Last year, Microsoft committed over $100 billion of new investment toward AI. Part of that technological arms race has included training LLMs on millions of books, including some written 600 years ago. This year, Microsoft is paying back the favor by ditching its own employee library. The Verge reports that the company is closing it down and slashing news subscriptions in favor of “AI-powered learning experiences.”
The onsite collection of books was allegedly so heavy, it once was blamed for cracking the underground parking lot pillars that supported it. That library, now housed in building 92, will now be closed, according to The Verge. The company’s roughly 220,000 employees have also reportedly lost access to checking out digital copies of business books and accessing news publications like The Information.
Instead of learning about the world through the considered words of other human beings, they will now be engaging with a “more modern, AI-powered learning experience through the Skilling Hub,” according to an FAQ sent to staff. “The Library closed as part of Microsoft’s move toward a more modern, connected learning experience through the Skilling Hub,” it reads. “We know this change affects a space many people valued.”
Contrast that with what Microsoft recently said after it was revealed that UK police had relied on an AI hallucination when making the controversial decision to ban fans from a certain soccer match. “Copilot combines information from multiple web sources into a single response with linked citations,” a spokesperson for the company told media outlets. “It informs users they are interacting with an AI system and encourages them to review the sources.” Remember, it’s not slop, it’s a “bicycle for the mind.”
It’s unclear if Copilot will be the basis for these new “AI learning experiences” that employees are now being encouraged to utilize, or what other sources of information they will use to review them now that the library is shutting down. As the science fiction writer Ray Bradbury once told the Seattle Times in Microsoft’s own backyard, “You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”