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Google boss Sundar Pichai warns of threats to internet freedom

13 Jul 2021

The free and open internet is under attack in countries around the world, Google boss Sundar Pichai has warned. He said many countries are restricting the flow of information, and the model is often taken for granted. In an in-depth interview with BBC, Pichai also addressed controversies around tax, privacy, and data, and he argued artificial intelligence (AI) is more profound than fire, electricity, or the internet. Pichai is Chief Executive of one of the most complex, consequential, and rich institutions in history. As boss of both Google and its parent company Alphabet, he is the ultimate leader of companies or products as varied as Waze, FitBit, and DeepMind, the AI pioneers. At Google alone he oversees Gmail, Google Chrome, Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Docs, Google Photos, the Android operating system, and many other products. But by far the most familiar is Google Search. It’s even become its own verb: To “Google”. Over the past 23 years, Google has probably shaped the mostly free and open internet we have today more than any other company. According to Pichai, over the next quarter of a century, two other developments will further revolutionise our world: AI and quantum computing. Amid the rustling leaves and sunshine of the vast, empty campus that is Google’s HQ in Silicon Valley, Pichai stressed how consequential AI was going to be. “I view it as the most profound technology that humanity will ever develop and work on,” he said. “You know, if you think about fire or electricity or the internet, it’s like that. But I think even more profound.” AI is, at base, the attempt to replicate human intelligence in machines. Various AI systems are already better at solving particular kinds of problems than humans. For an eloquent exposition of the potential harms from AI, try this essay by Henry Kissinger. Quantum computing is a totally different phenomenon. Ordinary computing is based on states of matter that are binary: 0 or 1. Nothing in between. These positions are called bits. But at the quantum, or sub-atomic level, matter behaves differently: It can be 0 or 1 at the same time – or on a spectrum between the two. Quantum computers are built on qubits, which factor in the probability of matter being in one of various different states. This is mind-boggling stuff, but it could change the world. Wired has an excellent explainer. Pichai and other leading technologists find the possibilities here exhilarating. “(Quantum) is not going to work for everything. There are things for which the way we do computing today would always be better. But there are some things for which quantum computing will open up an entire new range of solutions.” Pichai rose through the ranks of Google by being the most effective, popular, and respected product manager in the company’s history. (BBC)


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