Release a version on OpenAI that can laugh, sing and speak in different voices.VideostrippokerA week after its personal assistant, the company's closest partner gave a subtly different view of how people should treat artificial intelligence tools.

"I don't like personifying artificial intelligence," Satya Satya Nadella, Microsoft's chief executive, said on May 20, referring to the practice of describing artificial intelligence with verbs and nouns that usually describe humans. "I kind of believe it's a tool."

Nadella's comments suggest an ongoing debate in the technology industry about the extent to which artificial intelligence services should be humanized as artificial intelligence technology advances and responds in a more human-like way. Last week, a Google executive told Bloomberg that while it was possible to create artificial intelligence tools that "show emotion", the company preferred to focus on "super useful and super practical".

OpenAI takes a different approach. The company recently showed off a new voice assistant, saying it can understand emotions and express its feelings. During the demonstration, AI Voice seemed to tease the employees who used the tool on the stage several times. On social media, many people have linked the feature to the movie Her, with users saying that one of the specific voice options bears an uncanny resemblance to Scarlett Johansson, who starred in the film's heroine, contributing to the comparison.

In a statement to NPR, Johnson said OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (Sam Altman) contacted her and asked her to consider dubbing the voice chat feature. According to Johnson, Altman tried to get her to accept the idea that she could "help consumers adapt to the huge shift between humans and artificial intelligence". She rejected the proposal and said she had to hire a lawyer because OpenAI decided to continue to use a similar voice. (later, OpenAI took down the sound and replaced it with another one. )

Even before ChatGPT brought artificial intelligence to mainstream consciousness, technology companies often gave artificial intelligence programs a human personality, often with female-coded names and features, apparently to help people connect and feel comfortable with artificial intelligence technology. Nadella's Microsoft has not been spared. Over the years, the company has released a variety of dialogue programs and artificial intelligence programs, including Tay and Cortana (named after the female artificial intelligence assistant in Halo). Who can forget the rogue side of Sydney, Bing's artificial intelligence assistant?

People naturally tend to use human language to describe artificial intelligence, because people want to explain the mathematics, numbers and code behind the software in ways that users can understand, such as artificial intelligence "can learn". The temptation will grow as technology companies launch more products that can have real-time conversations.

But Nadella said in an interview that users need to be aware that the capabilities shown by artificial intelligence software are not human intelligence. "if you want to give it a name, it's intelligent, but it's not like mine," he said. "

In fact, Nadella even regretted that the word "artificial intelligence", which first appeared in the 1950s, had been chosen. "I think 'artificial intelligence' is one of the most inappropriate names-I want us to call it 'different intelligence'," he said, "because I have my intelligence. I don't need any artificial intelligence. "

Nadella only wants artificial intelligence software to help him when he needs it. "I think this is the ideal relationship."