Pichai’s op-ed reads like a preemptive strike. It begins with an appeal to his status as an everyday person. He discusses his love for technology dating back to his childhood before immediately moving on to all the good that Google’s doing: We all want to fight breast cancer, fight climate change, and make the trains run on time. Pichai wants to remind us what’s at stake before he starts talking about the little g (government) and how it should deal with the big one: Google. He then reminds us that cars have been used for evil, as has the internet. You can almost imagine him standing on a raised dais shouting his rhetoric: It’s interesting that he chose deepfakes and facial recognition. With deepfakes, there’s no vertical for Google or Alphabet to monetize them right now. It’s easy to dismiss deepfakes as harmful technology for a company that doesn’t want to talk about how its core service is collecting and selling user data to advertisers. We completely agree with Pichai when it comes to facial recognition software. In fact, a complete ban on government use would make more sense at this point. But the fact of the matter remains that Pichai is pointing at those other companies while his works in the shadows with the likes of Facebook and Twitter to socially engineer the human race. It’s no surprise that Pichai’s underlying message, one he weaves throughout his entire article, is that the government should regulate his competitors’ AI, not his. He wants to win our hearts and minds; he wants us to believe that only Alphabet can save us from the evils of government, the ignorance of the average person, and his competitors. Ultimately, Pichai’s call for regulation is a warning against it. In his own words: We’d argue that endangering billions of lives is a bigger risk than failing to improve them. Pichai’s promises to help regulators serve the greater good goes against the boots-on-the-ground reality of the way his companies operate. AI has the potential to improve billions of lives, and the biggest risk may be failing to do so. By ensuring it is developed responsibly in a way that benefits everyone, we can inspire future generations to believe in the power of technology as much as I do. Pichai’s warning against over-regulation disguised as a ‘gee golly’ call for regulation echoes the White House’s current policy regarding AI – we recently compared this to Ajit Pai’s views on net neutrality. In essence, both advocate for a light-touch regulatory approach designed to clear the way for money-making endeavors. As our own Ivan Mehta stated: At the end of the day, if you completely trust the Trump administration and Alphabet to decide what’s best for the world when it comes to regulating AI, there’s nothing to worry about.
