London: Google boss Sundar Pichai has cautioned users not to “blindly trust” everything artificial intelligence (AI) tells them, even as he struck a warning note for companies to watch out for an AI investment bubble burst that no one would be immune to.
In an interview with the BBC, the Indian-American CEO of Alphabet – the parent company of Google – pointed out that AI models are “prone to errors” and urged users to balance them alongside other tools.
Pichai said this highlighted the importance of having a rich information ecosystem, rather than solely relying on AI technology.
Asked whether Google would be immune to a potential AI market downturn, Pichai said the tech giant could weather the storm but issued a clear warning: “I think no company is going to be immune, including us.”
The interview arrives at a time of heightened scrutiny of the AI market.
Alphabet shares have doubled in seven months to $3.5 trillion, reflecting confidence in the company’s ability to fend off competition from OpenAI, the owner of ChatGPT.
Alphabet’s development of specialised AI superchips, which compete with Nvidia under Jensen Huang, has drawn particular attention.
Nvidia recently reached a world-first $5 trillion valuation.
Some analysts remain sceptical about the sprawling $1.4 trillion of deals being made around OpenAI, which is expected to generate revenues this year of less than one-thousandth of the planned investment—a scenario echoing US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan’s 1996 warning of “irrational exuberance” ahead of the dotcom crash.
Reflecting on past investment cycles, Pichai said industries can “overshoot” in periods of growth.
“We can look back at the internet right now. There was clearly a lot of excess investment, but none of us would question whether the internet was profound,” he said.
“I expect AI to be the same. So I think it’s both rational and there are elements of irrationality through a moment like this.”
His remarks follow a warning from Jamie Dimon, the boss of US bank JP Morgan, who told the BBC last month that AI investment would pay off, but some of the money poured into the industry would “probably be lost.”
Pichai said Google’s approach of owning its full technology stack—from chips to YouTube data, models, and frontier science—positions it better to navigate any turbulence in the AI market.
Alphabet is also expanding in the UK. In September, the company announced a £5 billion investment in UK AI infrastructure and research over the next two years.
“We are committed to investing in the UK in a pretty significant way,” Pichai said, noting that Alphabet will develop “state of the art” research at DeepMind in London.
He added that Google would, “over time,” take steps to “train our models” in the UK—a move that government officials hope will cement the country as the third AI “superpower” after the US and China.
Pichai also highlighted the “immense” energy demands of AI, which accounted for 1.5 per cent of global electricity consumption last year, according to the International Energy Agency.
“You don’t want to constrain an economy based on energy, and I think that will have consequences,” he said, adding that new energy sources and infrastructure are needed in the UK and beyond.
Acknowledging that AI’s energy demands have slowed progress on Alphabet’s climate targets, he stressed the company remains committed to achieving net zero by 2030 through investment in new energy technologies.
“The rate at which we were hoping to make progress will be impacted,” he said.
On the impact of AI on work, Pichai called it “the most profound technology” humankind has worked on.
“We will have to work through societal disruptions,” he said, adding it would also “create new opportunities.”
“It will evolve and transition certain jobs, and people will need to adapt,” he continued. Those who embrace AI “will do better.”
“It doesn’t matter whether you want to be a teacher or a doctor. All those professions will be around, but the people who will do well in each of those professions are people who learn how to use these tools.”
