Microsoft (MSFT.O) President Brad Smith said in an interview on Wednesday that the computer industry needs to negotiate with regulators and take governments’ and citizens’ concerns seriously.
“Tech will have to lean in…with actual concrete ideas…even concessions so that we can all agree and develop a shared platform that protects people better than…the internet as a whole has in recent years.”
On the fringes of the Web Summit in Lisbon, Smith expressed his belief that the tech industry has not yet moved its focus to solve these problems to the extent that would be required in the future decade.
Smith emphasized that IT corporations must do more than pay lip service to regulation while fighting every government initiative. “That will be seen by the government, and it will not bode well for the sector… We need to be more honest with ourselves.”
Smith made no mention of Apple’s (AAPL.O) recent campaign against a component of the EU’s Digital Markets Act that would force the iPhone maker to allow customers to sideload software from sources other than its App Store.
Smith dampened the “hype” around the metaverse, a concept that overlays digital and physical worlds, following Facebook’s (FB.O) rebranding as Meta last week and a day after Microsoft hailed its metaverse-related projects in a blog post.
Smith remarked that while the “buzz” surrounding a technological vision that has existed for years has exploded in popularity, it is crucial not to allow the “bubble” to obscure longer-term technology trends. Despite the fact that early users of the virtual worlds known as the metaverse have slammed Facebook’s rebranding as an attempt to profit from a concept it did not invent to deflect criticism, Smith believes Big Tech players such as Facebook, Microsoft, Google, and Apple would undoubtedly benefit.
