Google is putting artificial intelligence into everything.
The company last week announced updates to its Bard chatbot and integrations with search, productivity tools, healthcare services and more.
But from the thousands of tech and scientific experts who signed an open letter calling for a moratorium on AI development, many are calling for greater vigilance against the technology. Among them is the famous former Google employee and computer scientist Jeffrey Hinton, considered by many to be his “godfather.” “” of AI.
Hinton recently left the company. He said Google has “behaved very responsibly” with regard to AI, but called for the freedom to “talk about the dangers of AI without considering how it might affect Google.” .
Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino asked James Manyika, senior vice president of technology and society at Google, how the company balances concerns about the risks AI poses with its plans to advance the technology and develop applications for it. I asked him if he was taking it.
Below is an edited transcript of their conversation.
James Manika: Don’t worry about the future, think about all the benefits that can be given to people today. For example, today we provide flood warnings to 350 million people in her 20 countries. Many people benefit from this feature. Consider the breakthroughs we’ve made in life sciences with AlphaFold to help drug discovery. [and] treatment. So I think the merit side is very convincing. At the same time, we have to take responsibility quite seriously. As such, we are responsibly investing heavily to ensure that these features act when we deem them ready. We understand the feelings and concerns of those calling for a pause. I share many of those concerns. But I don’t know if that’s the way to deal with them. But, as you know, that concern is very important. And we have to take them seriously.
Megan McCarty Carino: I think it’s not just the benefits of this technology that are accelerating this pace. There are also commercial contests. As you know, Google has a tough competition from Microsoft and OpenAI, and it’s going strong. I mean, are these races more likely to take responsibility?
Manika: Well, I don’t know about race. I mean, I think we’re going at our own pace. It’s always been interesting to me that half of the world thinks Google is too slow, too conservative, and doesn’t announce things that quickly. And the other half think we’re moving too fast.I think there is a healthy sense of tension because it reflects this idea. [that] We try to act boldly and responsibly. I think we’re going at the right pace for us and we’re learning a lot, so we’ll correct course as we go. We learn from our users. We learn from feedback. But we are still driven by the desire to be both bold and responsible. And we like that tension. I think it’s a very productive tension for us.
McCarty Carino: Google has been lauded in the past for building a very strong AI ethics team. But in recent years, the team has been plagued by rivalries and controversies. As you know, there have been a series of high-profile and unfavorable departures, and it has been widely reported that internal concerns have arisen about the rapid release of products. With such disagreement even within the company, how can the public trust these products to be safe?
Manika: One of the things I love about Google and Google culture is the incredible discussion that takes place within the company. And I think the pace at which we’re developing these technologies speaks for itself. We are learning a lot, but it requires a lot of discussion and debate. In fact, people think we’re moving too – even inside Google, by the way – they think we’re moving too fast. Half of the population think we are moving too slowly. I think that’s a healthy tension and a healthy environment. We keep learning things, and we will continue to learn. As you know, we were the first company to actually publish a set of AI Ethics Principles in 2018. Since then, we have published an annual progress report, clearly describing our progress, where we are progressing, and where and how we are working. We still have work to do. Now, can we get it right every time? No, can we learn from it? absolutely. I think that’s part of what we’re trying to do.
McCarty Carino: I think some of the harms we’ve talked about, things like bias and misinformation, can be tested and adjusted during development to some extent. But given the much greater social harm being envisioned by artificial intelligence, such as mass turnover and the breakdown of social trust, it seems like a difficult problem for a company like Google to solve or address. I think that way. So, assuming companies like Google have a moral and ethical responsibility to mitigate such harm, what needs to happen there?
Manika: Well, I think these are very important issues that we all need to work on. And that’s part of why, Duchess Meghan, this has to be a collective effort. So you mentioned work issues, which just so happens to be a subject I’ve spent a lot of time researching both internally at Google and with my academic colleagues outside. The employment question boils down to jobs lost, jobs gained, and more jobs changed. I think these three things are going to happen at the same time. But looking at much of that research in the foreseeable future, I don’t think there will be a shortage of work. But there will be some really important things that we need to work on collectively. We know that as people work with these incredibly powerful technologies, they will need to work on their skills, retrain and adapt. And we also need to think about how to properly educate people and make sure they are learning properly to harness the potential of these technologies. These are real issues that we need to work on and work on. And while I don’t think it’s just Google’s job, we’re trying to do that, with a lot of skill training and digital certification. And, as you know, it has benefited many people in multiple states across the country. But these are collective efforts involving us, other companies, other employers as well as governments.
McCarty Carino: And do you think this technology can help reduce inequality, especially the global inequality that you have spent most of your career working on?
Manika: absolutely. So think of people who have never had access to the world’s information. Think about how people who had great ideas and never had the chance to go to coding school to code can now talk to Bird. [their] Natural language and bard can translate it into code. In the world he speaks 7,000 languages, trying to cover over 90% of her population.Only translations are possible at this time [over] 100. Using these AI technologies, Google is currently working to enable 1,000 languages. Think about how much information people will have access to if they can access it in their native language through voice or text. This is incredibly uplifting for most of society. So I think these possibilities are huge for people all over the world.
Part 1 of an interview with James Manyika that focuses on the details of AI revealed at last week’s Google conference and how the company is creating tools to combat AI abuse by bad actors. can be read or listened to.
It’s this prospect that Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak expressed concern in a recent interview with the BBC.
He joined Elon Musk and thousands of others in signing the aforementioned open letter calling for a moratorium. In an interview, Wozniak warned that the breakneck pace of AI development is likely to exacerbate the problem of deepfakes and misinformation.
