Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Interview with Google CEO Sundar Pichai – Google I/O 2023!”.
We’Re gon na get a key for we’re rolling all right, Sundar, it’s good, seeing you again. I know IO was just amazing this year, so many people it’s the first time. It’S been, I guess full capacity since anime since pandemic. So how did you feel yeah? It was terrific to be back uh to be on the stage and to have live audience and uh. You know it’s really makes it exciting when you’ve worked on products for a while, it’s always special to share it and see people react to it. You’Re really catching the water in your hand, no problem, you can adjust that you know I was looking forward to it very excited. Today. I have a question so we’ve seen: we’ve heard Google talk about AI for years now and it’s been behind a lot of your products, but for some reason it feels like it’s actually here now like it is finally at our doorsteps, but considering it’s been around for So long, why does 2023 feel so different in some ways? It’S interesting people are noticing it more for us. We’Ve always been working on AI and at any given year we take the state of the art and put it in our products.
You know you saw in the Gmail example like smart reply at the time. That’S what AI could do and we did smart reply and we did smart compose now. We can do a lot more, but I think the world’s attention is tuned into AI. So, in some ways it’s meeting the moment uh meeting the moment and also the technology, has gotten a lot more capable it’s at an inflection point to some extent and so seeing it all now, actually, in real products, you know people people have heard about generative AI People have heard about large language models and now you’re, seeing it in the context of products you use every day right.
You know so. I’Ve had people react because they use Google Docs and they’re like Oh, you mean I can ask it and it’ll. Just now. Give me suggestions like that, so I think that’s what makes it exciting.
So you know what speaking of the help me write feature that’s in Gmail uh. I I personally really loved it yeah. I I find writing emails Dreadful so having a tool. That’S going to be able to just kind of help, speed up the process.
I think it’s really awesome, but just from a leadership perspective, I’m curious. What do you think about your team, potentially sending you emails that were generated with AI? That’S a good question. I think about it. Hopefully we don’t have this situation where an AI sends the email and the other AI response and, like you know, that’s not what people back in for it.
I actually think over time there will be a premium for human voices and human experiences, but I think that matters for certain moments right. So when you see that Airline voucher example, I think that it’s perfectly fine yeah. It’S almost like, if you had a real life assistant, you’ve asked that you would have asked the assistant to write that email right, but you shouldn’t ask the assistant to write an email to your son while he’s in college right.
So, that’s not what you would use it for you know, I’m always people adapt to these things well and – and – and so I think, over time, these things should be used for the right things, and so maybe that’s how it level yeah there’ll, be some like moral Ethics behind some like societal expectations, right yeah, that makes sense yeah, and I know I heard the word responsibility a lot today. That was a clear theme and I see that in things like being AI generated images having metadata and watermarks so we’re moving into this territory. It feels like where AI is going to be a big part of everything we see online.
What role do you guys feel like you’re playing in making sure like the tools are used in in the Right Way Beyond watermarks? Do? Are there other safeguards? You feel, like you have to create or over time I think in some of these areas, there’ll be laws, you’ll, be privacy, laws or other forms of Regulation which may govern. You know how things should be used. We are trying to be proactively responsible where we can like.
We never offered facial recognition apis because they could be misused in some of these cases where the technology is pretty Advanced, we we only carefully give it under license to trusted parties right. So we’re going to put in safeguards, but ultimately it’s about giving users the choice to the reason watermarking is important, so people know that they are seeing an AI generated image, and so we, you know we plan to take these things deliberately and slowly sometimes the risk Of not always being first in the market, but getting it right because you know we are putting it in products which are used at scale. So I think it’s important to get it right and I think that’s a key component like a lot of these products are touching regular people, everyday people, and I think there are just so many messages about AI out there right now.
I don’t think everyone kind of quite gets just how vast it is and they hear certain things. Then there may be fear here and there, but the people who just hear that AI is just creating fake things. What what do you say to that person? What AI truly is at least see you in Google. You know, I I genuinely see AI, you know playing a lot of beneficial role in society in like a myriad uh, you know countless ways.
You know, I think, about a kid wanting to learn something and over time really having an AI tutor being able to at his or her own pace, understanding where they are being able to teach – and you know, and obviously hopefully, a teacher co-working with this thing assigning, Etc – and you can take that and think it along many many different categories, so the way to think about it is if all of us could have a powerful helper collaborator, an assistant. You know, I think, that’s the power of that like with any other technology. It can be misused, and so that’s the earlier part of our conversation and we have to make sure we get that balance right, but I think it’s very exciting about what all it can do for people. I know it’s just wild that there’s so many different use cases me in particular uh my son at Austin.
He has like a ton of food allergies, um and my wife, and I we’ve actually used like some AI programs, where we were able to ask it to create recipes that didn’t have dairy egg shellfish peanuts and that’s not something you can just easily Google search. You know and to find those those recipes online. It’S just it’s kind of mind-boggling honestly, but those are just like some of the ways we use it. I’M curious has it played a role in your life like your everyday life? Is there something you feel like? It’S contributed to for you, that’s funny.
You mentioned this. I mean my son is celiac as well, so I I know I know about what it is to making sure we. You know one of the interesting things is you mentioned. Maybe you can’t ask such part of what we launched today is to literally help you ask those questions to search right. You know to come and say: give me recipes, I don’t have gluten dairy or shellfish or whatever you want and that’s the new category of what AI unlocks and I think we are actually building it into search. So I find myself in a constantly asking for if I quickly want to learn on a topic I go and say you know, give me a three paragraph version. I ask it to board – or you know, hopefully in search too I’m just kind of getting a summary of it. So I find myself using it recently.
I typed in a query for my how to plan for my dad’s 80th birthday party, and it’s not that it said something I didn’t know before. It was kind of nice to have it all in one place. That’S right, yeah! No, absolutely that makes complete with the new features coming to search how how different is that going to feel versus using bar? You know we let users kind of play with it uh in search. It’S always.
We have a lot of focus on making sure it’s grounded in information quality, and so it’s almost like making sure just like we do in search ranking and sometimes the answer won’t be using generative AI. You may be just trying to navigate to a place and, like you know, and we’ll just take you to wherever you’re trying to go right and so in search. It’S still about giving you what you want, but there will be new questions we can answer and at times the generative AI will give you the right experience, but going to board you’re talking to our latest state of the art, AI you’re, directly conversing, with it yeah And over time I think there’ll be areas where they will kind of offer you similar things, but we will let it we will.
We will see where it goes. Okay – and I know we talked about some products at the end of the show today – super excited to see you to see the fold um, and I know you test a lot of products. I’M sure the fold went through your hands. What do you feel like what surprised you about the fold as you got to use it for me, the biggest thing was, you know it got noticeably thinner enough where you know just all there are these very compelling features in it, but the trade-off used to be Well, it’s a much bulkier phone, but this year with the new pixel 4 it coming at 12 millimeter. You know I felt like wow like I can carry it and it’s great to carry too and the front screen almost works like a almost holding a normal phone.
So it’s made that I think that’s a game changer for me as well. I agree and watching YouTube, maybe including your videos, the tabletop mode yeah. You know multitasking, sometimes doing email, maybe having the Warriors game on the side. All that is so nice in the past.
I would look for a phone stand, how to place the phone flipping it and keeping it uh. So it’s been terrific to do all that. Well, so now I really appreciate your time.
Man. Thank you. So much for answering me questions again great job at i o.
Today, I just want to let you know: uh, the hot dog is definitely a sandwich. It’S not a taco. It’S a hot dog, a sandwich.
I think it’s more like a taco, because the bread goes around. It comes from the expert Viewpoint of a vegetarian. I’Ll later, send you a picture, and you can include it, which shows why it’s a taco but I’ll I’ll, send that to you all right, we’ll check it out great time. Hey man, good, seeing you .