Microsoft Research Podcast

Behind every emerging technology is a great idea propelling it forward. In the new Microsoft Research Podcast series, Ideas, members of the research community at Microsoft discuss the beliefs that animate their research, the experiences and thinkers that inform it, and the positive human impact it targets. In this episode, host Gretchen Huizinga talks with Principal Researcher Kalika Bali. Inspired by an early vision of “talking computers” and a subsequent career in linguistics, Bali has spent the last two decades bringing the two together. Aided by recent advances in large language models and motivated by her belief that everyone should have access to AI in their own language, Bali and her teams are building language technology applications that they hope will bring the benefits of generative AI to under-resourced and underserved language communities around the world.Learn more:* The State and Fate of Linguistic Diversity and Inclusion in the NLP World (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/the-state-and-fate-of-linguistic-diversity-and-inclusion-in-the-nlp-world/) | Publication, July 2020* Project VeLLM (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/project-vellm/) | Project page* Kahani: Visual Storytelling (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/kahani/) | Project page* Kahani: Visual Storytelling through Culturally Nuanced Images (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/quarterly-brief/jan-2024-brief/articles/kahani-visual-storytelling-through-culturally-nuanced-images/) | Microsoft Research Forum | Episode 1, January 2024* Teachers in India help Microsoft Research design AI tool for creating great classroom content (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/teachers-in-india-help-microsoft-research-design-ai-tool-for-creating-great-classroom-content/) | Microsoft Research blog, October 2023* Digital Labor: Project Karya (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/project-karya/) | Project page* Village by village, creating the building blocks for AI tools with work that also educates (https://news.microsoft.com/source/asia/features/village-by-village-creating-the-building-blocks-for-ai-tools-with-work-that-also-educates/) | Microsoft Source Asia blog, February 2024

Powerful large-scale AI models like GPT-4 are showing dramatic improvements in reasoning, problem-solving, and language capabilities. This marks a phase change for artificial intelligence—and a signal of accelerating progress to come.In this Microsoft Research Podcast series, AI scientist and engineer Ashley Llorens hosts conversations with his collaborators and colleagues about what these models—and the models that will come next—mean for our approach to creating, understanding, and deploying AI, its applications in areas such as health care and education, and its potential to benefit humanity.This episode features Principal Researcher Ida Momennejad. Momennejad is applying her expertise in cognitive neuroscience and computer science to better understand—and extend—AI capabilities, particularly when it comes to multistep reasoning and short- and long-term planning. Llorens and Momennejad discuss the notion of general intelligence in both humans and machines; how Momennejad and colleagues leveraged prior research into the cognition of people and rats to create prompts for evaluating large language models; and the case for the development of a “prefrontal cortex” for AI.Learn more:* AI and Microsoft Research (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/focus-area/ai-and-microsoft-research/) | Focus Area* Evaluating Cognitive Maps and Planning in Large Language Models with CogEval (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/evaluating-cognitive-maps-in-large-language-models-with-cogeval-no-emergent-planning/) | Publication, October 2023* Imitating Human Behaviour with Diffusion Models (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/imitating-human-behaviour-with-diffusion-models/) | Publication, May 2023* Navigates Like Me: Understanding How People Evaluate Human-Like AI in Video Games (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/navigates-like-me-understanding-how-people-evaluate-human-like-ai-in-video-games/) | Publication, April 2023* Navigation Turing Test (NTT): Learning to Evaluate Human-Like Navigation (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/navigation-turing-test-ntt-learning-to-evaluate-human-like-navigation/) | Publication, July 2021* Predictive Representations in Hippocampal and Prefrontal Hierarchies (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/predictive-representations-in-hippocampal-and-prefrontal-hierarchies/) | Publication, January 2022* The successor representation in human reinforcement learning (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/the-successor-representation-in-human-reinforcement-learning/) | Publication, September 2017* Encoding of Prospective Tasks in the Human Prefrontal Cortex under Varying Task Loads (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/encoding-of-prospective-tasks-in-the-human-prefrontal-cortex-under-varying-task-loads/) | Publication, October 2013

Members of the research community at Microsoft work continuously to advance their respective fields. Abstracts brings its audience to the cutting edge with them through short, compelling conversations about new and noteworthy achievements. In this episode, Senior Researcher Chang Liu joins host Gretchen Huizinga to discuss Overcoming the Barrier of Orbital-Free Density Functional Theory for Molecular Systems Using Deep Learning (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/overcoming-the-barrier-of-orbital-free-density-functional-theory-for-molecular-systems-using-deep-learning/).” In the paper, Liu and his coauthors present M-OFDFT, a variation of orbital-free density functional theory (OFDFT). M-OFDFT leverages deep learning to help identify molecular properties in a way that minimizes the tradeoff between accuracy and efficiency, work with the potential to benefit areas such as drug discovery and materials discovery.Read the paper

Members of the research community at Microsoft work continuously to advance their respective fields. Abstracts brings its audience to the cutting edge with them through short, compelling conversations about new and noteworthy achievements. In this episode, Senior Behavioral Science Researcher Lev Tankelevitch (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/t-levt/) joins host Gretchen Huizinga to discuss “The Metacognitive Demands and Opportunities of Generative AI (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/the-metacognitive-demands-and-opportunities-of-generative-ai/).” In their paper, Tankelevitch and his coauthors propose using the scientific study of how people monitor, understand, and adapt their thinking to address common challenges of incorporating generative AI into life and work—from crafting effective prompts to determining the value of AI-generated outputs. To learn more about the paper and related topics, register for Microsoft Research Forum (https://aka.ms/researchforum/), a series of panel discussions and lightning talks around science and technology research in the era of general AI.Read the paper

In the Microsoft Research Podcast series What’s Your Story, Johannes Gehrke explores the who behind the technical and scientific advancements helping to reshape the world. A systems expert whose 10 years with Microsoft spans research and product, Gehrke talks to members of the company’s research community about what motivates their work and how they got where they are today.Partner Research Manager and leading developer experience expert Nicole Forsgren oversees Microsoft Research efforts to enhance software engineering effectiveness through the study of developer productivity, community, and well-being. In this episode, she discusses AI’s potential impact on software engineering, what she loves about tech, and how thoughtful decision making—combined with listening to her gut—has led to opportunities as a developer, accounting professor, and founder and CEO of a startup that was eventually acquired by Google.Learn more:* Nicole Forsgren at Microsoft Research (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/niforsgr/)* Nicole Forsgren website (https://nicolefv.com/)* Quantifying the impact of developer experience (https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/quantifying-the-impact-of-developer-experience/) | Microsoft Azure Blog, January 2024* Yes, good DevEx increases productivity. Here is the data. (https://github.blog/2024-01-23-good-devex-increases-productivity/) | GitHub blog, January 2024* Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations (https://itrevolution.com/product/accelerate/) | Book, 2018

In the Microsoft Research Podcast series What’s Your Story, Johannes Gehrke explores the who behind the technical and scientific advancements helping to reshape the world. A systems expert whose 10 years with Microsoft spans research and product, Gehrke talks to members of the company’s research community about what motivates their work and how they got where they are today.Partner Software Architect Ivan Tashev’s expertise in audio signal processing has contributed to the design and study of audio components for Microsoft products such as Kinect, Teams, and HoloLens. In this episode, Tashev discusses how a first-place finish in the Mathematical Olympiad fueled a lifelong passion for shooting film; how a company event showcasing cutting-edge projects precipitated his move from product back to research; and how laser focus on things within his control has helped him find success in 25-plus years with Microsoft.Learn more:* Ivan Tashev at Microsoft Research (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/ivantash/)* Distributed Meetings: A Meeting Capture and Broadcasting System (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/distributed-meetings-a-meeting-capture-and-broadcasting-system/) | Publication, December 2002* Research Collection: The Unseen History of Audio and Acoustics Research at Microsoft (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/research-collection-the-unseen-history-of-audio-and-acoustics-research-at-microsoft/) | Microsoft Research blog, August 2020

Members of the research community at Microsoft work continuously to advance their respective fields. Abstracts brings its audience to the cutting edge with them through short, compelling conversations about new and noteworthy achievements.In this episode, Senior Researchers Jordan Ash (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/joash/) and Dipendra Misra (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/dimisra/) join host Gretchen Huizinga to discuss “The Truth is in There: Improving Reasoning in Language Models with Layer-Selective Rank Reduction (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/the-truth-is-in-there-improving-reasoning-in-language-models-with-layer-selective-rank-reduction/),” which was accepted to the 2024 International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR). Layer-Selective Rank reduction, or LASER, is an intervention for targeted parameter reduction in transformer-based models. The work shows that the removal of certain parameters not only maintains model performance like some existing parameter-reduction methods but can actually improve it—no additional training necessary.To learn more about the paper and related topics, register for Microsoft Research Forum (https://aka.ms/researchforum/), a series of panel discussions and lightning talks around science and technology research in the era of general AI.Learn more:* The Truth is in There: Improving Reasoning in Language Models with Layer-Selective Rank Reduction (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/the-truth-is-in-there-improving-reasoning-in-language-models-with-layer-selective-rank-reduction/) | Publication, December 2023* LASER code on GitHub (https://pratyushasharma.github.io/laser/)

Powerful large-scale AI models like GPT-4 are showing dramatic improvements in reasoning, problem-solving, and language capabilities. This marks a phase change for artificial intelligence—and a signal of accelerating progress to come.In this Microsoft Research Podcast series, AI scientist and engineer Ashley Llorens hosts conversations with his collaborators and colleagues about what these models—and the models that will come next—mean for our approach to creating, understanding, and deploying AI, its applications in areas such as healthcare and education, and its potential to benefit humanity.This episode features Technical Fellow Christopher Bishop (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/cmbishop/prml-book/), who leads a global team of researchers and engineers working to help accelerate scientific discovery by merging machine learning and the natural sciences. Llorens and Bishop explore the state of deep learning; Bishop’s new textbook Deep Learning: Foundations and Concepts (https://www.bishopbook.com/), his third and a writing collaboration with his son; and a potential future in which “super copilots” accessible via natural language and drawing on a variety of tools, like those that can simulate the fundamental equations of nature, are empowering scientists in their pursuit of breakthrough.Learn more:* Deep Learning: Foundations and Concepts (https://www.bishopbook.com/) | Textbook, 2023* Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/pattern-recognition-machine-learning/) | Textbook, 2006* Neural Networks for Pattern Recognition (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/neural-networks-pattern-recognition-2/) | Textbook, 1995

Members of the research community at Microsoft work continuously to advance their respective fields. Abstracts brings its audience to the cutting edge with them through short, compelling conversations about new and noteworthy achievements. In this episode, Senior Principal Research Manager Tao Qin (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/taoqin/) and Senior Researcher Lijun Wu (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/lijuwu/) discuss “FABind: Fast and Accurate Protein-Ligand Binding.” The paper, accepted at the 2023 Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS), introduces a new method for predicting the binding structures of proteins and ligands during drug development. The method demonstrates improved speed and accuracy over current methods.Learn more:* FABind: Fast and Accurate Protein-Ligand Binding (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/fabind-fast-and-accurate-protein-ligand-binding/)* FABind code on GitHub (https://github.com/QizhiPei/FABind)

Members of the research community at Microsoft work continuously to advance their respective fields. Abstracts brings its audience to the cutting edge with them through short, compelling conversations about new and noteworthy achievements.In this episode, Principal Researcher Alessandro Sordoni (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/alsordon/) joins host Gretchen Huizinga to discuss “Joint Prompt Optimization of Stacked LLMs using Variational Inference (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/deep-language-networks-joint-prompt-training-of-stacked-llms-using-variational-inference/).” In the paper, which was accepted at the 2023 Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS), Sordoni and his coauthors introduce Deep Language Networks, or DLNs, an architecture that treats large language models as layers within a network and natural language prompts as each layer’s learnable parameters.Read the paper (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/deep-language-networks-joint-prompt-training-of-stacked-llms-using-variational-inference/)

Members of the research community at Microsoft work continuously to advance their respective fields. Abstracts brings its audience to the cutting edge with them through short, compelling conversations about new and noteworthy achievements.In this episode, Xing Xie (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/xingx/), a Senior Principal Research Manager of Microsoft Research Asia, joins host Dr. Gretchen Huizinga to discuss “Evaluating General-Purpose AI with Psychometrics.” As AI capabilities move from task specific to more general purpose, the paper explores psychometrics, a subfield of psychology, as an alternative to traditional methods for evaluating model performance and for supporting consistent and reliable systems.Read the paper: Evaluating General-Purpose AI with Psychometrics (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/evaluating-general-purpose-ai-with-psychometrics/)

Transforming research ideas into meaningful impact is no small feat. It often requires the knowledge and experience of individuals from across disciplines and institutions. Collaborators, a Microsoft Research Podcast series, explores the relationships—both expected and unexpected—behind the projects, products, and services being pursued and delivered by researchers at Microsoft and the diverse range of people they’re teaming up with.In this episode, Dr. Gretchen Huizinga speaks with Cecily Morrison (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/cecilym/), MBE, a Senior Principal Research Manager at Microsoft Research, and Karolina Pakėnaitė (https://www.linkedin.com/in/Karolina-Pak%C4%97nait%C4%97/), who also goes by Caroline, a PhD student and member of the citizen design team working with Morrison on the research project Find My Things. An AI phone application designed to help people who are blind or have low vision locate their personal items, Find My Things is an example of a broader research approach known as Teachable AI. Morrison and Pakėnaitė explore the Teachable AI goal of empowering people to make an AI experience work for them. They also discuss how “designing for one” when it comes to inclusive design leads to innovative solutions and what they learned about optimizing these types of systems for real-world use (spoiler: it’s not necessarily more or higher-quality data).Learn more:* Teachable AI Experiences (Tai X) (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/taix/overview/) | Project page* Understanding Personalized Accessibility through Teachable AI: Designing and Evaluating Find My Things for People who are Blind or Low Vision (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/understanding-personalized-accessibility-through-teachable-ai-designing-and-evaluating-find-my-things-for-people-who-are-blind-or-low-vision/) | Publication, October 2023* Microsoft Inclusive Design (https://inclusive.microsoft.design/) | Inclusive design resource center* DeafBlind Everest Project (https://www.deafblindeverestproject.com/) | Karolina (Caroline) Pakėnaitė personal website

Members of the research community at Microsoft work continuously to advance their respective fields. Abstracts brings its audience to the cutting edge with them through short, compelling conversations about new and noteworthy achievements.In this episode, Shrey Jain (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/shreyjain/), a Technical Project Manager at Microsoft Research, and Dr. Zoë Hitzig (http://www.zoehitzig.com/), a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows, discuss their work on contextual confidence, which presents a framework to understand and more meaningfully address the increasingly sophisticated challenges generative AI poses to communication.Read the paper (https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.01193)

In this new Microsoft Research Podcast series What’s Your Story, Johannes Gehrke explores the who behind the technical and scientific advancements helping to reshape the world. A systems expert whose 10 years with Microsoft spans research and product, Gehrke talks to members of the company’s research community about what motivates their work and how they got where they are today.Across his time at Microsoft, Desney Tan (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/desney/), Managing Director of Microsoft Research Redmond, has had the experience of shepherding research ideas into products multiple times, and much like the trajectory of research, his life journey has been far from linear. In this episode, Tan shares how he moved to the United States from Singapore as a teenager, how his self-described “brashness” as a Microsoft intern helped shift the course of his career, and how human impact has been a guiding force in his work.

Members of the research community at Microsoft work continuously to advance their respective fields. Abstracts brings its audience to the cutting edge with them through short, compelling conversations about new and noteworthy achievements.In this episode, Andy Gordon (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/adg/), a Partner Research Manager, and Carina Negreanu, a Senior Researcher, both at Microsoft Research, join host Dr. Gretchen Huizinga to discuss “Co-audit: Tools to help humans double-check AI-generated content (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/co-audit-tools-to-help-humans-double-check-ai-generated-content/).” This paper brings together current understanding of generative AI performance to explore the need and context for tools to help people using the technology find and fix mistakes in AI output.View the paper (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/co-audit-tools-to-help-humans-double-check-ai-generated-content/)

In this new Microsoft Research Podcast series What’s Your Story, Lab Director Johannes Gehrke explores the who behind the technical and scientific advancements helping to reshape the world. He talks to members of the research community at Microsoft about what motivates their work and how they got where they are today.Ranveer Chandra is Managing Director of Research for Industry and CTO of Agri-Food. He is also Head of Networking Research at Microsoft Research Redmond. His work in systems and networking is helping to bring more internet connectivity to more people and is yielding tools designed to help farmers increase food production more affordably and sustainably. In this episode, he shares what it was like growing up in Jamshedpur, India; why he focuses his efforts in the areas he does; and where the joy in his work comes from.Learn more:* Ranveer Chandra at Microsoft Research (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/ranveer/)* FarmBeats: AI, Edge & IoT for Agriculture (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/farmbeats-iot-agriculture/)* Project FarmVibes (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/project-farmvibes/)* 6G | Space (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/6g-space/)

Members of the research community at Microsoft work continuously to advance their respective fields. Abstracts brings its audience to the cutting edge with them through short, compelling conversations about new and noteworthy achievements. In this episode, Dr. Sheng Zhang (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/shezhan/), a Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research, joins host Dr. Gretchen Huizinga to discuss “UniversalNER: Targeted Distillation from Large Language Models for Open Named Entity Recognition (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/universalner-targeted-distillation-from-large-language-models-for-open-named-entity-recognition/).” In this paper, Zhang and his coauthors present mission-focused instruction tuning, a method for distilling large language models into smaller, more efficient ones for a broad application class. Their UniversalNER models achieved state-of-the-art performance in named entity recognition, an important natural language processing (NLP) task. Model distillation has the potential to make NLP and other capabilities more accessible, particularly in specialized domains such as biomedicine, which could benefit from more resource-efficient and transparent options. Learn more:* View the paper (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/universalner-targeted-distillation-from-large-language-models-for-open-named-entity-recognition/)* UniversalNER project website with demo (https://universal-ner.github.io/)* Code on GitHub (https://github.com/universal-ner/universal-ner)* Dataset and models on Hugging Face (https://huggingface.co/Universal-NER)

Every year, interns from academic institutions around the world apply and grow their knowledge as members of the research community at Microsoft. In this Microsoft Research Podcast series, these students join their internship supervisors to share their experience working alongside some of the leading researchers in their respective fields. In this episode, PhD students Jennifer Scurrell (https://css.ethz.ch/en/center/people/jennifer-victoria-scurrell.html) and Alejandro Cuevas talk to Senior Researcher Dr. Madeleine Daepp (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/mdaepp/). They discuss the internship culture at Microsoft Research, from opportunities to connect with researchers they admire over coffee to the teamwork they say helped make it possible for them to succeed in the fast-paced environment of industry, and the impact they hope to have with their work. Learn more:* Automated Interviewer or Augmented Survey? Collecting Social Data with Large Language Models (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/automated-interviewer-or-augmented-survey-collecting-social-data-with-large-language-models/) | Publication, September 2023

Powerful large-scale AI models like GPT-4 are showing dramatic improvements in reasoning, problem-solving, and language capabilities. This marks a phase change for artificial intelligence—and a signal of accelerating progress to come.In this Microsoft Research Podcast series, AI scientist and engineer Ashley Llorens (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/allorens/) hosts conversations with his collaborators and colleagues about what these models—and the models that will come next—mean for our approach to creating, understanding, and deploying AI, its applications in areas such as healthcare and education, and its potential to benefit humanity.This episode features Partner Research Manager Hanna Wallach (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/wallach/), whose research into fairness, accountability, transparency, and ethics in AI and machine learning has helped inform the use of AI in Microsoft products and services for years. Wallach describes how she and a team of applied scientists expanded their tools for measuring fairness-related harms in AI systems to address harmful content more broadly during their involvement in the deployment of Bing Chat; her interest in filtering, a technique for mitigating harms that she describes as widely used but not often talked about; and the cross-company collaboration that brings policy, engineering, and research together to evolve and execute the Microsoft approach to developing and deploying AI responsibly.Learn more: Microsoft AI: Responsible AI Principles and Approach (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/ai/principles-and-approach/)  AI and Microsoft Research (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/focus-area/ai-and-microsoft-research/)

Powerful large-scale AI models like GPT-4 are showing dramatic improvements in reasoning, problem-solving, and language capabilities. This marks a phase change for artificial intelligence—and a signal of accelerating progress to come.  In this Microsoft Research Podcast series, AI scientist and engineer Ashley Llorens (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/allorens/) hosts conversations with his collaborators and colleagues about what these models—and the models that will come next—mean for our approach to creating, understanding, and deploying AI, its applications in areas such as healthcare and education, and its potential to benefit humanity.This episode features Senior Principal Research Manager Ahmed H. Awadallah (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/hassanam/), whose work improving the efficiency of large-scale AI models and efforts to help move advancements in the space from research to practice have put him at the forefront of this new era of AI. Awadallah discusses the shift in dynamics between model size and amount—and quality—of data when it comes to model training; the recently published paper “Orca: Progressive Learning from Complex Explanation Traces of GPT-4,” which further explores the use of large-scale AI models to improve the performance of smaller, less powerful ones; and the need for better evaluation strategies, particularly as we move into a future in which Awadallah hopes to see gains in these models’ ability to continually learn.Learn more:* Orca: Progressive Learning from Complex Explanation Traces of GPT-4 (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/orca-progressive-learning-from-complex-explanation-traces-of-gpt-4/), June 2023 * Textbooks Are All You Need II: phi-1.5 technical report (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/textbooks-are-all-you-need-ii-phi-1-5-technical-report/), September 2023* AutoGen: Enabling Next-Gen LLM Applications via Multi-Agent Conversation Framework (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/autogen-enabling-next-gen-llm-applications-via-multi-agent-conversation-framework/), August 2023 * LIDA: Automatic Generation of Grammar-Agnostic Visualizations and Infographics using Large Language Models (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/lida-automatic-generation-of-grammar-agnostic-visualizations-and-infographics-using-large-language-models/), March 2023* AI Explainer: Foundation models ​and the next era of AI (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/ai-explainer-foundation-models-and-the-next-era-of-ai/), March 2023 * AI and Microsoft Research (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/focus-area/ai-and-microsoft-research/)

Members of the research community at Microsoft work continuously to advance their respective fields. Abstracts brings its audience to the cutting edge with them through short, compelling conversations about new and noteworthy achievements.In the inaugural episode of the series, Dr. Ava Amini (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/avasoleimany/) and Dr. Kevin K. Yang, (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/kevyan/) both Senior Researchers with Microsoft Health Futures, join host Dr. Gretchen Huizinga to discuss “Protein generation with evolutionary diffusion: Sequence is all you need.” The paper introduces EvoDiff, a suite of models that leverages evolutionary-scale protein data to help design novel proteins more efficiently. Improved protein engineering has the potential to help create new vaccines to prevent disease and new ways to recycle plastics.

Every year, interns from academic institutions around the world apply and grow their knowledge as members of the research community at Microsoft. In this Microsoft Research Podcast series, these students join their internship supervisors to share their experience working alongside some of the leading researchers in their respective fields.In this episode, PhD students Anunay Kulshrestha (https://kul.sh/) and Karan Newatia (https://karannewatia.github.io/) talk to Senior Cryptographer Josh Benaloh (https://microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/benaloh/) about their work this summer on ElectionGuard, a free, open-source toolkit that enables voters to verify that their votes have been accurately counted. Kulshrestha and Newatia discuss their contributions to extending ElectionGuard to mail-in voting and rank-choice voting, respectively; what is needed for widespread adoption of the verifiable election technology; and why they’d recommend a Microsoft internship to other students.(Editor’s note: After its design and development by Microsoft, ElectionGuard is now part of the newly formed nonprofit Election Technology Initiative, which will join with Microsoft to further ElectionGuard’s growth and help advance its adoption.)Learn more* ElectionGuard (https://www.electionguard.vote/) | Project page* The next frontier in elections: Microsoft supports the Council of State Governments’ Election Technology Initiative (https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2023/07/28/council-of-state-governments-election-technology-initiative-electionguard/) | Microsoft On the Issues blog, July 2023* Security and Cryptography (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/group/security-and-cryptography/) | Group page

Powerful large-scale AI models like GPT-4 are showing dramatic improvements in reasoning, problem-solving, and language capabilities. This marks a phase change for artificial intelligence—and a signal of accelerating progress to come. In this Microsoft Research Podcast series, AI scientist and engineer Ashley Llorens (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/allorens/) hosts conversations with his collaborators and colleagues about what these models—and the models that will come next—mean for our approach to creating, understanding, and deploying AI, its applications in areas such as healthcare and education, and its potential to benefit humanity.This episode features Sriram Rajamani (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/sriram/), Distinguished Scientist and Managing Director of Microsoft Research India. Rajamani talks about how the lab’s work is being influenced by today’s rapidly advancing AI. One example? The development of a conversational agent in India capable of providing information about governmental agricultural programs in farmers’ natural language, particularly significant in a country with more than 30 languages, including 22 government-recognized languages. It’s an application Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella described as the “mic drop moment” of his trip to the lab early this year.Learn more* AI4Bhārat (https://ai4bharat.iitm.ac.in/) | Organization homepage* MEGA: Multilingual Evaluation of Generative AI (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/mega-multilingual-evaluation-of-generative-ai/) | Publication, May 2023* AI and Microsoft Research (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/focus-area/ai-and-microsoft-research/) | Learn more about the breadth of AI research at Microsoft

Transforming research ideas into meaningful impact is no small feat. It often requires the knowledge and experience of individuals from across disciplines and institutions. Collaborators, a new Microsoft Research Podcast series, explores the relationships—both expected and unexpected—behind the projects, products, and services being pursued and delivered by researchers at Microsoft and the diverse range of people they’re teaming up with.In this episode, Dr. Gretchen Huizinga talks with Microsoft Health Futures Senior Director Javier Alvarez and Dr. Raj Jena, a radiation oncologist at Addenbrooke’s hospital, part of Cambridge University Hospitals in the United Kingdom, about Project InnerEye, a Microsoft Research effort that applies machine learning to medical image analysis. The pair shares how a 10-plus-year collaborative journey—and a combination of research and good software engineering—has resulted in the hospital’s creation of an AI system that is helping to decrease the time cancer patients have to wait to begin treatment. Alvarez and Jena chart the path of their collaboration in AI-assisted medical imaging, from Microsoft Research’s initiation of Project InnerEye and its decision to make the resulting research tools available in open source to Addenbrooke’s subsequent testing and validation of these tools to meet the regulatory requirements for use in a clinical setting. They also discuss supporting clinician productivity—and ultimately patient outcomes—and the important role patients play in incorporating AI into healthcare.Learn more:* Project InnerEye (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/medical-image-analysis/) | Project page* How AI is helping to shrink waiting times for NHS cancer patients (https://news.microsoft.com/en-gb/2023/06/27/ai-helping-shrink-waiting-times-nhs-cancer-patients/) | Microsoft News Centre UK blog post, June 2023* Accounting for past imaging studies: Enhancing radiology AI and reporting (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/accounting-for-past-imaging-studies-enhancing-radiology-ai-and-reporting/) | Microsoft Research blog, June 2023* Microsoft Health Futures (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/lab/microsoft-health-futures/) | Lab page* Biomedical Imaging (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/group/biomedical-imaging/) | Research group page* Evaluation of Deep Learning to Augment Image Guided Radiotherapy for Head and Neck and Prostate Cancers (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/evaluation-of-deep-learning-to-augment-image-guided-radiotherapy-for-head-and-neck-and-prostate-cancers/) | JAMA publication, November 2020

Transforming research ideas into meaningful impact is no small feat. It often requires the knowledge and experience of individuals from across disciplines and institutions. Collaborators, a new Microsoft Research Podcast series, explores the relationships—both expected and unexpected—behind the projects, products, and services being pursued and delivered by researchers at Microsoft and the diverse range of people they’re teaming up with.In this episode of the podcast, Dr. Gretchen Huizinga welcomes Principal Researcher Dr. Jina Suh (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/jinsuh/) and Principal Applied and Data Science Manager Dr. Shamsi Iqbal (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/shamsi/) to the show to discuss their most recent work together, a research project aimed at developing data-driven tools to support organizational leaders and executives in their decision-making. The longtime collaborators explore how a long history of collaboration helps them thrive in their work to help workplaces thrive, how their relationship has evolved over the years, particularly with Iqbal’s move from the research side to the product side, and how research and product can align to achieve impact.Learn more:* HUE: Human Understanding and Empathy (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/group/human-understanding-and-empathy/) | Project page* Microsoft Viva (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-viva) | Product page

Transforming research ideas into meaningful impact is no small feat. It often requires the knowledge and experience of individuals from across disciplines and institutions. Collaborators, a new Microsoft Research Podcast series, explores the relationships—both expected and unexpected—behind the projects, products, and services being pursued and delivered by researchers at Microsoft and the diverse range of people they’re teaming up with.In the world of gaming, Haiyan Zhang (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/hazhang/) has situated herself where research meets real-world challenges, helping to bring product teams and researchers together to elevate the player experience with the latest AI advances even before the job became official with the creation of her current role, General Manager of Gaming AI. In this episode, she talks with host Dr. Gretchen Huizinga about the variety of expertise needed to avoid the discomfort experienced by players when they encounter a humanlike character displaying inhuman behavior, the potential for generative AI to make gaming better for both players and creators, and the games she grew up playing and what she plays now.Learn more:* Game Intelligence (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/group/game-intelligence/) | Group page* Project Paidia (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/project-paidia/) | Project page* TrueSkill™ Ranking System (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/trueskill-ranking-system/) | Project page* TrueMatch Matchmaking System (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/truematch/) | Project page* Grounded Conversational Characters (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/grounded-conversational-characters/) | Project page

Transforming research ideas into meaningful impact is no small feat. It often requires the knowledge and experience of individuals from across disciplines and institutions. Collaborators, a new Microsoft Research Podcast series, explores the relationships—both expected and unexpected—behind the projects, products, and services being pursued and delivered by researchers at Microsoft and the diverse range of people they’re teaming up with.In the world of gaming, Haiyan Zhang (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/hazhang/) has situated herself where research meets real-world challenges, helping to bring product teams and researchers together to elevate the player experience with the latest AI advances even before the job became official with the creation of her current role, General Manager of Gaming AI. In this episode, she talks with host Dr. Gretchen Huizinga about the variety of expertise needed to avoid the discomfort experienced by players when they encounter a humanlike character displaying inhuman behavior, the potential for generative AI to make gaming better for both players and creators, and the games she grew up playing and what she plays now.Learn more* Game Intelligence (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/group/game-intelligence/) | Group page* Project Paidia (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/project-paidia/) | Project page* TrueSkill™ Ranking System (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/trueskill-ranking-system/) | Project page* TrueMatch Matchmaking System (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/truematch/) | Project page* Grounded Conversational Characters (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/grounded-conversational-characters/) | Project page

Transforming research ideas into meaningful impact is no small feat. It often requires the knowledge and experience of individuals from across disciplines and institutions. Collaborators, a new Microsoft Research Podcast series, explores the relationships—both expected and unexpected—behind the projects, products, and services being pursued and delivered by researchers at Microsoft and the diverse range of people they’re teaming up with.In this episode, host Dr. Gretchen Huizinga welcomes Dr. Spencer Fowers (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/sfowers/), a member of the Special Projects Technical Staff at Microsoft Research, and Dr. Kwame Darko (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kwame-darko-70847116/), a plastic surgeon in the reconstructive plastic surgery and burns center in Ghana’s Korle Bu Teaching Hospital. The two are among a group working to make specialized medical care more widely available, especially to those in remote or underserved communities. They share how their 3D telecommunication technology helps bring patients and doctors together when being in the same room isn’t an easy option and how the experience is supporting greater patient satisfaction, allowing more time for surgeons to prepare for surgery, and making the assembly of a super team of medical experts from around the globe more feasible.Learn more:* 3D telemedicine brings better care to underserved and rural communities, even across continents (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/3d-telemedicine-brings-better-care-to-underserved-and-rural-communities-even-across-continents/) | Microsoft Research Blog, May 2023* Microsoft’s Holoportation Communications Technology: Facilitating 3D Telemedicine (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/video/microsofts-holoportation-communications-technology-facilitating-3d-telemedicine/) | Microsoft Research video, May 2023* Participatory Development of a 3D Telemedicine system during Covid: the future of remote consultations (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/participatory-development-of-a-3d-telemedicine-system-during-covid-the-future-of-remote-consultations/) | Journal of Plastic, Reconstructive & Aesthetic Surgery, October 2022* 3D Telemedicine (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/3d-telemedicine/) | Project page* Holoportation (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/holoportation-3/) | Project page* Korle Bu Teaching Hospital (https://kbth.gov.gh/brief-history/the-korle-bu-way/)

Transforming research ideas into meaningful impact is no small feat. It often requires the knowledge and experience of individuals from across disciplines and institutions. Collaborators, a new Microsoft Research Podcast series, explores the relationships—both expected and unexpected—behind the projects, products, and services being pursued and delivered by researchers at Microsoft and the diverse range of people they’re teaming up with.In this episode, Microsoft Principal Researcher Dr. Bichlien Nguyen (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/bnguy/) and Dr. David Kwabi, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan (https://me.engin.umich.edu/people/faculty/david-kwabi/), join host Dr. Gretchen Huizinga to talk about how their respective research interests—and those of their larger teams—are converging to develop renewable energy storage systems. They specifically explore their work in flow batteries and how machine learning can help more effectively search the vast organic chemistry space to identify compounds with properties just right for storing waterpower and other renewables for a not rainy day. The bonus? These new compounds may just help advance carbon capture, too.Learn more* Microsoft Climate Research Initiative (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/collaboration/microsoft-climate-research-initiative/)* Project Zerix (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/project-zerix/)* Project Carbonix (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/project-carbonix/)* Kwabi Lab, University of Michigan (https://sites.google.com/umich.edu/kwabilab/home)* Understanding capacity fade in organic redox-flow batteries by combining spectroscopy with statistical inference techniques (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-39257-z)

Powerful new large-scale AI models like GPT-4 are showing dramatic improvements in reasoning, problem-solving, and language capabilities. This marks a phase change for artificial intelligence—and a signal of accelerating progress to come.In this Microsoft Research Podcast series, AI scientist and engineer Ashley Llorens (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/allorens/) hosts conversations with his collaborators and colleagues about what these new models—and the models that will come next—mean for our approach to creating, understanding, and deploying AI, its applications in areas such as health care and education, and its potential to benefit humanity.This episode features Senior Principal Researcher Emre Kiciman (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/emrek/) and Principal Researcher Amit Sharma (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/amshar/), whose paper “Causal Reasoning and Large Language Models: Opening a New Frontier for Causality” examines the causal capabilities of large language models (LLMs) and their implications. Kiciman and Sharma break down the study of cause and effect; recount their respective ongoing journeys with GPT-3.5 and GPT-4—from their preconceptions to where they are now—and share their views of a future in which LLMs help bring together different modes of reasoning in the practice of causal inference and make causal methods easier to adopt.Learn more* Causal Reasoning and Large Language Models: Opening a New Frontier for Causality (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/causal-reasoning-and-large-language-models-opening-a-new-frontier-for-causality/) | Publication, April 2023* The AI Revolution in Medicine: GPT-4 and Beyond (https://www.informit.com/store/ai-revolution-in-medicine-gpt-4-and-beyond-9780138200138) | Book by Peter Lee, April 2023* AI and Microsoft Research (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/focus-area/ai-and-microsoft-research/) | Learn more about the breadth of AI research at Microsoft

Transforming research ideas into meaningful impact is no small feat. It often requires the knowledge and experience of individuals from across disciplines and institutions. Collaborators, a new Microsoft Research podcast series, explores the relationships—both expected and unexpected—behind the projects, products, and services being pursued and delivered by researchers at Microsoft and the diverse range of people they're teaming up with. In this inaugural episode, host Dr. Gretchen Huizinga talks with GitHub Staff Product Manager Kasia Sitkiewicz (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kasiasitkiewicz/) and Protocol Labs Research Scientist Petar Maymounkov (https://research.protocol.ai/authors/petar-maymounkov/) about how their collaboration on Gov4git, a governance tool for decentralized, open-source cooperation, is helping to lay the foundation for a future in which everyone can collaborate more efficiently, transparently, and easily and in the ways that meet the unique desires and needs of their respective communities. They discuss the governance features that make Gov4git more suitable for serving a broader range of communities than today’s public blockchains and the open-source book project allowing them to test the potential and limitations of the work.https://www.microsoft.com/research (https://www.microsoft.com/research)

Powerful new large-scale AI models like GPT-4 are showing dramatic improvements in reasoning, problem-solving, and language capabilities. This marks a phase change for artificial intelligence—and a signal of accelerating progress to come.In this Microsoft Research Podcast series, AI scientist and engineer Ashley Llorens (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/allorens/) hosts conversations with his collaborators and colleagues about what these new models—and the models that will come next—mean for our approach to creating, understanding, and deploying AI, its applications in areas such as health care and education, and its potential to benefit humanity.The third episode features Ece Kamar (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/eckamar/), deputy lab director at Microsoft Research Redmond. Kamar draws on decades of experience in AI research and an opportunity she and Microsoft colleagues had to evaluate and experiment with GPT-4 prior to its release in discussing the capabilities and limitations of today’s large-scale models. She explores the short-term mitigation techniques she and her team are using to make these models viable components of the AI systems that give them purpose and shares the long-term research questions that will help maximize their value. https://www.microsoft.com/research (https://www.microsoft.com/research)

Powerful new large-scale AI models like GPT-4 are showing dramatic improvements in reasoning, problem-solving, and language capabilities. This marks a phase change for artificial intelligence—and a signal of accelerating progress to come.In this new Microsoft Research Podcast series, AI scientist and engineer Ashley Llorens (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/allorens/) hosts conversations with his collaborators and colleagues about what these new models—and the models that will come next—mean for our approach to creating, understanding, and deploying AI, its applications in areas such as health care and education, and its potential to benefit humanity.The second episode features Peter Lee (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/petelee/), head of Microsoft Research. Lee was among a group within Microsoft to have early access to GPT-4 for evaluation and experimentation. Here, he applies his philosophy of tackling research from what will be inevitably true at a future point in time to this current moment. He also explores the differences that may make integrating today’s AI advancements into health care more attainable, a topic he expands on in the soon-to-be-released book The AI Revolution in Medicine: GPT-4 and Beyond and the New England Journal of Medicine article "Benefits, Limits, and Risks of GPT-4 as an AI Chatbot for Medicine."https://www.microsoft.com/research (https://www.microsoft.com/research)

Powerful new large-scale AI models like GPT-4 are showing dramatic improvements in reasoning, problem-solving, and language capabilities. This marks a phase change for artificial intelligence—and a signal of accelerating progress to come.In this new Microsoft Research Podcast series, AI scientist and engineer Ashley Llorens (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/allorens/) hosts conversations with his collaborators and colleagues about what these new models—and the models that will come next—mean for our approach to creating, understanding, and deploying AI, its applications in areas such as health care and education, and its potential to benefit humanity.The first episode features Sébastien Bubeck (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/sebubeck/), who leads the Machine Learning Foundations group at Microsoft Research in Redmond. He and his collaborators conducted an extensive evaluation of GPT-4 while it was in development, and have published their findings in a paper that explores its capabilities and limitations—noting that it shows “sparks” of artificial general intelligence.https://www.microsoft.com/research (https://www.microsoft.com/research)

In “Just Tech: Centering Community-Driven Innovation at the Margins,” Senior Principal Researcher Mary L. Gray (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/mlg/) explores how technology and community intertwine and the role technology can play in supporting community-driven innovation and community-based organizations. Dr. Gray and her team are working to bring computer science, engineering, social science, and communities together to boost societal resilience in ongoing work with Project Resolve (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/project-resolve/). She’ll talk with organizers, academics, technology leaders, and activists to understand how to develop tools and frameworks of support alongside members of these communities.     In this episode of the series, Dr. Gray and Dr. Sasha Costanza-Chock (https://www.schock.cc/), scholar, designer, and activist, explore design justice, a framework for analyzing design’s power to perpetuate—or take down—structural inequality and a community of practice dedicated to creating a more equitable and sustainable world through inclusive, thoughtful, and respectful design processes. They also discuss how critical thinkers and makers from social movements have influenced technology design and science and technology studies (STS), how challenging the assumptions that drive who tech is built for will create better experiences for most of the planet, and how a deck of tarot-inspired cards is encouraging radically wonderful sociotechnical futures.https://www.microsoft.com/research (https://www.microsoft.com/research)

In “Just Tech: Centering Community-Driven Innovation at the Margins,” Senior Principal Researcher Mary Gray (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/mlg/) explores how technology and community intertwine and the role technology can play in supporting community-driven innovation and community-based organizations. Dr. Gray and her team are working to bring computer science, engineering, social science, and community together to boost societal resilience in ongoing work with Project Resolve (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/project-resolve/). She’ll talk with organizers, academics, technology leaders, and activists to understand how to develop tools and frameworks of support alongside members of these communities. In this episode of the series, Dr. Gray talks with Dr. Tawanna Dillahunt (http://www.tawannadillahunt.com/), Associate Professor at University of Michigan’s School of Information, Zachary Rowe, Executive Director of Friends of Parkside (https://friendsofparkside.org/), and Joanna Velazquez, Campaign Manager at Detroit Action (https://detroitaction.org/). The guests share personal experiences where community and research collaborations have been most impactful in solving problems, talk about ways that participatory research can foster equal partnerships and fuel innovation, and offer perspectives on how researchers can best work with communities to work through problems at a local level. They also discuss the role that technology plays—and doesn’t play—in their work.https://www.microsoft.com/research (https://www.microsoft.com/research)

In “Just Tech: Centering Community-Driven Innovation at the Margins,” Senior Principal Researcher Mary Gray (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/mlg/) explores how technology and community intertwine and the role technology can play in supporting community-driven innovation and community-based organizations. Dr. Gray and her team are working to bring computer science, engineering, social science, and community together to boost societal resilience in ongoing work with Project Resolve (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/project-resolve/). She’ll talk with organizers, academics, technology leaders, and activists to understand how to develop tools and frameworks of support alongside members of these communities. In this episode of the series, Dr. Gray talks with Dr. Desmond Patton (https://socialwork.columbia.edu/faculty-research/faculty/full-time/desmond-upton-patton/), whose work at the intersection of social work, social media, and technology seeks to understand the root of aggression, grief, and trauma in ways that can help inform interventions for social workers and broader communities. Together, they explore Patton’s learnings about the challenges of using AI in a field that’s full of nuance and how informed technology can make positive social impacts in partnership with local communities. Dr. Patton also shares how his work on gang violence has grown his understanding of how social media can influence and transform the narratives about people.https://www.microsoft.com/research (https://www.microsoft.com/research)

For Microsoft researchers, COVID-19 was a call to action. The reimagining of work practices had long been an area of study, but existing and new questions that needed immediate answers surfaced as companies and their employees quickly adjusted to significantly different working conditions. Teams from across the Microsoft organizational chart pooled their unique expertise together under The New Future of Work initiative. The results have informed product features designed to better support remote work and are now being used to help companies, including Microsoft, usher their workforces into a future of hybrid work. In this episode of The New Future of Work series, Chief Scientist Jaime Teevan (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/teevan/) and Senior Principal Researcher Siddharth Suri (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/suri/) explore the many ways people were impacted by work shifts during the COVID-19 pandemic. They talk about how race, gender, income, and other factors are indicative of how people have fared and what this means for the future of work. The researchers discuss the importance of examining potential hidden consequences—and patience—when using short-term data to make long-term decisions, emphasizing aspects of burnout and innovation. Topics covered in this wide-ranging conversation include benefits of commutes and a silver lining in the shift to remote and hybrid work—the movement of more innovative jobs out of large metro areas, creating momentum for greater opportunity in diverse locations. The research that Siddharth Suri describes in this podcast was jointly done with Hana Wolf of LinkedIn. https://www.microsoft.com/research (https://www.microsoft.com/research)

For Microsoft researchers, COVID-19 was a call to action. The reimagining of work practices had long been an area of study, but existing and new questions that needed immediate answers surfaced as companies and their employees quickly adjusted to significantly different working conditions. Teams from across the Microsoft organizational chart pooled their unique expertise together under The New Future of Work initiative. The results have informed product features designed to better support remote work and are now being used to help companies, including Microsoft, usher their workforces into a future of hybrid work. In this episode of The New Future of Work series, Chief Scientist Jaime Teevan (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/teevan/) and Principal User Research Manager Ginger Hudson (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ginger-hudson-1a6b52) share how people evolved their home office setups throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and they explore how information workers used various devices and peripherals to put their best self forward as the shift to remote work quickly unfolded. They also talk about what an “anatomy of hybrid work” might look like and some considerations for making a hybrid model of work sustainable in the long term, including the expansion of workspaces to outdoor environments. https://www.microsoft.com/research (https://www.microsoft.com/research)

For Microsoft researchers, COVID-19 was a call to action. The reimagining of work practices had long been an area of study, but existing and new questions that needed immediate answers surfaced as companies and their employees quickly adjusted to significantly different working conditions. Teams from across the Microsoft organizational chart pooled their unique expertise together under The New Future of Work initiative. The results have informed product features designed to better support remote work and are now being used to help companies, including Microsoft, usher their workforces into a future of hybrid work. In this episode of the podcast, Chief Scientist Jaime Teevan (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/teevan/) and Senior User Research Manager Matt Brodsky (https://www.linkedin.com/in/mbrodsky-ph-d/) examine how the level of IT support available during the shift, including the ability to provide hardware and software, made the difference between laying off staff and weathering the challenges brought on by the pandemic. They also explore why remote work came with a spike in phishing threats, what the biggest thorn in the sides of IT administrators has been this past year, and where opportunities exist to prepare to keep up with tech advances and tackle future disruptions. https://www.microsoft.com/research (https://www.microsoft.com/research)

Unlocking the challenge of molecular simulation has the potential to yield significant breakthroughs in how we tackle such societal issues as climate change, drug discovery, and the treatment of disease, and Microsoft is ramping up its efforts in the space. In this episode, Chris Bishop (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/cmbishop/), Lab Director of Microsoft Research Cambridge, welcomes renowned machine learning researcher Max Welling (https://staff.fnwi.uva.nl/m.welling/) to the Microsoft Research team as head of the new Amsterdam lab. Connecting over their shared physics background and vision for molecular simulation, Bishop and Welling explore several fascinating topics, including a future in which machine learning and quantum computing will be used in tandem to model molecules, the power of machine learning to provide “on demand” data in this space, and goals for the first year and beyond at the Amsterdam lab. https://www.microsoft.com/research (https://www.microsoft.com/research)

For Microsoft researchers, COVID-19 was a call to action. The reimagining of work practices had long been an area of study, but existing and new questions that needed immediate answers surfaced as companies and their employees quickly adjusted to significantly different working conditions. Teams from across the Microsoft organizational chart pooled their unique expertise together under The New Future of Work initiative. The results have informed product features designed to better support remote work and are now being used to help companies, including Microsoft, usher their workforces into a future of hybrid work. In this episode of The New Future of Work series, Chief Scientist Jaime Teevan (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/teevan/) and Principal Productivity Engineer Brian Houck (https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-houck-b4123132/) discuss what the massive shift to remote work meant for developers—both employees of Microsoft and customers using Microsoft developer platforms to support their work. They’ll talk about how taking a holistic approach to developer productivity can benefit both efficiency and happiness, with an emphasis on the important role social connections and processes play in a field often thought of as an isolated endeavor. They also explore pros and cons of everyday developer tasks, like code review and whiteboarding, being done in a hybrid work setting. https://www.microsoft.com/research (https://www.microsoft.com/research)

For Microsoft researchers, COVID-19 was a call to action. The reimagining of work practices had long been an area of study, but existing and new questions that needed immediate answers surfaced as companies and their employees quickly adjusted to significantly different working conditions. Teams from across the Microsoft organizational chart pooled their unique expertise together under The New Future of Work initiative. The results have informed product features designed to better support remote work and are now being used to help companies, including Microsoft, usher their workforces into a future of hybrid work. In this episode of The New Future of Work series of the podcast, Chief Scientist Jaime Teevan (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/teevan/) and Senior Research Economist Sonia Jaffe (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/sojaffe/) delve into the “Personal Productivity and Well-Being” chapter of the report, beginning with why measuring productivity isn’t as easy as just observing output or counting hours worked. They also explore how people already working from home helped them better understand how people adjusted to remote work, the diversity in experiences among workers, and how we can be better coworkers to our remote colleagues whether we’re working from home or not. https://www.microsoft.com/research (https://www.microsoft.com/research)

For Microsoft researchers, COVID-19 was a call to action. The reimagining of work practices had long been an area of study, but existing and new questions that needed immediate answers surfaced as companies and their employees quickly adjusted to significantly different working conditions. Teams from across the Microsoft organizational chart pooled their unique expertise together under The New Future of Work initiative. The results have informed product features designed to better support remote work and are now being used to help companies, including Microsoft, usher their workforces into a future of hybrid work. In this episode of The New Future of Work series of the podcast, Chief Scientist Jaime Teevan (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/teevan/) and Abigail Sellen (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/asellen/), Deputy Lab Director at Microsoft Research Cambridge in the United Kingdom, explore the dynamics of meetings and collaborations in the context of remote work. They specifically address the difference between weak and strong ties in our professional networks and why both matter to employee and company success. They also break down the phenomenon of video fatigue and share ways in which remote meetings may actually have the advantage. https://www.microsoft.com/research (https://www.microsoft.com/research)

For Microsoft researchers, COVID-19 was a call to action. The reimagining of work practices had long been an area of study, but existing and new questions that needed immediate answers surfaced as companies and their employees quickly adjusted to significantly different working conditions. Teams from across the Microsoft organizational chart pooled their unique expertise together under The New Future of Work initiative. The results have informed product features designed to better support remote work and are now being used to help companies, including Microsoft, usher their workforces into a future of hybrid work. In this episode of The New Future of Work series of the podcast, Chief Scientist Jaime Teevan (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/teevan/) and Director of Applied Science Brent Hecht (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/brhecht/) of the Experiences and Devices group in Microsoft share how an internal SharePoint document led to what they believe is the largest collection of research on the pandemic’s impact on work. They’ll discuss the role of research during times of disruption, the widening scope of productivity tools, why going back to work two to three days a week is ideal, and what else companies should keep in mind as they decide on new work models. https://www.microsoft.com/research (https://www.microsoft.com/research)

In the world of economics, researchers at Microsoft are examining a range of complex systems—from those that impact the technologies we use to those that inform the laws and policies we create—through the lens of a social science that goes beyond the numbers to better understand people and society. In this episode, Senior Principal Researcher Hunt Allcott (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/hallcott/) talks with Postdoctoral Researcher Evan Rose (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/evanrose/) about Allcott’s work exploring the everyday decisions people face, like buying fuel-efficient cars or taking out payday loans, and how a clearer understanding of these decisions can shape meaningful public policy. Allcott shares how his and others’ research shows that policy can often have complex outcomes resulting in hidden benefits and drawbacks, as in the case of taxes on sugary beverages. The researchers also discuss why individuals often feel the competing motivations of making bad versus good decisions—a tension that often lies front-and-center in scenarios primed for behavioral public economics research. https://www.microsoft.com/research

In the world of economics, researchers at Microsoft are examining a range of complex systems—from those that impact the technologies we use to those that inform the laws and policies we create—through the lens of a social science that goes beyond the numbers to better understand people and society. Interviewed by Senior Principal Researcher Hunt Allcott (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/hallcott/), Economist David Rothschild (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/davidmr/) discusses how the news media has evolved alongside social media and the internet, from story development to distribution of news via aggregators and wire services. Rothschild illuminates how and where people are consuming news and shares some of the strategies he’s seeing news outlets use to appeal to their audiences. He also covers research insights into media bias, misinformation, and how this knowledge could inform the future of news for the better. In addition, the researchers talk about Rothschild’s work with Project Ratio (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/project-ratio/), which looks at how the news ecosystem impacts public opinion and political polarization while providing a multi-faceted approach to understanding these outcomes through data and infrastructure. https://www.microsoft.com/research

In the world of economics, researchers at Microsoft are examining a range of complex systems—from those that impact the technologies we use to those that inform the laws and policies we create—through the lens of a social science that goes beyond the numbers to better understand people and society. In this episode, Senior Principal Researcher Dr. Hunt Allcott (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/hallcott/) speaks with Microsoft Research New England office mate and Senior Principal Researcher Dr. Greg Lewis (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/glewis/). Together, they cover the connection between causal machine learning and economics research, the motivations of buyers and sellers on e-commerce platforms, and how ad targeting and data practices could evolve to foster a more symbiotic relationship between customers and businesses. They also discuss EconML (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/econml/), a Python package for estimating heterogeneous treatment effects that Lewis has worked on as part of the ALICE (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/alice/) (Automated Learning and Intelligence for Causation and Economics) project at Microsoft Research. https://www.microsoft.com/research

In the world of economics, researchers at Microsoft are examining a range of complex systems—from those that impact the technologies we use to those that inform the laws and policies we create—through the lens of a social science that goes beyond the numbers to better understand people and society. In this episode, Dr. Hunt Allcott, Senior Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research New England, talks with Dr. Evan Rose, Postdoctoral Researcher, whom Allcott describes as “one of the most engaging and talented researchers in applied microeconomics today.” They’ll discuss how Rose’s experience teaching adult learners at San Quentin State Prison has resonated throughout his research, and they’ll delve into what his and others’ work is uncovering about the criminal justice system today, including the effects of incarceration and parole, impacts of ban-the-box hiring practices, and racial disparities and discrimination. https://www.microsoft.com/research

Today, people around the globe—from teachers to small-business owners to finance executives—use Microsoft Excel to make sense of the information that occupies their respective worlds, and whether they realize it or not, in doing so, they’re taking on the role of programmer. In this episode, Senior Principal Research Manager Andy Gordon, who leads the Calc Intelligence team at Microsoft Research, and Senior Principal Researcher Simon Peyton Jones provide an inside account of the journey Excel has taken as a programming language, including the expansion of data types that has unlocked greater functionality and the release of the LAMBDA function, which makes the Excel formula language Turing-complete. They’ll talk specifically about how research has influenced Excel and vice versa, programming as a human-computer interaction challenge, and a future in which Excel is the first language for budding programmers and a tool for incorporating probabilistic reasoning into our decision-making. https://www.microsoft.com/research

This episode first aired in April (2018). When we think about artificial intelligence and the “world of the future,” our vision is usually more Jetsons than Green Acres. But for Dr. Ranveer Chandra, a Principal Researcher in the Systems and Networking group at Microsoft Research, rural farms are the perfect place to realize the benefits of AI through what he calls precision agriculture, or data-driven farming.Today, in a wide-ranging interview, Dr. Chandra talks about how his research may eventually make your wi-fi signal stronger and your battery life longer, but also shares the story of how spending childhood summers with his grandparents in rural India inspired a line of research that could change the face of farming and help meet the food and nutrition needs of a growing global population.

Developing complex artificial intelligence systems in a lab is a challenging task, but what happens when they go into production and interact with real humans? That’s what researchers like Dr. Fernando Diaz, a Principal Research Manager at Microsoft Research Montreal, want to know. He and his colleagues are trying to understand – and address – the social implications of these systems as they enter the open world. Today, Dr. Diaz shares his insights on the kinds of questions we need to be asking about artificial intelligence and its impact on society. He also talks about how algorithms can affect your taste in music, and why now, more than ever, computer science education needs to teach ethics along with algorithms.

This episode first aired in November (2017). Dr. Jaime Teevan has a lot to say about productivity in a fragmented culture, and some solutions that seem promising, if somewhat counter-intuitive. Dr. Teevan is a Microsoft researcher, University of Washington Affiliate Professor, and the mother of four young boys. Today she talks about what she calls the productivity revolution, and explains how her research in micro-productivity – making use of short fragments of time to help us accomplish larger tasks -  could help us be more productive, and experience a better quality of life at the same time.

In technical terms, computer vision researchers “build algorithms and systems to automatically analyze imagery and extract knowledge from the visual world.” In layman’s terms, they build machines that can see. And that’s exactly what Principal Researcher and Research Manager, Dr. Gang Hua, and Computer Vision Technology team, are doing. Because being able to see is really important for things like the personal robots, self-driving cars, and autonomous drones we’re seeing more and more in our daily lives. Today, Dr. Hua talks about how the latest advances in AI and machine learning are making big improvements on image recognition, video understanding and even the arts. He also explains the distributed ensemble approach to active learning, where humans and machines work together in the lab to get computer vision systems ready to see and interpret the open world.

When we think of medals, we usually picture them over the pocket of a military hero, not over the pocket protector of a computer scientist. That may be because not many academics end up working with the Department of Defense. But Dr. Chris White, now a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research, has, and he’s received several awards for his efforts in fighting terrorism and crime with big data, statistics and machine learning. Today, Dr. White talks about his “problem-first” approach to research, explains the vital importance of making data understandable for everyone, and shares the story of how a one-week detour from academia turned into an extended tour in Afghanistan, a stint at DARPA, and, eventually, a career at Microsoft Research.

In the world of machine learning, there’s been a notable trade-off between accuracy and intelligibility. Either the models are accurate but difficult to make sense of, or easy to understand but prone to error. That’s why Dr. Rich Caruana, Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research, has spent a good part of his career working to make the simple more accurate and the accurate more intelligible. Today, Dr. Caruana talks about how the rise of deep neural networks has made understanding machine predictions more difficult for humans, and discusses an interesting class of smaller, more interpretable models that may help to make the black box nature of machine learning more transparent.

With 7 billion people on the planet, you might be surprised to learn that approximately a billion of those people experience some form of disability. Enter Principal Researcher and Research Manager, Dr. Merrie Ringel Morris, and the Ability Group at Microsoft Research. They’re working to remove accessibility barriers both to and through technology, empowering people with disabilities to better perform their daily tasks. Today, Dr. Morris gives us some fascinating insights into the world of “ability,” talks about how technology is augmenting not only sensory and motor abilities, but cognitive and social abilities as well, and shares how Microsoft, through its AI for Accessibility initiative, is committed to extending the capabilities and enhancing the quality of life for every person on the planet.

Humans are wired to communicate, but we don’t always understand each other. Especially when we don’t speak the same language. But Arul Menezes, the Partner Research Manager who heads MSR’s Machine Translation team, is working to remove language barriers to help people communicate better. And with the help of some innovative machine learning techniques, and the combined brainpower of machine translation, natural language and machine learning teams in Redmond and Beijing, it’s happening sooner than anyone expected. Today, Menezes talks about how the advent of deep learning has enabled exciting advances in machine translation, including applications for people with disabilities, and gives us an inside look at the recent “human parity” milestone at Microsoft Research, where machines translated a news dataset from Chinese to English with the same accuracy and quality as a person.

Some of the world’s leading architects are people that you’ve probably never heard of, and they’ve designed and built some of the world’s most amazing structures that you’ve probably never seen. Or at least you don’t think you have. One of these architects is Dr. Doug Burger, Distinguished Engineer at Microsoft Research NExT. And, if you use a computer, or store anything in the Cloud, you’re a beneficiary of the beautiful architecture that he, and people like him, work on every day. Today, in a fast-paced interview, Dr. Burger talks about how advances in AI and deep machine learning have placed new acceleration demands on current hardware and computer architecture, offers some observations about the demise of Moore’s Law, and shares his vision of what life might look like in a post-CPU, post-von-Neumann computing world.

Autonomous flying agents – or flying robots – may seem like the stuff of sci-fi to the average person, but to Dr. Ashish Kapoor, Principal Researcher and Research Manager of the Aerial Informatics and Robotics Group at Microsoft Research, they’re much closer to science than to fiction. And, having built – and flight tested – his own airplane, complete with state-of-the-art avionics designed to run AI and ML algorithms, he has the street cred – or should we say flight cred – to prove it. Today, Dr. Kapoor talks about how cutting-edge machine learning techniques are empowering a new generation of autonomous vehicles, and tells us all about AirSim, an innovative platform that’s helping bridge the simulator-to-reality gap, paving the way for safer, more robust real-world AI systems of all kinds

Teaching computers to read, think and communicate like humans is a daunting task, but it’s one that Dr. Geoff Gordon embraces with enthusiasm and optimism. Moving from an academic role at Carnegie Mellon University, to a new role as Research Director of the Microsoft Research Lab in Montreal, Dr. Gordon embodies the current trend toward the partnership between academia and industry as we enter what many believe will be a new era of progress in machine learning and artificial intelligence. Today, Dr. Gordon gives us a brief history of AI, including his assessment of why we might see a break in the weather-pattern of AI winters, talks about how collaboration is essential to innovation in machine learning, shares his vision of the mindset it takes to tackle the biggest questions in AI, and reveals his life-long quest to make computers less… well, less computer-like.

Emotions are fundamental to human interaction, but in a world where humans are increasingly interacting with AI systems, Dr. Mary Czerwinski, Principal Researcher and Research Manager of the Visualization and Interaction for Business and Entertainment group at Microsoft Research, believes emotions may be fundamental to our interactions with machines as well. And through her team’s work in affective computing, the quest to bring Artificial Emotional Intelligence – or AEI – to our computers may be closer than we think. Today, Dr. Czerwinski tells us how a cognitive psychologist found her way into the research division of the world’s largest software company, suggests that rather than trying to be productive 24/7, we should aim for Emotional Homeostasis instead, and tells us how, if we do it right, our machines could become a sort of “emotional at-work DJ,” sensing and responding to our emotional states, and helping us to become happier and more productive at the same time.

From ancient hieroglyphics to secret decoder rings to World War II Enigma code-makers and code-breakers, cryptography has always held a particular fascination for us. But few of us have the skills – or can actually do the math – to unlock the mysteries of encrypted data. Fortunately, Dr. Kristin Lauter, distinguished mathematician, founder of the Women in Numbers Network, and Principal Researcher and Research Manager for the Cryptography Group at Microsoft Research, can. And she is using her powers for good, not for evil! Today, Dr. Lauter tells us why she feels lucky  to do math for a living, explains the singular beauty of elliptic curves and the singular difficulty of supersingular isogeny graphs, talks about how homomorphic encryption – part of the field of Private AI – allows us to operate on, while still protecting, our most sensitive data, and shares her dream of one day, seeing a Grace Hopper-like conference to celebrate women in mathematics.

When we think about artificial intelligence and the “world of the future,” our vision is usually more Jetsons than Green Acres. But for Dr. Ranveer Chandra, a Principal Researcher in the Systems and Networking group at Microsoft Research, rural farms are the perfect place to realize the benefits of AI through what he calls precision agriculture, or data-driven farming. Today, in a wide-ranging interview, Dr. Chandra talks about how his research may eventually make your Wi-Fi signal stronger and your battery life longer, but also shares the story of how spending childhood summers with his grandparents in rural India inspired a line of research that could change the face of farming and help meet the food and nutrition needs of a growing global population.

One of the most intriguing areas of machine learning research is affective computing, where scientists are working to bridge the gap between human emotions and computers. It is here, at the intersection of psychology and computer science, that we find Dr. Daniel McDuff, who has been designing systems, from hardware to algorithms, that can sense human behavior and respond to human emotions. Today, Dr. McDuff talks about why we need computers to understand us, outlines the pros and cons of designing emotionally sentient agents, explains the technology behind CardioLens, a pair of augmented reality glasses that can take your heartrate by looking at your face, and addresses the challenges of maintaining trust and privacy when we’re surrounded by devices that want to know not just what we’re doing, but how we’re feeling.

Learning to read, think and communicate effectively is part of the curriculum for every young student. But Dr. Adam Trischler, Research Manager and leader of the Machine Comprehension team at Microsoft Research Montreal, would like to make it part of the curriculum for your computer as well. And he’s working on that, using methods from machine learning, deep neural networks, and other branches of AI to close the communication gap between humans and computers. Today, Dr. Trischler talks about his dream of making literate machines, his efforts to design meta-learning algorithms that can actually learn to learn, the importance of what he calls “few-shot learning” in that meta-learning process, and how, through a process of one-to-many mapping in machine learning, our computers not may not only be answering our questions, but asking them as well.

There’s a big gap between memory and storage, and Dr. Anirudh Badam, of the Systems Research Group at Microsoft Research, wants to close it. With projects like Navamem, which explores how systems can get faster and better by adopting new memory technologies, and HashCache, which brings with it the promise of storage for the next billion, he just might do it. Today, Dr. Badam discusses the historic trade-offs between volatile and non-volatile memory, shares how software-defined batteries are changing the power-supply landscape, talks about how his research is aiming for the trifecta of speed, cost and capacity in new memory technologies, and reminds us, once again, how one good high school physics teacher can inspire the next generation of scientific discovery.

Artificial intelligence has captured our imagination and made many things we would have thought impossible only a few years ago seem commonplace today. But AI has also raised some challenging issues for society writ large. Enter Dr. Kate Crawford, a principal researcher at the New York City lab of Microsoft Research. Dr. Crawford, along with an illustrious group of colleagues in computer science, engineering, social science, business and law, has dedicated her research to addressing the social implications of AI, including big topics like bias, labor and automation, rights and liberties, and ethics and governance. Today, Dr. Crawford talks about both the promises and the problems of AI; why— when it comes to data – bigger isn’t necessarily better; and how – even in an era of increasingly complex technological advances – we can adopt AI design principles that empower people to shape their technical tools in ways they’d like to use them most.

With all the sensational headlines about artificial intelligence, it’s reassuring to know that some of the world’s most brilliant minds are developing AI systems for entirely practical reasons. One of those minds belongs to Dr. Antonio Criminisi, a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research in Cambridge, England. And one of those reasons is to help medical professionals provide better healthcare to their patients.Today, Dr. Criminisi talks about Project InnerEye, an innovative machine learning tool that helps radiologists identify and analyze 3-D images of cancerous tumors. He also gives us some insight into his work on deep neural decision forests and tells us how gaming algorithms made their way into medical technology, moving from gamer to patient, and turning outside-in imaging… inside-out.

If you’ve ever wondered if you could find the perfect combination of computer scientist… and Macgyver, look no further than Dr. Peli de Halleux, principal Research Software Design Engineer at Microsoft Research. A key member of the MSR RiSE team, Peli is part of the MakeCode initiative that brings physical computing to classrooms around the country and around the world. Today, Peli talks about the Maker Movement in K-12 education, the hard work that goes on behind the scenes to deliver a “seamless” user experience for both kids and teachers, and how to get children excited about coding through hands on experience in early computer science education.

Big data is a big deal, and if you follow the popular technical press, you’ll have heard all the metaphors: data is the new oil, the new bacon, the new currency, the new electricity. It’s even been called the new black. While data may not actually be any of these things, we can say this: in today’s networked world, data is increasingly valuable and it is essential to research, both basic and applied. Today, we welcome a special guest to the podcast. Dr. Igor Perisic is the Vice President of Engineering and Chief Data Officer at LinkedIn, the social network for business and employment. Today, Dr. Perisic talks about the key attributes of a data scientist, how AI and machine learning are helping personalize member experiences, why we should all be big open source fans, and how LinkedIn is partnering with other researchers through their innovative Economic Graph program to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. All this and much more on this episode of the Microsoft Research Podcast.

Every day, computers take on more and more of our daily tasks. Fill in a few cells on your spreadsheet? It’ll fill in the rest. Ask your car for directions? It’ll get you there. Anymore, we can program computers to do almost anything. But what about programming computers to… program computers? That’s a task that Dr. Rishabh Singh, and the team in the Cognition group at Microsoft Research, are tackling with Neural Program Synthesis, also known as artificial programming. Today, Dr. Singh explains how deep neural networks are already training computers to do things like take classes and grade assignments, shares how programmers can perform complicated, high-level debugging through the delightfully named process of neural fuzzing, and lays out his vision to democratize computer programming in the brave new world of Software 2.0.

As the reality of artificial intelligence continues to capture our imagination, and critical AI systems enter our world at a rapid pace, Dr. Ece Kamar, a senior researcher in the Adaptive Systems and Interaction Group at Microsoft Research, is working to help us understand AI’s far-reaching implications, both as we use it, and as we build it. Today, Dr. Kamar talks about the complementarity between humans and machines, debunks some common misperceptions about AI, reveals how we can overcome bias and blind spots by putting humans in the AI loop, and argues convincingly that, despite everything machines can do (and they can do a lot), humans are still “the real deal.”

If someone mentions quantum computing, and you find yourself outwardly nodding your head, but secretly shaking it, you’re in good company: some of the world’s smartest people admit they don’t really understand it either. Fortunately, some of the world’s other smartest people, like Dr. Krysta Svore, Principal Research Manager of the Microsoft Quantum – or QuArC - group at Microsoft Research in Redmond, actually DO understand quantum computing, and are working hard to make it a reality. Today, Dr. Svore shares her passion for quantum algorithms and their potential to solve some of the world’s biggest problems, explains why Microsoft’s topological quantum bit – or qubit – is a game changer for quantum computing, and assures us that, although qubits live in dilution refrigerators at temperatures near absolute zero, quantum researchers can still sit in the comfort of their offices and work with the computer programmer’s equivalent of Schroedinger’s Cat.

When we look at a skyscraper or a suspension bridge, a simple search engine box on a screen looks tiny by comparison. But Dr. Simon Peyton Jones would like to remind us that computer programs, with hundreds of millions of lines of code, are actually among the largest structures human beings have ever built. A principle researcher at the Microsoft Research Lab in Cambridge, England, co-developer of the programming language Haskell, and a Fellow of Britain’s Royal Society, Simon Peyton Jones has dedicated his life to this very particular kind of construction work.       Today, Dr. Peyton Jones shares his passion for functional programming research, reveals how a desire to help other researchers write and present better turned him into an unlikely YouTube star, and explains why, at least in the world of programming languages, purity is embarrassing, laziness is cool, and success should be avoided at all costs.

In an era of AI breakthroughs and other exciting advances in computer science, Dr. Ben Zorn would like to remind us that behind every great technical revolution is a… programming language. As a Principal Researcher and the Co-director of RiSE – or Research in Software Engineering – group at Microsoft Research, Dr. Zorn has dedicated his life to making sure the software that now touches nearly everything in our lives is easy, accurate, reliable and secure. Today, Dr. Zorn tells us some great stories about bugs and whales, warns us against the dumb side of “smart” objects, shares about his group’s attempt to scale the Everest of software security, and makes a great case that the most important programming language in the world today is… the spreadsheet.

In a wide-ranging interview, veteran Microsoft Researcher, Dr. Steven Drucker talks about his work in data visualization, the importance of clear communication in a world of complex algorithms and big data, and the long, slow work of big breakthroughs. He also offers some pro-tips to aspiring researchers, and tells us why stand-up comedy is an important skill for computer scientists.

On today’s episode, neuroscientist and virtual reality researcher, Dr. Mar Gonzalez Franco, talks about her work in VR, explains how avatars can help increase our empathy and reduce our biases via role play, and addresses the misconceptions that exist between the immersive experiences of virtual reality and psychedelic drugs.

If you’ve ever watched King of Kong: Fistful of Quarters, you know what a big deal it is to beat a video arcade game that was designed not to lose. Most humans can’t even come close. Enter Harm van Seijen, and a team of machine learning researchers from Microsoft Maluuba in Montreal. They took on Ms. Pac-man. And won. Today we’ll talk to Harm about his work in reinforcement learning, the inspiration for hybrid reward architecture, visit a few islands of tractability and get an inside look at the science behind the AI defeat of one of the most difficult video arcade games around.

When it comes to artificial intelligence, Dr. Eric Horvitz is as passionate as he is accomplished. His contributions to the field, and service on the boards of nearly every technical academy and association in the country, have earned him the respect – and awe – of his colleagues, along with the position of Technical Fellow and Managing Director of Microsoft Research. Today, Dr. Horvitz talks about the goal of artificial intelligence, his vision for our collaborative future with machines, what we can learn from the Wright brothers, and how a short stint of “six months, maximum” became an illustrious and, in his words, joyful, 25-year career at Microsoft Research.

Dr. Jaime Teevan has a lot to say about productivity in a fragmented culture, and some solutions that seem promising, if somewhat counter-intuitive. Dr. Teevan is a Microsoft researcher, University of Washington Affiliate Professor, and the mother of four young boys. Today she talks about what she calls the productivity revolution, and explains how her research in micro-productivity – making use of short fragments of time to help us accomplish larger tasks -  could help us be more productive, and experience a better quality of life at the same time.

Dynamic random-access memory – or DRAM – is the most popular form of volatile computer memory in the world but it’s particularly susceptible to Rowhammer, an adversarial attack that can cause data loss and security exploits in everything from smart phones to the cloud. Today, Dr. Stefan Saroiu, a Senior Principal Researcher in MSR’s Mobility and Networking group, explains why DRAM remains vulnerable to Rowhammer attacks today, even after several years of mitigation efforts, and then tells us how a new approach involving bespoke extensibility mechanisms for DRAM might finally hammer Rowhammer in the fight to keep data safe and secure.

Many computer science researchers set their sights on building general AI technologies that could impact hundreds of millions – or even billions – of people. But Dr. Danielle Bragg, a senior researcher at MSR’s New England lab, has a slightly smaller and more specific population in mind: the some seventy million people worldwide who use sign languages as their primary means of communication. Today, Dr. Bragg gives us an insightful overview of the field and talks about the unique challenges and opportunities of building systems that expand access to information in line with the needs and desires of the deaf and signing community. https://www.microsoft.com/research

MSR’s New York City lab is home to some of the best reinforcement learning research on the planet but if you ask any of the researchers, they’ll tell you they’re very interested in getting it out of the lab and into the real world. One of those researchers is Dr. Akshay Krishnamurthy and today, he explains how his work on feedback-driven data collection and provably efficient reinforcement learning algorithms is helping to move the RL needle in the real-world direction. https://www.microsoft.com/research

Dr. Siddhartha Sen is a Principal Researcher in MSR’s New York City lab, and his research interests are, if not impossible, at least impossible sounding: optimal decision making, universal data structures, and verifiably safe AI. Today, he tells us how he’s using reinforcement learning and HAIbrid algorithms to tap the best of both human and machine intelligence and develop AI that’s minimally disruptive, synergistic with human solutions, and safe.

This episode originally aired in August, 2018. Kevin Scott has embraced many roles over the course of his illustrious career in technology: software developer, engineering executive, researcher, angel investor, philanthropist, and now, Chief Technology Officer of Microsoft. But perhaps no role suits him so well – or has so fundamentally shaped all the others – as his self-described role of “all-around geek.” Today, in a wide-ranging interview, Kevin shares his insights on both the history and the future of computing, talks about how his impulse to celebrate the extraordinary people “behind the tech” led to an eponymous non-profit organization and a podcast, and… reveals the superpower he got when he was in grad school.

Dr. Devon Hjelm is a senior researcher at the Microsoft Research lab in Montreal, and today, he joins me to dive deep into his research on Deep InfoMax, a novel self-supervised learning approach to training AI models – and getting good representations – without human annotation. He also tells us how an interest in neural networks, first human and then machine, led to an inspiring career in deep learning research. https://www.microsoft.com/research

This episode originally aired in June, 2019 You may not know who Dr. Andrew Fitzgibbon is, but if you’ve watched a TV show or movie in the last two decades, you’ve probably seen some of his work. An expert in 3D computer vision and graphics, and head of the new All Data AI group at Microsoft Research Cambridge, Dr. Fitzgibbon was instrumental in the development of Boujou, an Emmy Award-winning 3D camera tracker that lets filmmakers place virtual props, like the floating candles in Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, into live-action footage. But that was just his warm-up act. On today’s podcast, Dr. Fitzgibbon tells us what he’s been working on since the Emmys in 2002, including body- and hand-tracking for powerhouse Microsoft technologies like Kinect for Xbox 360 and HoloLens, explains how research on dolphins helped build mathematical models for the human hand, and reminds us, once again, that the “secret sauce” to most innovation is often just good, old-fashioned hard work. https://www.microsoft.com/research

This episode originally aired in April, 2018 Emotions are fundamental to human interaction, but in a world where humans are increasingly interacting with AI systems, Dr. Mary Czerwinski, Principal Researcher and Research Manager of the Visualization and Interaction for Business and Entertainment group at Microsoft Research, believes emotions may be fundamental to our interactions with machines as well. And through her team’s work in affective computing, the quest to bring Artificial Emotional Intelligence – or AEI – to our computers may be closer than we think. Today, Dr. Czerwinski tells us how a cognitive psychologist found her way into the research division of the world’s largest software company, suggests that rather than trying to be productive 24/7, we should aim for Emotional Homeostasis instead, and tells us how, if we do it right, our machines could become a sort of “emotional at-work DJ,” sensing and responding to our emotional states, and helping us to become happier and more productive at the same time.

This episode originally aired in April, 2019. We hear a lot these days about “AI for good” and the efforts of many companies to harness the power of artificial intelligence to solve some of our biggest environmental challenges. It’s rare, however, that you find a company willing to bring its environmental bona fides all the way to the C Suite. Well, meet Dr. Lucas Joppa (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/lujoppa/). A former environmental and computer science researcher at MSR who was tapped in 2017 to become the company’s first Chief Environmental Scientist, Dr. Joppa is now the Chief Environmental Officer at Microsoft, another first, and is responsible for managing the company’s overall environmental sustainability efforts from operations to policy to technology.   Today, Dr. Joppa shares how his love for nature and the joy of discovery actually helped shape his career path, and tells us all about AI for Earth (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/ai/ai-for-earth?activetab=pivot1:primaryr6), a multi-year, multi-million dollar initiative to deploy the full scale of Microsoft’s products, policies and partnerships across four key areas of agriculture, water, biodiversity and climate, and transform the way society monitors, models, and ultimately manages Earth’s natural resources.

This episode originally aired in December, 2017 On today’s episode, neuroscientist and virtual reality researcher, Dr. Mar Gonzalez Franco, talks about her work in VR, explains how avatars can help increase our empathy and reduce our biases via role play, and addresses the misconceptions that exist between the immersive experiences of virtual reality and psychedelic drugs.

Forty years ago, database research was an “exotic” field and, because of its business data processing reputation, was not considered intellectually interesting in academic circles. But that didn’t deter Dr. Philip Bernstein, now a Distinguished Scientist in MSR’s Data Management, Exploration and Mining group, and a pioneer in the field. Today, Dr. Bernstein talks about his pioneering work in databases over the years and tells us all about Project Orleans, a distributed systems programming framework that makes life easier for programmers who aren’t distributed systems experts. He also talks about the future of database systems in a cloud scale world, and reveals where he finds his research sweet spot along the academic industrial spectrum. https://www.microsoft.com/research

Brad Smith is the President of Microsoft and leads a team of more than 1400 employees in 56 countries. He plays a key role in spearheading the company’s work on critical issues involving the intersection of technology and society. In his spare time, he’s also an author! We were fortunate to catch up with Brad who, late on a Friday afternoon, sat down with me in the booth to talk about his new book, Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age, and revealed the top ten tech policy issues he believes will shape our own century’s roaring 20s. He also gave us a peek inside the life of a person the New York Times has described a “de facto ambassador for the technology industry at large” – himself! https://www.microsoft.com/research

Rangan Majumder is the Partner Group Program Manager of Microsoft’s Search and AI, and he has a simple goal: to make the world smarter and more productive. But nobody said simple was easy, so he and his team are working on better – and faster – ways to help you find the information you’re looking for, anywhere you’re looking for it. Today, Rangan talks about how three big trends have changed the way Microsoft is building – and sharing – AI stacks across product groups. He also tells us about Project Turing, an internal deep learning moonshot that aims to harness the resources of the web and bring the power of deep learning to a search box near you. https://www.microsoft.com/research

Dr. Behnaz Arzani is a senior researcher in the Mobility and Networking group at MSR, and she feels your pain. At least, that is, if you’re a network operator trying to troubleshoot an incident in a datacenter. Her research is all about getting networks to manage themselves, so your life is as pain-free as possible. On today’s podcast, Dr. Arzani tells us why it’s so hard to identify and resolve networking problems and then explains how content-aware, or domain-customized, auto ML frameworks might help. She also tells us what she means when she says she wants to get humans out of the loop, and reveals how a competitive streak and a comment from her high school principal set her on the path to a career in high tech research. https://www.microsoft.com/research

If you want an inside look at how a research idea goes from project to prototype to product, you should hang out with Gavin Jancke for a while. He’s the General Manager of Engineering for MSR Redmond where he created – and runs – the Central Engineering Group. Over the past two decades, he’s overseen more than seven hundred software and hardware engineering projects, from internal MSR innovations to Microsoft product group partnerships. Today, Gavin takes us on a guided tour of the research engineering landscape and the engineering pipeline, recounting some of Central Engineering’s greatest hits. He also explains how the lab determines which projects get engineering resources, and reveals how one of his own projects ended up in the Museum of Modern Art. https://www.microsoft.com/research

Over the past decade, the healthcare industry has undergone a series of technological changes in an effort to modernize it and bring it into the digital world, but the call for innovation persists. One person answering that call is Dr. Peter Lee, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Healthcare, a new organization dedicated to accelerating healthcare innovation through AI and cloud computing. Today, Dr. Lee talks about how MSR’s advances in healthcare technology are impacting the business of Microsoft Healthcare. He also explains how promising innovations like precision medicine, conversational chatbots and Azure’s API for data interoperability may make healthcare better and more efficient in the future. https://www.microsoft.com/research

Dr. Debadeepta Dey is a Principal Researcher in the Adaptive Systems and Interaction group at MSR and he’s currently exploring several lines of research that may help bridge the gap between perception and planning for autonomous agents, teaching them make decisions under uncertainty and even to stop and ask for directions when they get lost! On today’s podcast, Dr. Dey talks about how his latest work in meta-reasoning helps improve modular system pipelines and how imitation learning hits the ML sweet spot between supervised and reinforcement learning. He also explains how neural architecture search helps enlighten the “dark arts” of neural network training and reveals how boredom, an old robot and a several “book runs” between India and the US led to a rewarding career in research. https://www.microsoft.com/research

Dr. Donald Kossmann is a Distinguished Scientist who thinks big, and as the Director of Microsoft Research’s flagship lab in Redmond, it’s his job to inspire others to think big, too. But don’t be fooled. For him, thinking big involves what he calls thinking backwards, a framework of imagining the future, defining progress in reverse order and executing against landmarks along an uncertain path. On today’s podcast, Dr. Kossmann reflects on his life as a database researcher and tells us how Socrates, an innovative database-as-a-service architecture, is re-envisioning traditional database design. He also reveals the five superpowers of Microsoft Research and how we can improve science… with marketing. https://www.microsoft.com/research