Sundar Pichai said Google is working to enhance its AI capabilities, and that social responsibility including user privacy is among its main priorities.
Google is coming out with hardware that would not only support AI but will also be designed by AI, The Verge reported. The multinational is reinventing its hardware to ensure that it integrates well with AI.
“It’s really tough to drive the future of computing forward if you’re not able to think about these things together,” Pichai said in the exclusive interview. “How do we apply AI to rethink our products?”
The thought behind this is to incorporate AI not just as a feature in devices but as a way to basically change the devices completely, the website reported.
Among several features that Google is introducing with the help of AI is the Google Map with added facility to detect a parking for a vehicle. “It’s fascinating,” Pichai said. He said that the Maps team had to identify individuals who have traveled and arrived at their destination versus the ones who have arrived but looking for a parking. “They have to distinguish between people who have just shown up in a Lyft and gotten out, versus actually driving the car and getting parking quickly.”
Pichai said that he the user interaction with devices will not be limited to touch only. “Multitouch was a huge progress,” he said. “But I think we will all interact with [our devices] in more conversational, sensory ways: using voice, vision, and other things. That’s important to me.”
Talking on the privacy issue, the Stanford graduate said it is another thing that the AI can take care effectively. “Down the line, the system can be much more sophisticated about understanding what is sensitive for users, because it understands context better,” he said. “[It should be] treating health-related information very differently from looking for restaurants to eat with friends.”
Additionally, Pichai stressed that Google is conscious of its social responsibility too, and protecting user-privacy is a vital part of ensuring it. He said although Google does not own Android products it stills works to keep it safe through its software for the sake of billions of users that use Google on Androids.
He said soon even a $50 phone with 4G LTE would serve multiple purposes efficiently. “In India, it would mean in the next two years, you would talk about hundreds of millions of people getting access to computing,” Pichai told The Verge. He said that this would mean that Androids cannot be left behind when it comes to ensuring a secure platform for Google users.