Editor’s Note: Today, Google CEO Sundar Pichai spoke in Paris, France at AI Action Summit. The following is a transcription of the comments, as prepared for delivery.
Distinguished Leaders, everyone: I’m happy to be here with you all today.
President Macron, thanks for the invitation and for bringing together such a reputed group here.
AI is a once in life technology. And conversations like these, those who are focused on collaboration and concrete actions, will move this work forward.
As today’s sessions end, I will share some examples of why I am so optimistic about AI and its applications – and the opportunity we have for the benefit of everyone everywhere.
Improving life through technology is personal to me.
I grew up in Chennai, India. Each new technology took a while to arrive at our doorstep. It included the rotating phone. We were on a five-year waiting list. And when it finally came, the phone changed our lives.
Before I had to take a four hour trip / trip to get blood test results for my mother. And sometimes I went all the way to the hospital and they would say, “No, it’s not ready. Come back tomorrow.” Now we only had to pick up the phone.
I saw that the positive impact technology could have to make things better. It put me on a course that would bring me to the United States, and eventually to a growing start -up called Google.
I couldn’t have imagined then that one day I would bowl three Google colleagues their Nobel Prices or take my parents on a ride in a driverless car, all within a few weeks. And all because of another technology: AI.
We are still in the early days, but still I already think that AI will be the most deep shift in our lifetime.
Greater than the shift to personal computing or to mobile. And it will do more to democratize access to information than the Internet.
In 18 months, the cost of treating a token – or the building blocks used to process information – has decreased 97% for developers. So what used to cost four dollars per day. Million tokens, now costs only 13 cents and I expect this trend to continue.
Result: Intelligence is more available and available than ever before.
So this moment has the properties of a platform change. But what does it do so in -depth? A few things:
As AI interactions feel more intuitive and human – they put us in the middle of the experience. Technology begins to feel like a natural expansion, increase in human capacity, brodic gaps in expertise and experience and break down barriers such as language and accessibility.
As a truly general technology, AI is useful across many different human efforts and all parts of the economy – every business, each sector will use this technology in their own ways, including the public sector.
As it continues to improve, it will spur innovation, opportunity and growth in economies around the world and drive an explosion in knowledge, learning, creativity and productivity that will shape the future in exciting ways.
The opportunity with AI is as big as it becomes. And it will be up to the people in this room to make sure that as many people as possible benefit.