The Head of Google Says Future AI Must Align with Human Values

pcmag.com:

AI is the foundational tech at Google and its parent company Alphabet, CEO Sundar Pichai told the audience at this year's Code conference(Opens in a new window) in Los Angeles. He pointed out the "extraordinary" successes of the Google AI and DeepMind teams in areas such as large language models and the AlphaFold project(Opens in a new window), which showed the underlying structure of 200 million proteins. He said Google was now applying deep computer science and AI to all its products, from search to its work with pharma companies with AlphaFold to self-driving cars. But, he added, it is "important that we develop AI aligned with human values."

Conference host Kara Swisher showed a 2016 interview in which Pichai (then interviewed by the now-retired Walt Mossberg) said he expected we would have true "conversational AI" to help get things done in the next 5 to 10 years. Pichai said that is not fully here yet, saying it was a few years out, and that Google still has work to do. For instance, he said, it would be great if everyone could have a tutor in their pocket on any topic, but AI is not yet good enough for that.

Swisher pressed him on how he got the company to pivot to AI, and he talked about framing the move to being "AI first" was the same kind of thing as being "mobile first" and that AI would be "as big as the Internet," and then having a big call to arms within the organization. Now he said, "AI is a part of all our products."

Asked about AI ethics and how some people have left the company with complaints about how it was handling the issue(Opens in a new window), he said that compared to most technologies, AI is very early on. He gave credit to people who have highlighted the issue. He said companies are talking