Sundar Pichai’s vision of AI and why people take it for granted
Google Inc. and Alphabet CEO, Sundar Pichai, has shared his insights on the present and future trajectory of artificial intelligence.
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The interview aligns with the launch of Gemini – an LLM that Google anticipates will rival established AI industry leaders like OpenAI and Microsoft.
Sundar Pichai, who ascended to Google's helm in 2004 and then to its apex in 2016, has been a visionary influence in the company. In his first address as CEO, he proclaimed that Google's future would transition “from mobile first to an AI first world.”
What, then, can we expect from this world? By the end of 2022, the advent of ChatGPT almost felt like a defining moment in civilizational advancement. A year later, Gemini's entry into the market seemed to outperform its predecessors, though it lacked the ‘wow' factor. It might suggest that AI technology has reached a plateau, with no more seismic shifts to come. However, Sundar Pichai categorically disagrees, maintaining that AI technology is merely at the dawn of its journey.
There’s a lot of progress ahead. The scaling laws are still going to work,
– he affirms.
Pichai acknowledges some “fundamental limitations” that the industry must strive to overcome. Among these, he cites a vulnerability recently identified by Google’s team that effectively allows hacking into AI systems using a specific sequence of queries. Moreover, Pichai refers to the persistent and “unsolvable” issue of AI experiencing hallucinations.
An intriguing part of the interview was Pichai's comparison of AI technology's potential to that of Android. He rightly points out that Android has made smartphones accessible to millions worldwide. Google’s new goal is to similarly democratize AI products.
“One thing at Google we’ve always been focused on is: How do we get technology access as broadly available as possible?We work hard to push toward an affordable smartphone, to maybe sub-$50. So making AI helpful for everyone is the framework I think about,” reassures Pichai.
Pichai also sheds light on how Google is currently utilizing AI in various domains. The company notes AI’s effectiveness in pattern recognition and its ability to predict floods in their early stages. Google has harnessed this capability, issuing preemptive warnings about potential natural disasters, relying on its ‘AI meteorologist.' AI also plays a crucial role in translating website content into thousands of languages, thereby providing access to vast amounts of information.
But more than any other company, we’ve incorporated so much AI in Search, people take it for granted. That’s one thing I’ve learned over time. They take it for granted,
reflects the Google CEO.
Pichai draws a parallel between the importance of free access to Google Search and the importance of widespread AI tool availability. He is optimistic that humanity will harness AI for beneficial purposes. If AI can contribute to curing cancer or halting global warming, the effort is unequivocally worthwhile. Simultaneously, people need to adapt to the inevitable “side effects” of mass AI integration, such as the rise of deepfakes and labor market transformations.
This is going to be a frontier—no different from climate change. This will be one of the biggest things we all grapple with for the next decade ahead,
Pichai predicts.
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