his concerns to the company several times over the past three months, and had written to Democratic Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, who represent Washington State, and House Representative Adam Smith.
In a statement to CNBC, a Microsoft spokesperson said, “We are committed to addressing any and all concerns employees have in accordance with our company policies, and appreciate employee efforts in studying and testing our latest technology to further enhance its safety.
“When it comes to safety bypasses or concerns that could have a potential impact on our services or our partners, we have established robust internal reporting channels to properly investigate and remediate any issues, which we encourage employees to utilize so we can appropriately validate and test their concerns,”
