Google CEO Sundar Pichai and the Future of AI | The Circuit

1. 0:00 – 0:05

   Intro

   1. ECEmily Chang0:00

      [upbeat music]

2. 0:05 – 0:41

   Inside Google’s headquarters: why Search can’t assume it’s the only “front door” anymore

   1. ECEmily Chang0:05

      We are in the Plex. This is the center of Google. Gosh, it's hard to remember life before Google. It changed literally everything. [laughs] How we live, how we work, how we communicate, how we get literally anywhere on a Googly colored bike. [laughs] Google has been the front door of the internet for over two decades, and now there are so many doors. Google may not be the first place you go for answers anymore, so what are they gonna do about it? [gentle music] Hello.

3. 0:41 – 1:42

   Meeting Sundar Pichai and the stakes of the AI moment for Google

   1. SPSundar Pichai0:41

      Emily, so good to meet you again.

   2. ECEmily Chang0:42

      Good to see you again. Thanks so much for having us here.

   3. SPSundar Pichai0:45

      Oh, likewise. Uh, I'm glad you chose a sunny day to come on campus.

   4. ECEmily Chang0:48

      [laughs] Beautiful. Sundar Pichai is at a pivotal moment. He's the CEO of Google and its parent company, Alphabet, rising to the top after proving his mettle as a talented product leader and peacemaker. He runs a tech giant that functions more like a micro-country, overseeing businesses as consequential as YouTube, DeepMind, Cloud, and of course, Search. Pichai has been carefully crafting a strategy that infuses AI into every corner of the business. That deliberate planning was met with a surprise from longtime rival, Microsoft, and OpenAI, whose chatbot seemingly knocked Google off its perch and challenged its cultural relevance. ChatGPT set off a code red at Google and an industry-wide fever pitch over AI not seen since the dot-com boom. But for Pichai, the frenzy is just part of the long game. I saw it's your 20th anniversary.

4. 1:42 – 2:45

   20 years at Google: early days, Gmail interviews, and personal milestones

   1. SPSundar Pichai1:42

      That's right. It was last week. It crept up on me.

   2. ECEmily Chang1:46

      Are you coffee or tea?

   3. SPSundar Pichai1:48

      I'll go for coffee. How about you?

   4. ECEmily Chang1:50

      I'm gonna have a green tea. Does it feel like you've been here for 20 years?

   5. SPSundar Pichai1:55

      Uh, not quite. You know, time flies by.

   6. ECEmily Chang1:58

      Mm-hmm.

   7. SPSundar Pichai1:58

      You know, I had my kids right when I started Google, too, so the whole thing just flew by.

   8. ECEmily Chang2:05

      Google is famous for those out-of-the-box job interview questions. Do you remember any of yours? Like, did you have to figure out how many golf balls fit in a school bus or something like that?

   9. SPSundar Pichai2:15

      Uh, thank God, no.

   10. ECEmily Chang2:16

       [laughs]

   11. SPSundar Pichai2:17

       Uh, you know, but, uh, you know, I, I remember very, very clearly, uh, I interviewed on April 1st, so it was April Fools' Day 2004. There was rumor, I, I, I didn't know whether it had actually happened, but Gmail apparently had launched, so all my interviews were about Gmail. People wanted to know what I thought of the product.

   12. ECEmily Chang2:35

       And it definitely wasn't a joke. They had launched it.

   13. SPSundar Pichai2:37

       They definitely, they actually launched it.

   14. ECEmily Chang2:39

       [laughs]

   15. SPSundar Pichai2:39

       Yeah. But I never allow, uh, no, no products on April Fools' Day.

   16. ECEmily Chang2:43

       [laughs]

   17. SPSundar Pichai2:43

       I think it's too confusing.

   18. ECEmily Chang2:44

       [laughs]

5. 2:45 – 3:44

   From “AI-first” to today’s frenzy: how Pichai reads the current cycle

   1. ECEmily Chang2:45

      You just had a blowout quarter. The stock jumped more than it has in a long time. Did that feel like a little bit of vindication, or as they say in cricket, was that the bat talking?

   2. SPSundar Pichai2:56

      In many ways, you know, it felt... We have worked very hard to set up the company for that. You know, in 2016, one of the first things I did as CEO was to say the company should be AI first. To me, we are just getting started, the beginning of what I think will be a extraordinary decade of innovation, and so I'm incredibly excited about it.

   3. ECEmily Chang3:14

      AI has been around for decades, but it seems like everything is happening everywhere all at once. How do you make sense of the frenzy and the scale?

   4. SPSundar Pichai3:23

      All tech cycles are this way, right? You know, the start-

   5. ECEmily Chang3:25

      But this one feels different. It feels bigger. Is it?

   6. SPSundar Pichai3:29

      It is bigger. We still have long ways to go, but we are in the early stages of that. And, and so, you know, you're gonna feel that, uh, excitement, that frenzy. It- but I think we are prepared for it. Uh, so you kinda roll with the flow. Uh, you embrace it.

6. 3:44 – 5:09

   AI at home and the roots of Pichai’s optimism about technology

   1. ECEmily Chang3:44

      How are you and your kids experimenting with AI at home?

   2. SPSundar Pichai3:47

      We use Google Lens for homework. I don't, I don't wanna get him in trouble.

   3. ECEmily Chang3:50

      [laughs]

   4. SPSundar Pichai3:50

      But, uh, the class allows you to, uh, do that. But sometimes he asks me for help on math.

   5. ECEmily Chang3:57

      Oh.

   6. SPSundar Pichai3:59

      I don't know. Sometimes I'm lazy, and I pretend as if I'm thinking, but I'm also using Google Lens to kinda-

   7. ECEmily Chang4:03

      [laughs]

   8. SPSundar Pichai4:04

      ... figure out the answer.

   9. ECEmily Chang4:05

      You grew up in Chennai-

   10. SPSundar Pichai4:07

       Yeah

   11. ECEmily Chang4:07

       ... in India. What was it like at the kitchen table? Like, what got you here?

   12. SPSundar Pichai4:12

       My parents always emphasized, you know, learning and knowledge, and i- it's what, in some ways, Google with its mission-

   13. ECEmily Chang4:19

       Mm-hmm

   14. SPSundar Pichai4:20

       ... you know, always resonated very deeply with me. Uh, you know, I felt this quest for learning, knowledge, et cetera, is what the company is about, too. I grew up in a middle-class family. I perceived our life through the arrival of gadgets. We waited five years for a telephone. It was a rotary phone.

   15. ECEmily Chang4:38

       Hmm.

   16. SPSundar Pichai4:39

       But when it came to our home, you know, it changed everyone's lives. I remember getting our first television and suddenly being able to watch sports. You know, I used to bike a long way to school, but, uh, you know, there was no gear in the bike, and I had to go uphill.

   17. ECEmily Chang4:55

       Hmm.

   18. SPSundar Pichai4:56

       But then after many years, I got a bike with gears, and like, I'm like, "Wow, this thing ma- you know, what a dramatic difference." I never took technology for granted, and so that's what, you know, always been optimistic about, how technology can make a difference.

7. 5:09 – 6:32

   A decade as CEO: pattern recognition, cutting through noise, and founders’ renewed focus

   1. ECEmily Chang5:09

      You've been CEO now for a decade. How have you changed in that time?

   2. SPSundar Pichai5:14

      I think the main thing is when you've done it for a while, you know, you get to understand patterns. So, you're running into something, but there's a sense of deja vu. You know you've seen it before, and so I think that helps you, uh, kind of pattern match and, and, and, and deal with it more effectively. But a lot of, lot of this is, you know, at the scale, you have so much coming at you. There's a lot of noise, and most of it doesn't matter. So, the ability to separate the signal from the noise, pay attention to the few things that you need to pay attention to, and you know, I think I've gotten better at that over, over the years.

   3. ECEmily Chang5:50

      I heard Sergey is back and working a bit on AI. What is the involvement of Larry and Sergey these days, and, and what advice are they giving you?

   4. SPSundar Pichai5:59

      I talk to them regularly. Sergey is actually spending more time in the office. He's literally coding. And, uh, you know, some of my fondest memories over the last year is sitting with Sergey on large screen looking at loss curves-

   5. ECEmily Chang6:11

      [laughs]

   6. SPSundar Pichai6:11

      ... as we train these models. I think one of the advantages they have is they're not caught up in the day-to-day.

   7. ECEmily Chang6:18

      Mm-hmm.

   8. SPSundar Pichai6:18

      And so sometimes when I have conversations with them, it allows all of us to step back and, and look at the bigger picture, which I think is incredibly important when you run something of this scale.

8. 6:32 – 8:10

   Transformers, Gemini, and the future of Search: links, answers, and quality in an AI era

   1. ECEmily Chang6:32

      The decisions Pichai and Google make influence how billions of people get information, and the nature of how users do that is starting to change in the age of AI. This seems like a threat to Google, except the core technology being used by Google's competitors was invented by Google itself. Google researchers invented the transformer, literally the T in GPT. Do you wish you capitalized on that louder and sooner?

   2. SPSundar Pichai6:59

      We use transformers in Search. That's what led to large gaps in Search quality compared to other products. So we've infused transformers across our products. We have a chance to do that better with generative AI and with the Gemini series of models, and there's gonna be more breakthroughs, uh, in this field. But what is more important is we are driving that progress.

   3. ECEmily Chang7:20

      Mm-hmm. And if the new Google's only gonna be more and more AI, you know, AI is super helpful sometimes, but sometimes it's still deeply wrong. Where do you draw the line?

   4. SPSundar Pichai7:31

      I think part of what, uh, makes Google Search differentiator is while there are times we give answers, it'll always link to a wide variety of sources. Uh, we've had answers in Search now for, uh, many, many years. We are just now using generative AI to do that.

   5. ECEmily Chang7:49

      So the links will live on.

   6. SPSundar Pichai7:50

      Yes, and you know, I think it'll, it'll always be an important part of Search. There will be times when they want quick answers. My son is celiac, so we did a quick question to see whether something is gluten-free. We just wanna know. But often it leads to more things and, you know, then you want to explore more. I think understanding that, meeting all the needs is, is part of what makes Search unique.

9. 8:10 – 8:39

   Spam, synthetic media, and trust: defending Search when reality is harder to verify

   1. ECEmily Chang8:10

      Some leading computer scientists have said Search is getting worse, more SEO spam, et cetera. Do you see their point?

   2. SPSundar Pichai8:17

      Any time there's a transition, you get an explosion of new content, and AI is going to do that.

   3. ECEmily Chang8:24

      Mm.

   4. SPSundar Pichai8:25

      So for us, we w- view this as the challenge, and I actually think, you know, there'll be people who struggle to do that.

   5. ECEmily Chang8:31

      Mm.

   6. SPSundar Pichai8:32

      Right? So doing that well is what will define a high-quality product, and I think it's gonna be the heart of what makes Search successful.

10. 8:39 – 9:12

    Business model pressure and AI Overviews: ads, choices, and commercialization

    1. ECEmily Chang8:39

       You make a ton of money on ads next to the links generated by searches. If a chatbot is giving you answers and not links, and maybe more answers than links sometimes, are we in the midst of an assault on Google's business model?

    2. SPSundar Pichai8:52

       So we've always found people want choices, including in commercial areas. And that's a fundamental need, and I think we've always been able to balance it. As we are rolling out AI Overviews in Search, we've been experimenting with the ads, and, and the data we see shows that those fundamental principles will hold true during this phase as well.

11. 9:12 – 10:56

    Gemini image controversy: how “over-applied” diversity logic became a bug

    1. ECEmily Chang9:12

       The images that Gemini initially generated of Asian Nazis and Black Founding Fathers, you've said that was unacceptable. If you look at any pictures of the Founding Fathers, you're seeing old white men. People are calling this woke AI, and it's not just happening here. It's happening across the industry. How did the model generate something that it never saw?

    2. SPSundar Pichai9:31

       We are a company which sells products to users around the world.

    3. ECEmily Chang9:35

       Mm-hmm.

    4. SPSundar Pichai9:35

       And there are generic questions. For example, people come and say, "Show me images of school teachers or doctors-

    5. ECEmily Chang9:42

       Mm-hmm

    6. SPSundar Pichai9:42

       ... or nurses." We have people asking this query from Indonesia or the US, right? How do you get it right for, uh, our global user base? Obviously, uh, the mistake was that we over-applied, including cases where it should have never applied. So that was the bug and, you know, uh, you know, so we got it wrong.

    7. ECEmily Chang10:03

       Would you say it's like good intentions gone awry?

    8. SPSundar Pichai10:06

       Uh, i- in this particular case, yes, right? I, I think, uh, you know, we are rightf- rightfully held to a high bar, and I think we clearly take responsibility for it and we're gonna get it right.

    9. ECEmily Chang10:17

       How concerned are you about AI-generated content ruining Search? For example, the AI-generated selfie of the Tank Man in Tiananmen Square, it shows up in Google Search results, but it never happened.

    10. SPSundar Pichai10:29

        The challenge for everyone, uh, and the opportunity-

    11. ECEmily Chang10:33

        Mm-hmm

    12. SPSundar Pichai10:33

        ... is how do you have a notion of what's objective and real in a world where there's gonna be a lot of synthetic content? Uh, I think it's part of what will define Search in the next decade ahead, right? People often come to Google right away-

    13. ECEmily Chang10:47

        Mm-hmm

    14. SPSundar Pichai10:47

        ... to see whether something they saw somewhere else actually happened.

    15. ECEmily Chang10:50

        Mm.

    16. SPSundar Pichai10:51

        It's a common pattern we see. We are making progress, but it's gonna be an ongoing journey, right?

12. 10:56 – 11:44

    Training limits and the next breakthroughs: risks of synthetic data and beyond-LLM progress

    1. ECEmily Chang10:56

       You've got AI systems that are running out of training data. You've got companies turning to AI-generated data to train their models. Aren't there risks to that?

    2. SPSundar Pichai11:05

       Uh, yes. I, I think that, you know, through it all, are you creating new knowledge? Are these models developing reasoning capabilities, right? Are you making progress in the intelligence of these models? I think those are the frontiers. We need to prove that, you know, you can do that by using these techniques.

    3. ECEmily Chang11:22

       Is LLM technology nearing a plateau?

    4. SPSundar Pichai11:27

       Um, I, I would be surprised if, if, uh, LLMs are the only thing we would need to make progress. We are investing a lot of c- computing and resources, uh, our AI researchers' talent, in driving the next generation set of breakthroughs.

13. 11:44 – 16:17

    Did ChatGPT steal Google’s moment? Pichai’s long-term framing and leadership style under fire

    1. ECEmily Chang11:44

       It seems when you look at the big picture, like Google missed the big moment, and ChatGPT took it.

    2. SPSundar Pichai11:50

       A new artificial intelligence program called ChatGPT made its debut online.

    3. ECEmily Chang11:55

       It's as revolutionary as the internet. The topic of today's Big Take is also Microsoft and its big bet on AI-

    4. SPSpeaker12:00

       Yeah

    5. ECEmily Chang12:00

       ... and how it just kind of leapfrogged over Google, and no one kinda knew about it until now. If you could go back, what would you do differently?

    6. SPSundar Pichai12:08

       To be clear, I take a long-term perspective and say when the internet just first came about, Google didn't even exist then, right? [laughs] So, uh, we were in the first company to do search, we were in the first company to do email, we were in the first company to build a browser. So I view this AI as, you know, we are in the earliest possible stages.

    7. ECEmily Chang12:29

       Your leadership style has been described as slow and steady and cautious, sometimes maybe too cautious, and you're often compared to these other tech leaders who are moving fast and breaking things. How would you describe yourself?

    8. SPSundar Pichai12:42

       Look, I, [laughs] the reality I think is quite different. One of the first things I did, uh, when I became a CEO was to pivot the company sharply, uh, to focus on AI, as well as really invest more in YouTube and Cloud, build them into big businesses. I think th- the larger the company is, you are making fewer consequential decisions, but they need to be clear.

    9. ECEmily Chang13:05

       Mm.

    10. SPSundar Pichai13:05

        And, and, and you have to point the whole company to that. Part of that at times involves bringing the company along. You build consensus because that's what allows you to have maximum impact behind those decisions.

    11. ECEmily Chang13:18

        I mean, any leader in a position like yours has to be willing to hear the criticism, and I'm not gonna make you read the mean tweets like they do on Late Night, but I do have a few. "Where is Google? Running things through legal." "Google doesn't have one single visionary leader, not a one." Do you think you're the right person to lead Google?

    12. SPSundar Pichai13:39

        Uh, it, look, it's a privilege to lead the company. You know, people tend to focus, and in, in this micro moment, but it is so small in the context of what's ahead. And, you know, when I look at the opportunities ahead across everything we do, and for the first time, all of that has a common leverage technology with AI, um, you know, I, I, I, I put a lot of chips, at least from my perspective, on Google.

    13. ECEmily Chang14:05

        [gentle music] So can you walk through campus without getting stopped?

    14. SPSundar Pichai14:13

        It's definitely been nice to walk and see people.

    15. ECEmily Chang14:16

        Mm-hmm.

    16. SPSundar Pichai14:16

        You know, so I, I, I enjoy it a lot.

    17. ECEmily Chang14:19

        I see a dinosaur statue [laughs] in the distance, which I think is a good reminder, like, how much do you worry about becoming a dinosaur in a world where technology is moving so quickly?

    18. SPSundar Pichai14:30

        I mean, in technology, I think if you don't innovate-

    19. ECEmily Chang14:36

        Mm-hmm

    20. SPSundar Pichai14:36

        ... to stay ahead, I think that's the inevitable fate of, uh, any company.

    21. ECEmily Chang14:42

        No dinosaurs. [laughs]

    22. SPSundar Pichai14:43

        No dinosaur. No. Well, th- they were great, but you know, you don't want, you don't wanna have the same fate.

    23. ECEmily Chang14:50

        How much has this AI moment forced you to move and think differently? Because it does seem like you're playing defense sometimes.

    24. SPSundar Pichai14:57

        We've been preparing for this for a while. Uh, you know, a lot of the foundational breakthroughs in the field came from, uh, Google. So to me, this moment has been, over the past year, really channeling, uh, the company to, to meet the moment.

    25. ECEmily Chang15:15

        There they are, the I/O tents.

    26. SPSundar Pichai15:17

        I/O tent. For one time a year, we get to pretend as if we are on a concert stage, except we are speaking about technology.

    27. ECEmily Chang15:23

        So Google I/O is sort of a state of the Google union. What is the key message this year?

    28. SPSundar Pichai15:29

        It's less about, you know, particular product.

    29. ECEmily Chang15:32

        Mm-hmm.

    30. SPSundar Pichai15:32

        More about the journey we are on, uh, the vision we have for how AI can transform our products and how we can bring it.
14. 16:17 – 18:17

    Culture, protests, layoffs, and focus: keeping debate while enforcing conduct and reallocating teams

    1. ECEmily Chang16:17

       When you go back to the S1, Google said, "We're not a conventional company. You can spend 20% of your time on personal projects." Google created this bottoms-up culture where everyone has a voice and it's super transparent, and the perks are great too, but did it go too far? Like, did it become an entitlement culture?

    2. SPSundar Pichai16:39

       Part of what makes Google unique is, I think, there is a culture of vibrant, open debate. And so I think it's super important to preserve that. I think we're also a company where employees have many ways to speak up, and I think that's made the company better. Google, Google, you can't hide. Google, Google, you can't hide.

    3. ECEmily Chang17:02

       You recently fired Google employees who were protesting this contract with the Israeli government for cloud services. It seemed like a distinct change in tone for a company that's historically welcomed all kinds of views. Why did you take this stand?

    4. SPSundar Pichai17:17

       I think when we have cases, including in this case, where a few employees, you know, cross beyond what's in the code of conduct and disrupt the productivity of the workplace or do so in a way that it makes other people feel, uh, uncomfortable, I th- I think we have to take action and, and that's what, uh, we, we are doing. It has nothing to do with the topic they are discussing. It's, it's about the conduct of how they, how they went about it. Over the past years, through the pandemic, the company has grown a lot. There are a lot of new people. I view particularly in this moment with AI, uh, the opportunity we have ahead of us is immense, but it needs a real focus on our mission.

    5. ECEmily Chang17:55

       There have been multiple rounds of layoffs. Why take this approach? Why not cut once and cut deep?

    6. SPSundar Pichai18:00

       We are reallocating people to our highest priorities. There are cases where you're simplifying teams. You're moving people to focus on newer areas, removing layers so that you can improve velocity. So that's why we have taken the time to do it correctly and well.

15. 18:17 – 21:00

    Competition, regulation, hardware, and trust: playing to Google’s own music while building guardrails

    1. ECEmily Chang18:17

       Microsoft is obviously making huge investments in AI as well, OpenAI, Inflection, Mistral. We reported that their OpenAI investment was actually in part because they were worried about Google and wanted to catch up. How do you feel about the competition?

    2. SPSundar Pichai18:33

       I've always held a view when you- w- if you're working in the technology space, there is a [laughs] lot of competition. We see it all the time. The way you stay ahead is by innovating relentlessly. It has to be true all the time. It's happening at a faster pace, but, you know, technology changes tend to get faster over time, so it's not surprising to me at all.

    3. ECEmily Chang18:53

       Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has had some fighting words.

    4. SPSundar Pichai18:56

       I hope that with our innovation, um, they will definitely wanna come out and show that they can dance, and I want people to know that we made them dance, and I think that'll be a great day.

    5. ECEmily Chang19:05

       Who's really choosing the dance music?

    6. SPSundar Pichai19:08

       Uh, I think you, one of the ways you can, uh, uh, do the wrong thing is by listening to noise out there and playing to someone else's dance music. I've- I've always been very clear. I think we have a clear sense of what we need to do.

    7. ECEmily Chang19:22

       So you're listening to your own music.

    8. SPSundar Pichai19:23

       That's- that's exactly right.

    9. ECEmily Chang19:25

       Google is facing a ton of regulatory pressure, in the US, abroad, over your dominance in search, video, ads, the App Store. Some other big companies have split themselves up to focus on their core. Has Google thought about that?

    10. SPSundar Pichai19:40

        A lot of our products integrate in a way that provides value for our users, so I think that is important. Um, part of what allows us to compete in the Google Cloud market is our, the, the, the investment in AI we undertook because of Search is what allows us to take that and compete hard against other larger companies like Amazon and Microsoft-

    11. ECEmily Chang20:02

        Mm-hmm

    12. SPSundar Pichai20:02

        ... in Cloud. So I would argue that the way we are approaching it drives innovation, adds choice in the market.

    13. ECEmily Chang20:09

        What do you think is the future or potential of AI-powered hardware, and what will Google's role in it be?

    14. SPSundar Pichai20:15

        I think with AI you get a chance to rethink that experience over the next few years. I still see the center of where the AI innovation will happen in smartphones followed by glasses, right? That's how I see it.

    15. ECEmily Chang20:28

        Last time we talked you told me China will be at the forefront of AI. How should policymakers factor that in to their decisions?

    16. SPSundar Pichai20:36

        I think over time we need to develop frameworks by which we achieve, uh, global cooperation to achieve AI safety. I know it sounds far-fetched now, but we have done it in other areas, like nuclear technology and so on, um, to some extent. I think we're gonna need framework like that, and so I would expect over time there needs to be engagement with China on, on, on important issues like AI safety.

16. 21:00 – 24:01

    AGI, black boxes, and existential risk: execution, paranoia, and hoping today’s AI looks like a toy later

    1. ECEmily Chang21:00

       Artificial general intelligence, what does it mean to you? Do we get there, and when?

    2. SPSundar Pichai21:06

       It's not a well-defined phrase. It means different things to different people. But I think if you define AGI as AI becoming capable across a wide variety of, uh, h- economic activity and being able to do it well, uh, I- I think that's one way to look at it.

    3. ECEmily Chang21:23

       So Google's gonna get us to AGI?

    4. SPSundar Pichai21:25

       You know, we are committed to making foundational progress, uh, towards AGI in a bold and responsible way. And so, you know, I'll focus on the effort to do that and do that well.

    5. ECEmily Chang21:35

       You've said there's even some things about AI that you don't understand. Will AI always be somewhat in a black box?

    6. SPSundar Pichai21:44

       I have a little bit of a counterintuitive view there.

    7. ECEmily Chang21:46

       Mm.

    8. SPSundar Pichai21:46

       I think, you know, humans are very mysterious, too. Often when people explain why they did things, you know, they're telling something, it's not entirely clear. Today we can't make sense of many complex systems. AI will give us more insights and more visibility into many complex things.

    9. ECEmily Chang22:03

       When I asked OpenAI CEO Sam Altman why we should trust him, he said...

    10. SPSundar Pichai22:08

        Um, you shouldn't.

    11. ECEmily Chang22:11

        Why should we trust Google?

    12. SPSundar Pichai22:13

        Well, I, I share the notion that, you know, no one sh- you shouldn't blindly... You know, that's why it's important to have systems in place. Regulation has a part to play. Uh, uh, you know, it has to balance innovation. Uh, but as these AI systems get more capable, it shouldn't just be based on a system of, uh, uh, trust people or trust companies.

    13. ECEmily Chang22:35

        We've talked a lot about the opportunities. What is the biggest threat to Google's future?

    14. SPSundar Pichai22:41

        I view for all companies, particularly, you know, at scale, you know, biggest threat is not executing well.

    15. ECEmily Chang22:49

        Is there a healthy dose of paranoia, like not becoming Stan the T-Rex out there?

    16. SPSundar Pichai22:53

        I think that, you know, there's a part of me which has always internalized I think the old Andy Grove phase, "Only the paranoid survive." That is important, and I think this moment is no different.

    17. ECEmily Chang23:03

        Are we gonna look back on this LLM era and laugh? Like, is this gonna all look so basic and rudimentary?

    18. SPSundar Pichai23:11

        I hope we do because that shows, you know, I, uh, I... You know, my kids aren't impressed by touchscreens or the fact that they have this extraordinary amount of computing in their hands. So similarly, you know, there's no reason we won't scale up our computing 100,000 times in a few years. So yes, I, you know, I hope some of this looks like a toy in the future. I, I hope it is that way. Otherwise, we didn't do our job well. [upbeat music]

    19. ECEmily Chang23:47

        Thank you so much.

    20. SPSundar Pichai23:48

        This is-

    21. ECEmily Chang23:48

        That was so awesome.

    22. SPSundar Pichai23:49

        She's more difficult than AI to deal with, right?

    23. ECEmily Chang23:51

        Oh, man. Ugh.

    24. SPSundar Pichai23:58

        She's like, "Well..."

Episode duration: 24:01