Google CEO Sundar Pichai on AI: Surprised? Yes and No

Google CEO Sundar Pichai on AI: As Sundar Pichai discussed the growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the past 10 months, he said that he was surprised at the speed with which the technology has been adopted. When asked about the rate at which AI technology is evolving and being adopted, he said that he is surprised “for sure” by the adoption, but Google has been preparing for this for years.

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, speaks at the Stanford Business, Government, and Society Forum. (AFP)

In response, he said, “Yes and no”, asserting that one of the things he has done since taking over the top post is to work on AI that will “serve us well for the coming decade.”

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How does artificial intelligence positively surprise Sundar Pichai?

“But we’ve always had a sense of trajectory ahead and in many ways, we have been preparing the company for that. So foundationally, a lot of R&D has gone into AI for a long time so I feel incredibly well-positioned of what’s coming.” Sundar Pichai noted, adding that this “positive surprise” is related to its specific timing.

Announcing that AI is still in its infancy, he said, “I think people are going to be surprised at the level of progress we will see. I feel like we have only scratched the surface.”

He said, “We have definitely been thinking about this for a long time and we’ve always had a deep sense of it. Having said that, maybe the pace at which society would adopt it has positively surprised as well as the scale at which the people are engaging with the technology — be it consumers, companies and increasingly governments. I think that has been a positive surprise.”

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