Google CEO says AI will impact ‘every product of every company,’ calls for regs

Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Sunday called for AI regulations and guidelines to ensure the breakthrough technology is “aligned to human values.” 

AI will soon impact “every product of every company” and disrupt jobs, Pichai said during an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes.” He said that writers, accountants, architects, software engineers and other “knowledge workers” will feel the biggest impacts. 

Pichai added that without guidelines, AI could be abused by bad actors. The technology could be used to quickly create deepfake videos to spread disinformation and could “cause a lot of harm” at a societal scale, he told CBS’s Scott Pelley. 

“How do you develop AI systems that are aligned to human values, including morality?” Pichai asked. “This is why I think the development of this needs to include not just engineers, but social scientists, ethicists, philosophers, and so on, and I think we have to be very thoughtful.”

Pichai said that society must collectively decide how AI should be integrated, adding that it’s “not for a company to decide.” 

The Google executive said he’s concerned that society might not be ready for the lightning-fast pace of AI advancements. But he’s optimistic about the large number of people “who have started worrying about the implications” of AI at a relatively early point in its development.

Google is currently developing a swath of AI products and is publicly testing its chat AI, Bard. Pichai said that the company is holding back more advanced AIs to ensure that society can get used to the technology. 

OpenAI, which operates the popular ChatGPT platform, and other AI companies are also keeping more powerful technologies away from public consumption. 

Google has released its own recommendations on how to regulate AI.

Last month, a group of tech leaders including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Tesla CEO Elon Musk penned a letter calling on companies to pause AI development, citing “risks to society.”