“You can think of it as having AI assistants, pretty much to help you with most things,” is what Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai had to say at the Google for India event on Monday when asked whether artificial intelligence would end up replacing humans eventually.
Pichai made the remarks as part of a #WomenWill talk with actor and author Twinkle Khanna, where Google also showcased how some women-led startups were working in the field of AI.
Pichai said he sees AI as a tool that can help humans do many of their tasks better. During the conversation, he gave the example of how AI was playing a critical role in helping many players improve their chess skills. “You now have supercomputers, basically chess programs, AI programs, which can play chess better than humans. But there are more people playing chess now than ever before, and they’re using AI programs to become better at chess. I think that’s a good analogy to think about how AI can impact all fields,” he said.
He stressed that this could be true for creative fields as well in the future and talked about the excitement around “generative models”. The viral chatbot ChatGPT is a generative AI model as is Google’s own LamDA chatbot.
“You’ll have an AI assistant to help you with writing, a piece of art. Ultimately I think society will value what humans do. And I think humans can do it better with AI. So that’s the way I would think about it,” he said.
Asked whether AI could help ensure greater equality as well, Pichai said this was a concern they were mindful of. He stressed that technology can be a great equaliser, giving the example of Google’s Internet Saathi programme, which has made smartphone and internet access easier for women in rural India.
“We have to make sure it doesn’t have disparate or harmful effects on any particular group speed based on race, gender, caste and so on. So I think it’s really important as we are developing technology, particularly AI to involve outside groups, and researchers and to have the right regulatory frameworks to make sure we are developing this responsibly,” he said, noting that the biases have to be removed not just from training data, but also in ensuring that the people developing the technology are representative of a diverse society.
On a lighter note, Khanna also asked Pichai on how he balances work and home–a question posed commonly to women CEOs, but never to men. Pichai answered that both and his wife divide their time and take turns on many aspects of the family life. “We take turns on many things. I’m enjoying the stage of my kids being in school and college and I am a tutor right now for them for many things, before AI does it,” he joked. “It’s just making it a priority for both of us and I think you need to work hard at it like everything else,” he said.
