This question keeps Google CEO Sundar Pichai up at night: ‘You’re always susceptible’

Google CEO Sundar Pichai stressed on the transformative potential of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and said that his biggest concern is the startups which may affect Google’s businesses.

He admitted, “Honestly, it’s a question which has always kept me up at night through the years. You’re always susceptible to someone in a garage with a better idea.”

The Google CEO also said that no one can predict or explain what kind of jobs we will have after 20-30 years. It is similar to how we could never predict that we would have jobs like content creators or Youtubers, he said.

“I can’t imagine explaining what a YouTube creator means to someone from 40 years ago, right? Let alone to a farmer from 100 years ago. Right. So there are entirely new classes of jobs which will be created,” he said.

Talking about Artificial Intelligence, Sundar Pichai said, “All our predictions about the past 20 years of what automation will do to the economy haven’t quite exactly panned out the way we all predicted 20 years ago. So I think we have to keep an open mind. Having said that, all of us feel the weight of, you know, for a technology like AI, which can progress fast, there could be larger scale societal disruptions.”

Highlighting how AI will benefit humanity, he said, “Every technology, humanity has had to work hard to harness it to be beneficial. This will be one of the most challenging we ever deal with. But I think, I think in the next 5 to 10 years, you know, I’m more optimistic than not that a lot of the benefits we see, healthcare is a great example, there are many, many areas where I can see how applying AI will be a net positive, right? And so I think that’s what we are looking ahead at least in the near-term.”

Why Sundar Pichai is bullish about AI
Sundar Pichai said, “I feel very bullish about it. It is very clear to me having computers assist humans in driving, it’s going to be one of the most obvious things. You know, 20 years from now, people will look back and say, you mean you had a time when computers weren’t assisting humans in driving? So it would seem silly. And so I think we are pointed in the right direction.”