Microsoft limits access to facial recognition tool in AI ethics overhaul

Microsoft is overhauling its artificial intelligence ethics policies and will no longer let companies use its technology to do things such as infer emotion, gender or age using facial recognition technology, the company has said.

Even those companies that are granted access will no longer be able to use some of the more controversial features of Azure Face, Microsoft says, and the company will be retiring facial analysis technology that purports to infer emotional states and attributes such as gender or age.