The Google annual letter, penned by new CEO Sundar Pichai, has outlined the importance and future of artificial intelligence at the company.
We highly suspect Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai are sharing drinks over the same office water cooler. In his Google Annual Letter, traditionally published by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Pichai has elaborated on his vision for artificial intelligence.
In his address, Pichai outlined that “Looking to the future, the next big step will be for the very concept of the ‘device’ to fade away…Over time, the computer itself – whatever its form factor – will be an intelligent assistant helping you through your day. We will move from mobile first to an AI first world.”
Read: Mark Zuckerberg aiming to build his own AI assistant
Google’s vision in this regard is to deliver information before you even ask for it. The company, now owned by Alphabet, is comprised of a massive search and advertising business, which under an artificial intelligence, would to remove the element of a user asking for information entirely.
The company’s own digital assistant, Google Now, already offers some of this functionality – such as helping with travel times or suggesting articles to read, among other features – though it’s clear that Pichai has greater things in mind.
Citing the recent victory of its machine learning software against a human champion of the game Go, Pichai stated that “The implications for this victory are, literally, game changing and the ultimate winner is humanity…This is another important step toward creating artificial intelligence that can help us in everything from accomplishing our daily tasks and travels, to eventually tackling even bigger challenges like climate change and cancer diagnosis.”
It’s clear that Pichai sees this as a new frontier for the company. Google, when it was started, had the view of “organising the world’s information” – and while the company still has a long way to go in indexing every article known to man, the company seems ready under its new head to target a new goal; delivering that information seamlessly.
“For us, technology is not about the devices or the products we build. Those aren’t the end-goals. Technology is a democratizing force, empowering people through information,” Pichai concluded. “Google is an information company. It was when it was founded, and it is today.”
Read: Microsoft unveils Captionbot, an AI that can caption your photos
What are your thoughts on the Google annual letter? Is Pichai right? Be sure to let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
Follow Bryan Smith on Twitter: @bryansmithSA
Source: CNET
