Robotization is no way back, says Microsoft executive

São Paulo - Robots are already among us - and this is a path of no return. Richard Chaves, director of new technologies and innovation of Microsoft Brazil said that we can not live in a scenario like the movie It (in which a man falls for the operating system of your computer), but the robots are part of our daily lives. "When we called for a network service, we are talking to robots, with chatbots" said Richard Chaves.

To explain this, keys back to the past. "The robot is not new. The first chatbot (conversation robot) was a project called Eliza, MIT in 1966. "Eliza was one of the earliest examples of primitive natural language processing. It was operated by a process of user responses to scripts.

"Eliza answered questions open and did not interpret anything," recalls the director. "However, it has generated a personal connection that, for me, is where the magic happens:. When the technology is transparent and does not know you're talking to a robot or an individual"

What changed from 1966 here, according to Chaves, is the ability of robots to interpret human emotions. "The personal language can not be pre-programmed, but with machine learning the robot will quickly learn in real time how to improve it."

For the director, this interaction between man and machine will be made by three actors: the humans, robots and personal assistants. "The individual will talk to the robots that, in turn, will interact with the personal assistants to deliver services and products to the user."

Believing this, Microsoft is betting increasingly on creating robots talk to companies. However, according to Chaves for this technology to be adopted by enterprises, the company had to invest even more in cloud computing. "The cloud is a democratic and economic platform, so membership is being fast. It is literally off to one side and turn the other. "

The company founded by Bill Gates has figures to prove this growth. The Azure division of revenue, Microsoft's cloud solution for businesses, grew 102% in the last quarter of the final year 2016 (April to June). According to Microsoft, this figure is more than double compared to the same period of fiscal 2015.

For the director of innovations, the only thing that prevents the cloud to further grow among companies is the loss of infrastructure already established. "The implementation of cloud means rewriting real processes and millions in investment for some companies."

In this case, the startups come out ahead - after all, they have the cloud as their primary data center from design. In addition to keys, cloud computing has helped entrepreneurs to remove entry barriers. "We could not think NuBank, for example, without cloud computing. The initial investment to buy a structure already the remove of the play. "

Data centers and applications

While I believe in a future in the cloud, the director does not think the data centers will end. "There will be changes for each company, depending on their reality and investments that were made in the past structures", he said.

According to him, when Microsoft was created in 1975, many people said that the mainframe (industrial computer) would die, because everyone could have a PC at home. "Forty years later, there is still the mainframe. So, what I believe is that the local infrastructure within companies will greatly decrease and not simply end. "

The director has a more fatalistic view when it comes to the replacement of applications for robots conversation. For him, all the apps that are very specific will lose space or are extinct here about three years.

"Well actually, why would I need a weather app if I can ask the bot what is the temperature?" He jokes. However, he admits: "I do not think I will let you download games on my phone."

robotic future

The future will be robotic, but very different from the one shown by science fiction films, according to the director. "I do not believe in an apocalypse in style exterminator of the future or that robots will create awareness."

What worries Chaves, in fact, is how to employ people who will be replaced by technology. "Every time we had a very strong innovation, jobs have become extinct," he explains. "So the concern of taxi drivers with Uber is not new. Do you think the bank also did not protest when the first ATM was installed? "

However, for him, this is no excuse for not innovating. "One study showed that when ATMs were installed, the banking network employability level increased," he says. "This was possible because the costs in one area were reduced so that the money could be invested in other sectors."

Keys to the problem in the case of the robot is that technological dynamics is increasingly fast. "It's not a cake recipe and we do not have great references of the past."