{"id":372360,"date":"2026-01-16T01:03:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T01:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/372360\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T01:03:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T01:03:11","slug":"microsoft-boldly-asks-who-needs-a-library-when-youve-got-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/372360\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft Boldly Asks ‘Who Needs A Library When You’ve Got AI?’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year, Microsoft committed over $100 billion of new investment<\/a> toward AI. Part of that technological arms race has included training LLMs on millions of books<\/a>, including some written 600 years ago. This year, Microsoft is paying back the favor by ditching its own employee library. The Verge reports<\/a> that the company is closing it down and slashing news subscriptions in favor of \u201cAI-powered learning experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

The onsite collection of books was allegedly so heavy, it once was blamed<\/a> 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\u2019s roughly 220,000 employees have also reportedly lost access to checking out digital copies of business books and accessing news publications like The Information.<\/p>\n

Instead of learning about the world through the considered words of other human beings, they will now be engaging with a \u201cmore modern, AI-powered learning experience through the Skilling Hub,\u201d according to an FAQ sent to staff. \u201cThe Library closed as part of Microsoft\u2019s move toward a more modern, connected learning experience through the Skilling Hub,\u201d it reads. \u201cWe know this change affects a space many people valued.\u201d<\/p>\n

Contrast that with what Microsoft recently said after it was revealed that UK police had relied on an AI hallucination<\/a> when making the controversial decision to ban fans from a certain soccer match. \u201cCopilot combines information from multiple web sources into a single response with linked citations,\u201d a spokesperson for the company told media outlets. \u201cIt informs users they are interacting with an AI system and encourages them to review the sources.\u201d Remember, it\u2019s not slop, it\u2019s a \u201cbicycle for the mind<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear if Copilot will be the basis for these new \u201cAI learning experiences\u201d 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<\/a> in Microsoft\u2019s own backyard, \u201cYou don\u2019t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last year, Microsoft committed over $100 billion of new investment toward AI. Part of that technological arms race…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,696,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-372360","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-microsoft","12":"tag-technology","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}