Google CEO: Artificial Intelligence will touch everything and trigger a big change in human society

Key Points

• 1 Pichai believes that artificial intelligence will bring about a major change at the level of "platform shift". He calls it the most profound technology that humans are studying. Artificial intelligence will touch everything, affecting every department, every industry and every aspect of our lives.
• 2 Some people believe that this platform shift was not initiated by Google, but by OpenAI, ChatGPT and Microsoft. But Pichai explained that Google is helping to promote this platform shift, and the converters that promote the platform shift and many underlying technologies come from Google.
• 3 Google Search is like a mainframe, while artificial intelligence is a personal computer. Although artificial intelligence cannot undertake the work of many large computers, it is cheaper and more accessible. In this regard, Pichai said that Google Search is also making rapid progress, such as the launch of Bard and search generation experience features.
• 4 Pichai said that when we started to build more powerful models, one of the factors that hindered our progress was the huge computing resources required. Therefore, Google decided to integrate DeepMind and Google Brain, and now is the best time for integration.
• 5 As for the possibility that artificial intelligence may cause more people to lose their jobs, Pichai refuted that the unemployment rate has not been completely out of control in the past 20 years of technological automation. He believes that the development of artificial intelligence will be the same, and predicts that the legal profession will not disappear, and people will have more opportunities to learn how to become lawyers.

Tencent Technology News, May 13, at the just-concluded annual developer conference, Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced that new generative artificial intelligence (AIGC) features have been introduced in almost all Google products. This is an important moment for Google because the company invented many of the core technologies behind current artificial intelligence.

Google pointed out that the "T" in ChatGPT stands for Transformer, which is a large language model technology first invented by Google, but OpenAI and other companies have taken the lead in bringing AIGC products to market. OpenAI has also partnered with Microsoft to launch a new version of Bing, which seems to be becoming the first real competitor to Google Search in a long time. What does Pichai think about this? What does he think about the future of search, the core of Google's business?

AI-based search could answer questions in a more natural way, which means it will reshape the web and Google. Pichai is already taking action. He just reorganized the AI teams at Google and Alphabet, moving the AI lab called DeepMind inside Google and merging it with the Google Brain AI team to form a new division called Google DeepMind. Why did he make this decision? How did he achieve his goal?

What is Pichai's vision for Google's future? Where does he want Google to go? What exactly drives his ambition to lead Google into the future? In this article, we will look at this "platform shift" from Pichai's perspective.

The following is an excerpt from Pichai’s interview:

Q: Google has integrated AIGC features into almost every Google product and service we can think of. Which of them do you like best?

Pichai: Definitely the search generation experience that we're working on, which is our most used product and our most important product. So the opportunity to make the product better through this technological evolution is exciting. I think our team is ready to take on the challenge.

Q: In your keynote, you said that AI will be a platform shift, and I agree with you. But it occurred to me that it’s important to understand exactly what you mean by platform shift. Why do you think AI is a platform shift, and what does that mean to you?

Pichai: I think it's an extraordinary platform shift. AI is going to touch everything, every sector, every industry, every aspect of our lives. The way to think about it is very much the same as the platform shift we had with personal computers, the internet, and mobile devices. By that logic, I think it's going to be a huge shift.

But I think AI is more profound than the previous platform shifts. In some ways, I call it the most profound technology that humanity is working on that will impact everything we do. So I think this is one of those deeper shifts. Even very traditional industries will have a huge impact from AI over time. So I think the term "platform shift" has a deeper meaning here as well.

Q: When a platform shift happens, a lot of people are going to change their behavior. Google is a company that has risen very quickly, especially with the advent of the Internet. With the shift to mobile, I think Google became the dominant player. Do you see any risk to Google in this platform shift?

Pichai: I felt more about the risk of the mobile platform shift, which Google developed Android for. As a company, we had to adapt to the mobile shift. We were built on the Internet, but we were not a mobile native company by any means. So when mobile arrived, our products had to adapt to it. It was a disruptive moment. People could now use apps directly, and you could install apps on your phone.

As for AI, I feel like this is our seventh year as an AI-first company. I feel like we are AI natives, and most teams at Google intuitively understand what it means to use AI in our products.

In addition, we're also driving the state of the art. In some ways, we're helping to drive this platform shift. We deeply understand what it means to drive technology and build it into our products, and all of these shifts are disruptive, but I see the scale of the future opportunity in AI, and I feel like we've succeeded. We've been investing heavily in AI for a long time, and we knew clearly that we wanted to not only build AI into our products, but also provide AI to the rest of the world. We planned this from the beginning, so this moment makes me excited.

Q: Everyone can see that the platform shift that's happening was not initiated by Google. In a way, it was initiated by OpenAI, ChatGPT, and Microsoft, because you guys took a responsible, cautious stance. I think maybe this platform shift was an accident, and I don't think OpenAI was fighting for a moment like this. What made Google react to this, rather than proactively kick off the platform shift?

Pichai: I think some of the things that drove the platform shift were the efforts that Google made on the converter side, and a lot of the underlying technology as well. I think the inflection point was whether or not the users were ready. It was like that moment where you realize: Even though the technology has flaws, we’re at a point where people are ready to use it. They understand it, and they’re getting comfortable with it. That was the moment we realized that and started working on it. I just think it took us some time to get it right. For us, it was important because we have a product that’s used by a lot of people, at an important moment, and I think it was important to get it right.

Q: As the head of all products at Google, do you think the hallucinations or errors you saw in ChatGPT are unacceptable to you?

Pichai: We have to figure out how to use it in the right context, right? For example, if you type in the dosage of Tylenol for a three-year-old in search, it's dangerous for the AI to have hallucinations in that context. Whereas, if you just ask the AI to write you a poem about a certain topic, it's OK if it's wrong. What I mean by getting it right is getting those details right. In search, we've made progress on hallucinations, but we're just going to take time. I'm not saying it can't be used, it's just going to take time to get it right.

Q: But I would say that OpenAI is very much a disruptor in this space. Their product is not as reliable as Google Search in answering questions, but it performs better on certain queries. ChatGPT is more fun to use, and it's a different paradigm. Users were ready for it, but then it kept making mistakes. One of the examples I use most is people walking into a library and asking for books that don't exist. I think that's unacceptable in Google Search.

Pichai: I searched for a lot of products using Bard, and it gave me a URL to buy it, a URL that didn't actually exist. So all of these models have the same underlying problems, but there are also a lot of use cases that we're all excited about. So I think both can exist at the same time.

Q: But do you see that classic disruption curve? Google search is like the mainframe, and AI is like the PC, which is a classic example of disruption. Even though the PC couldn’t do everything the mainframe could do, it was cheaper, more accessible, and maybe more useful in some cases as a result.

Pichai: No, I don't think so, because Google Search is also moving very fast, it's not always standing still, we're always trying to get the right service for users. This is a moment where user expectations are shifting, and we're adapting to that. We launched Bard, and now we're making Bard more widely available, and that gives us a sandbox. There, we're exploring the boundaries of what's possible in an unconstrained way. We also launched search-generating experiences, and Bard is not a zero-sum game to me. People are using search, trying new things, and that's why I'm excited about launching these new experiences, because I think people will respond to them.

Q: A few months ago, I attended the launch of the new Bing powered by ChatGPT. I saw Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella there, and he said, "I have great respect for Pichai and his team, but I want Google to dance. I want people to know that Microsoft is the one that put Google down." What do you think of this comment?

Pichai: I've said that I have a lot of respect for Satya and his team, and I think part of the reason he said that is because he was signaling to me. We started working on a new search experience last year. To me, Satya's signal was that there is a new way to make search better, and there is a way to make our user experience better, but we have to do it right. So I said, it's most important to work hard and get it right.

Q: Let's talk about the current state of search. We all know that search is a very profitable business, and the EU has spent 20 years trying to introduce competition in search, and Google still dominates. But over time, Google's market share has been declining. Have you ever done a search and ended up with really bad SEO content? Has this ever happened to you?

Pichai: Yes, and this has been the case for more than 20 years. Search has always been about finding high-quality content from others. So sometimes we feel that there is a direction we are not doing right or lagging behind, but we will work hard to correct it. Search has always been like this. However, we can measure these things quantitatively. Internally, we work hard to quantify user satisfaction with search and figure out how users find search? Over time, we are making progress and seeing significant quality improvements in search.

Q: But if you're a new creator and you're just trying to connect with a subset of your fans, you're likely to end up on TikTok or Substack or Instagram and maybe YouTube where you have access. But those platforms aren't as visible to the average Google search user. So new stuff, high-quality stuff, more interesting stuff, may end up on platforms that aren't visible to Google search. I'm wondering if you think of search-generated experiences as an opportunity to change that? Do you think that that will create better incentives for the network again?

Pichai: I think mobile is here, video is here to stay, and so there are going to be a lot of different types of content. The web is not at the center of everything like it used to be, and it has been that way for a while. Having said that, the irony is that all of these products that have been launched recently are like Bard, ChatGPT, they are all web-based products.

I work on Chrome, and I've cared about the web for a long time, but I don't think the web belongs to anybody. So there's inherent value in that. And there are aspects of the web that are more powerful than most people realize, but I wouldn't underestimate AI. As AI becomes multimodal, the distinctions that we feel between text, images, and video have blurred over time. Today, we feel those barriers. At Google, we're always trying to bridge those things. We do more comprehensive search, and we try to bring all of these modalities together. I think with AI, maybe young creators create content in the form of video, but ultimately people can consume it in different forms. Obviously, all the details have to be figured out, including the business model.

Q: As you answer more and more questions in the search generation experience, do you think the traffic from search engines will remain the same as it has in the past, or will it decrease?

Pichai: That's a key part of our design goals. I think people come to Google for a lot of different purposes. Sometimes, you just want an answer. I'm going to New York tomorrow, and I want to know if it's raining there. But a lot of times, especially for Google, people come to explore, to discover. I think that's true, and people want to read reviews.

In the search generative experience, you'll see a lot of links that you can click to expand. For each of the things that the Large Language Model (LLM) generates, we provide a detailed description and a reliable source of verification. So one of our goals is to make sure that people come and experience the richness of the network, because I think it's important for us to create this win-win structure. This is something we've spent a lot of thought on doing.

Q: You’re the CEO of Alphabet and Google, and you’ve made major changes to the organizational structure, merging DeepMind with Google’s AI division and selecting new leadership. Why did you make those decisions in the context of, “I want to build these products, and I need to change my org chart to do that?”

Pichai: I feel very lucky that we have two of the top three AI research teams in the world. If you look at the 10 to 20 groundbreaking breakthroughs that have gotten us to where we are today, these two teams together account for a large part of it. But we knew that as we started to build more powerful models, one of the things that held us back was that we needed more computing resources. So we needed to bring them together. Now is a great time because we are moving from pure AI research to commercialization, but also need to do it in a safe and responsible manner, which means you have to invest a lot of resources in testing and ensuring safety. All of this, I think, is the right time to merge the DeepMind and Google Brain teams.

Q: You have two AI research teams that have redundancy in resource requirements and infrastructure needs. How did you make the decision to merge?

Pichai: I think the most important thing is to be clear about what you want to accomplish. Once you identify that, everything else becomes clear. In this case, Jeff Dean, the head of Google Brain, wants to become chief scientist, and he previously helped build the most important systems we use at Google today. He is, at least to me, without a doubt the best engineer Google has ever had, and his desire is to spend more time on that.

DeepMind founder Demis Hassabis is an extraordinary team leader. From the first day I met him, he has always been committed to building more powerful artificial intelligence systems. This is what he has always wanted to do, and he is very excited about the merger. So understanding the team you have, determining what makes sense, all of this comes from the first principle of what you want to accomplish, and is also key to determining other factors.

Q: I would say the merger of the two teams is indicative of a larger change coming to Google and the tech industry as a whole, which is becoming smaller, more efficient, and less redundant. Are you more focused on execution?

Pichai: I would say that I do think that's one of our strengths. It's not an accident that we have 15 products that have achieved incredible scale, six of which have over 2 billion users. These are the products that we've been focused on for a long time. But obviously, I think we're all trying to do more integration now. In areas where you can be more nimble, we've been very focused and we've been doing something about it. We used to have YouTube Music and Google Play Music, so I had to merge those two teams.

We have been focusing on the development of artificial intelligence technology for more than a decade. In this field, merging the teams was a deliberate decision because it is very important. We accept explorations from two different teams because the two teams have different strengths. DeepMind is an early explorer of reinforcement learning, while Google is not. Therefore, diversity is also important to me.

Q: There's another challenge for Google, right? Even if you think this is another platform shift, regulators understand this may be the first platform shift because it's very clear what kind of workforce is going to be displaced. My understanding is that it's primarily lawyers who are most threatened. Regulators may see a group of white-collar workers who are going to disappear. They seem to be very concerned about this risk.

When Google first did search, it was an underdog, but it clearly provides a ton of value. Now, you're going to the White House for AI summits, and I'm sure you'll end up speaking to heads of government around the world about AI. Do you feel like you're in a different position now than you were as the scrappy underdog that invented the internet? Do you play a different role now that Google is the giant?

Pichai: There are two parts to this question. The first part, simply put, is that in 20 years of technological automation, people predicted that many jobs would disappear. For example, movie theaters were supposed to disappear, but the film industry is now thriving more than ever. As for the writers' strike, there have been writers' strikes before! This kind of thing will continue.

The unemployment rate hasn’t completely spiraled out of control over the past 20 years of automation. Twenty years ago, when people were accurately predicting what automation was going to do, they were very specific about what job categories were going to disappear, and that hasn’t happened. So I think the same will be true with AI, and I think the profession of lawyering is not going to disappear completely, and we’re going to have the opportunity to learn more about being a lawyer.

Something tells me that more people will probably become lawyers because the fundamental reasons why laws and legal systems exist don't go away just because these are human problems. So AI will make the profession better in some ways, there may be some unintended consequences, but I'd bet that 10 years from now, there will probably be a lot more lawyers out there.

So I'm not quite sure how this is going to happen, but we often think that new jobs are going to be created. I do think there's going to be major disruption in the labor market, governments need to be involved, we need to adapt, and skills are going to be important. But I also think we shouldn't underestimate the benefits of some of these things.

On your second question, I think governments and legal systems will always face the same problems. When new technology emerges, it has the opportunity to bring unprecedented benefits, but it also has disadvantages. When it comes to AI, people are thinking ahead more than ever before, which I am relieved about because there are some potential disadvantages of this technology. I think we need to think carefully and need to anticipate its impact as early as possible.

But I do think that the answers to these questions don't always matter to me, but I think a blanket approach to stopping AI research is not the right answer. It's a very complex question that we're going to work through over time. I think from our perspective, we're a much larger company, so I think we're going to approach it in a more responsible way. We're going to try to find the right answer somewhere. And I think as we work through it, maybe our approach will make a difference.

Q: Now, many publishers, media companies, and Hollywood artists around the world are opposing your use of their content or data to train artificial intelligence, and there have even been related copyright lawsuits. As a large technology company, do you think Google has a greater responsibility than startups in this conversation?

Pichai: I do think we have a greater responsibility. So I think one of the things that YouTube did very well with Content ID is it brought about a profound framework for content rights holders. And I think our responsibility there is to make sure that this wave continues to help artists and the music industry. And that's something that we're going to think deeply about as we go through this.

Q: Do you think that revenue sharing with publishers and musicians is necessary, because that is what they worry about the most?

Pichai: In the case of YouTube, we've obviously done that directly, and I think it's really important. Our goal will be to help the music industry, to work with them and to help them. That means maybe giving artists choice and control over transformative work, giving them a bigger voice, and figuring out the right answers.

Q: Google is 25 years old, and you took over the company from the founders and turned it into Alphabet. You've had a very intense and very successful job at Google, especially on the operational side. The company has grown very quickly, and restructuring, appointing new leaders, moving people around, changing the culture to be more focused, to be good at dealing with regulators, to keep competitors from catching up. All of this requires a very unique kind of ambition and focus. So, personally, what are your ambitions? What drives you personally to lead the company through this moment?

Pichai: It really comes from first principles, figuring out what you want to do. I believe in our mission. For me, my exposure to technology has changed my life so much that my motivation has always been to bring information and computing to more people for the benefit of society. That way, I have a clear idea of all the things I need to do. In a way, starting from first principles makes things much simpler.

But it's an exciting moment, and I've been preparing for this moment in AI for more than a decade. At Google, it wasn't an accident that we hired Jeff Hinton, built Google Brain, and acquired DeepMind. We made the necessary investments to develop the TPU chip. We announced the TPU at I/O about six years ago, and it was something I had been waiting for for a long time. I'm excited because it's a turning point. But to your previous question, because we've been around for 25 years, we knew from day one how important it was to be responsible.

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