Google CEO Sundar Pichai Says Don't Blindly Trust AI
Pichai admitted that the 'AI Mode' the company rolled out for Google Search, which had a chatbot behave like an 'expert' on topics, was not up to scratch.
Sundar Pichai, warned against users handing over complete trust and reliability to AI technology noting that it is still error prone and should not be the sole source of information for users.
The Google chief executive officer spoke to BBC about how AI can be “prone to errors” and should not be “blindly trusted”. He instead recommended using a plethora of sources along with AI when looking for information.
Pichai suggested utilizing trusted sources to balance the answers that AI puts out through its generation process. He advocated for a "bigger and stronger" information ecosystem which he posited as vital to accurate understanding of information by the general public.
“This is why people also use Google search, and we have other products that are more grounded in providing accurate information," Pichai said.
He claimed that AI could be useful to "creatively write something" and tried to encourage users to keep in mind that they "have to learn to use these tools for what they’re good at, and not blindly trust everything they say."
Pichai admitted that the 'AI Mode' the company rolled out for Google Search, which had a chatbot behave like an 'expert' on topics, was not up to scratch.
"We take pride in the amount of work we put in to give us as accurate information as possible, but the current state-of-the-art AI technology is prone to some errors," he said.
Pichai also spoke about the AI investment bubble and shared concerns about the likelihood of it bursting stating that Google and parent Alphabet Inc. would not be immune to its consequences.
He called the investment bubble caused by the rush to invest in all things "AI", a mix of "irrationality" and rational enthusiasm.
"I expect AI to be the same. So I think it's both rational and there are elements of irrationality through a moment like this," he said.
He noted that the AI push was similar to other tech waves.
"We can look back at the internet right now. There was clearly a lot of excess investment, but none of us would question whether the internet was profound," Pichai said.
The Google CEO reported that the company is continuing to broaden its investments, contributing 5 billion pounds to novel infrastrucutre and research in the UK for a period of two years.
"We are committed to investing in the UK in a pretty significant way," Pichai said.
