Kind: captions
Language: en
There was a 5-year waiting
list and we got a rotary telephone, but
it dramatically changed our lives. You
know, people would come to our house to
make calls to their loved ones. You
know, I I would have to go all the way
to the hospital to get blood test
records and it would take 2 hours to go
and they would say, "Sorry, it's not
ready. Come back the next day." 2 hours
to come back. And that became a
five-minute thing. So as a kid like I
mean this light bulb went in my head you
know this power of technology to kind of
change people's lives. We had no running
water you know it was a massive drought.
So they would get water in these trucks
maybe eight buckets per household. So me
and my brother sometimes my mom we would
wait in line get that and bring it back
home.
many years later like we had running
water and we had a water heater and you
could get hot water to take a shower. I
mean like so you know for me everything
was discreet like that. Uh and so I've
always had this thing you know firsthand
feeling of like how technology can
dramatically change like your life and
like the opportunity it brings. I think
if pedom is actually high at some point
all of humanity is like aligned in
making sure that's not the case right
and so we'll actually make more progress
against it I think so the irony is so
there is a
self-modulating aspect there like I
think if humanity collectively puts
their mind to solving a problem whatever
it is I think we can get there so
because of that I think I'm optimistic
on the pdoom scenarios
But that doesn't mean I think the
underlying risk is actually pretty
high. But I'm uh you know I have a lot
of faith in humanity kind of rising up
to the to meet that moment. Take me
through that experience when there's all
these articles
saying you're the wrong guy to lead
Google through this. Google is lost.
It's done. It's over.
The following is a conversation with
Sundar Pachai, the CEO of Google and
Alphabet on this the Lex Freedman
podcast. Your life story is inspiring to
a lot of people. It's inspiring to me.
You grew up in India, whole family
living in a humble two- room apartment,
very little, almost no access to
technology. And from those humble
beginnings, you rose to lead a $2
trillion technology company. So if you
could travel back in time and told that,
let's say, 12-year-old Sundar that
you're now leading one of the largest
companies in human history, what do you
think that young kid would say? I would
have probably laughed it off. Um, you
know, uh, probably too far-fetched to
imagine or believe at that time. You
would have to explain the internet first
for sure. I mean computers to me at that
time. You know I was 12 in
1984. So probably uh you know by then I
started reading about
them. I had seen one. What was that
place like? Take me to your childhood.
You know I grew up in Chennai. Uh it's
in south of India. It's a beautiful
bustling city. Lots of people, lots of
energy, you know, simple life.
Definitely like fond memories of playing
cricket outside the home. We just used
to play on the streets. All the
neighborhood kids would come out and we
would play till it got dark and we
couldn't play anymore barefoot. Um,
traffic would come, we would just stop
the game, everything would drive through
and you would just continue playing,
right? Just to kind of get the visual in
your head. You know, precomputers
there's a lot of free time now. Now that
I think about it, now you have to go and
seek that quiet solitude or something.
Newspapers, books is how I gained access
to the was information at the time, you
will. Uh my grandfather was a big
influence. He worked in the post office.
He was so good with language. His
English, you know, his handwriting till
today is the most beautiful handwriting
I've ever seen. He would write so
clearly. He was so articulate.
And so he kind of got me introduced into
books. He loved politics. So we we could
talk about anything and you know that
was there in my family throughout. So uh
lots of books, trashy books, good books,
everything from iron rand to books on
philosophy to stupid crime novels. So
books was a big part of my life. But
that kind of this soul it's not
surprising I ended up at Google because
Google's mission kind of always
resonated deeply with me this access to
knowledge I was hungry for it but
definitely have you know fond memories
of my childhood access to knowledge was
there so that's the wealth we had
uh you know every aspect of technology I
had to wait for a while I've obviously
spoken before about how long it took for
us to get a phone about 5 years but it's
not the only thing a telephone. There
was a 5-year waiting list. Uh and we got
a rotary uh telephone. Mhm. But it
dramatically changed our lives. You
know, people would come to our house to
make calls to their loved
ones. You know, I I would have to go all
the way to the hospital to get blood
test records and it would take 2 hours
to go and they would say, "Sorry, it's
not ready. Come back the next day." 2
hours to come back. And that became a 5m
minute thing. So as a kid like I mean
this light bulb went in my head you know
this power of technology to kind of
change people's lives. We had no running
water you know it was a massive drought.
So they would get water in these trucks
maybe eight buckets per household. So me
and my brother sometimes my mom we would
wait in line get that and bring it back
home.
many years later like we had running
water and we had a water heater and you
could get hot water to take a shower. I
mean like so you know for me everything
was discreet like that. Uh and so I've
always had this thing you know firsthand
feeling of like how technology can
dramatically change like your life and
like the opportunity it brings.
So, you know, that was kind of a
subliminal takeaway for me throughout
growing up. And, you know, I I kind of
actually observed it and felt it, you
know. So, we had to convince my dad for
a long time to get a VCR. Do you know
what a VCR is? Yeah.
I'm trying to date you now. But, you
know, because before that, you only had
like kind of one TV channel. Mhm. Right.
That's it. Um, and so, you know, you can
watch movies or something like that, but
this was by the time I was in 12th
grade, we got a VCR. You know, it was a
uh like a Panasonic, which we had to go
to some like shop, which had kind of
smuggled it in, I guess, and that's
where we bought a VCR, but then being
able to
record like a World Cup football game
and then or like get put like video
tapes and watch movies like all that. So
like you know I had these discrete
memories growing up and so you know
always left me with the feeling of like
how getting access to technology drives
that step change in your life. I don't
think you'll ever be able to equal the
first time you get hot water to have
that convenience of going and opening a
tap and have hot water come out. Yeah.
It's interesting. We take for granted
the progress we've made. If you look at
human history, just those plots that
look at GDP across 2,000 years and you
see that exponential growth to where
most of the progress happened since the
industrial revolution and we just take
for granted. We forget how how far we've
gone. So our ability to understand how
great we have it and also how quickly
technology can improve is quite poor.
Oh, I mean it's it's extraordinary. You
know, I go back to India now. the power
of mobile. You know, it's mind-blowing
to see the progress through the arc of
time. It's phenomenal. What advice would
you give to young folks listening to
this all over the world who look up to
you and uh find your story inspiring who
want to be maybe the next Bachai who
want to start create companies uh build
something that has a lot of impact in
the world. Look, it's you have a lot of
luck along the way, but you obviously
have to make smart choices. you're
thinking about what you want to do. Your
brain is telling you something. But when
you do things, I think it's important to
kind of get that listen to your heart
and see whether you actually enjoy doing
it, right? That that feeling of if you
love what you do, it's so much easier
and you're going to see the best version
of yourself. It's easier said than done.
I think it's tough to find things uh you
love doing. Um but I think kind of
listening to your heart a bit more than
your mind in terms of figuring out what
you want to do I think I think is one of
the best things I would uh tell
people. The second thing is I mean
trying to work with people who you feel
at various points in my life I worked
with people who I felt were better than
me right kind of like you know you
almost are sitting in a room talking to
someone and they're like wow like you
know you know and you want that feeling
a few times trying to get yourself in a
position where you're working with
people who you feel are kind of like
stretching your abilities is what helps
you grow I think uh so putting yourself
in uncomfortable situations and I think
often you'll surprise yourself. So I
think being open-minded enough to kind
of put yourself in those positions is
maybe uh maybe another thing I would
say. What lessons can we learn maybe
from an outsider perspective for me
looking at your story and gotten to know
you a bit. You're humble, you're kind.
Usually when I think of somebody who has
had a journey like yours and climbs to
the very top of leadership, they're us
in a cutthroat world, they're usually
going to be a bit of an So what
wisdom are we supposed to draw from the
fact that uh your general approach of is
of balance, of humility, of kindness,
listening to everybody? What's what's
what's your secret? I do get angry. I do
get frustrated. I I have the same
emotions all of us do right in the
context of work and everything. Uh but a
few things right I I I think you know
I over time I figured out the best way
to get the most out of people. uh you
know you kind of find missionoriented
people who are in the shad journey who
have this inner drive to excellence to
do the best and and you know you kind of
motivate people and and and you can you
can achieve a lot that way right and so
it it often tends to work out that way
but have there been times like you know
I lo lose it yeah but you know not maybe
less often than others uh and maybe over
the years
less and less so because you know I find
it's not needed to achieve what you need
to do. So losing your has not been
productive. Yeah. Less often than not I
think people respond to that. Yeah. They
may do stuff to react to that like but
you you actually want them to do the
right thing and and and so you know
maybe there's a bit of like sports you
know you know I'm a sports fan in
football coaches uh in soccer uh that
football uh you know people people often
talk about like man management right
coaches do right I think there is an
element of that in our lives how do you
get the best out of the people you work
with you know at times you're working
with people who who are so committed to
achieving if they've done something
wrong they feel it more than you you do
right so you treat them differently than
you know occasionally there are people
who you need to clearly let them know
like that wasn't okay or whatever it is
but I've often found that not to be the
case and sometimes the right words at
the right time spoken firmly can
reverberate through time also sometimes
the unspoken words you know people can
sometimes see that like you know you're
unhappy without you saying it and so
sometimes the silence can uh deliver
that message even more sometimes less is
more um who's the greatest uh soccer
player of all time Messi or Ronaldo or
Pelle or Maradona I'm going to make you
know in this question is this going to
be a political answer no I I I will tell
the truthful answer because uh answer it
is you know it's been interesting
because my son is a big Cristiano
Ronaldo fan And uh so we've had to watch
LC Classicos together, you know, with
that dynamic in there. I so admire CR7s.
I mean, I've never seen an athlete more
committed to that kind of excellence.
And so he's one of the all-time greats,
but you know, for me, Messi is it. Yeah.
Yeah, when I see Leon Messi, you just
are in awe that humans are able to
achieve that level of greatness and
genius and artistry. When we talk, we'll
talk about AI, maybe robotics and this
kind of stuff, that level of genius. I'm
not sure you can possibly match by AI in
a long time. It's just an example of
greatness. And you have that kind of
greatness in other disciplines, but in
sport, you get to visually see it unlike
anything else. and just the the timing,
the
movement, this is genius. I had the
chance to see him a couple weeks ago. He
played in uh San Jose. So um against the
Quake. So I went to see it, see the
game. I was a fan on the had good seats.
Knew where he would play in the second
half hopefully. And uh even at his age,
just watching him when he gets the ball,
that movement, you know, you're right,
that special quality, it's tough to
describe, but you feel it when you see
it. Yeah, he still got
it. Uh, if we rank all the technological
innovations throughout human history,
let's go back
uh maybe the history of human
civilizations 12,000 years
ago and you rank them by
the how much of a productivity
multiplier they've been. So uh we can go
to electricity or the labor
mechanization of the industrial
revolution or we can go back to the
first agricultural revolution 12,000
years ago in that long list of
inventions. Do you think AI when history
is written a thousand years from now do
you think it has a chance to be the
number one productivity multiplier? It's
a great question. Look, many years ago,
I think it might have been 2017 or 2018.
Um, you know, I I said at the time like,
you know, AI is the most profound
technology humanity will ever work on.
It'll be more profound than fire or
electricity. So, I have to back myself.
I, you know, I still think uh that's the
case. You know, when you asked this
question, I was thinking, well, do we
have a recency bias, right? You know,
like in sports, it's very tempting to
call the current person you're seeing
the greatest Yes. player, right? and and
so is there a recency
bias and you know I do think uh from
first principles I would argue AI will
be bigger than all of those I didn't
live through those moments you know two
years ago I had to go through a surgery
and then I processed that there was a
point in time people didn't have
anesthesia when they went through these
procedures at that moment I was like
that has got to be the greatest
invention humanity has ever ever done
right so look We we don't know what it
is to have uh lived through those
times but you know and many of what
you're talking about were kind of this
general things which pretty much
affected everything you know electricity
or internet etc.
But I don't think we have ever dealt
with a technology both which is
progressing so fast, becoming so
capable. It's not clear what the ceiling
is and the main unique it's recursively
self-improving, right? It's capable of
that. And so the fact it is going it's
the first technology will kind of
dramatically accelerate creation itself
like creating things building new things
can can improve and achieve things on
its own right I think like puts it in a
different league right and so uh
different league and so I think the
impact it'll end up having uh will far
surpass everything we've seen before
uh obviously with that comes a lot
uh important things to think and wrestle
with, but I definitely think that'll end
up being the case, especially if it gets
to the point of where we can achieve
superhuman performance on the AI
research itself. So, it's a technology
that may that's an open question, but it
may be able to achieve a level to where
the technology itself can create itself
better than it it could yesterday. It's
like the move 37 of alpha research or
whatever it is, right? Like, you know,
and when when Yeah, you're right. when
when it can do
novel self-directed research obviously
for a long time we'll we'll have
hopefully always humans in the loop and
all that stuff and these are complex
questions to talk about but yes I think
the underlying technology you know I've
said this like if you watched seeing
AlphaGo start from
scratch be clueless and like become
better through the course of a day you
know like you know kind like kind of
like you know really it hits you when
you see that happen even our like the V3
models if you sample the models when
they were like 30% done and 60% done and
looked at what they were
generating and you kind of see how it
all comes
together it's kind of like I would say
it's kind of inspiring a little bit
unsettling right as a as a human so all
of that is true I think well the
interesting thing of the industrial
revolution electricity like you
mentioned. You can go back to the again
the agricultural the first agricultural
revolution. There's um what's called the
Neolithic package of the first
agricultural revolution that it wasn't
just that the nomads settled down and
started planting food. But all this
other kinds of
technology was born from that and it's
included in this package. It wasn't one
piece of technology. It's there's these
ripple effects, second and third order
effects that happen. Everything from
something silly like silly profound like
pottery that can store liquids and food
uh to something we kind of take for
granted but social hierarchies
uh and political hierarchy. So like
early government was formed cuz it turns
out if humans stop moving and have some
surplus food they start coming up with
uh they get bored and they start coming
up with interesting systems then trade
emerges which turns out to be a really
profound thing and like I said
government there I mean there's just uh
second and third order effects from that
including that package is incredible and
probably extremely difficult if if you
ask one of the people in the nomadic
tribes to predict that it would be
impossible. It's difficult to predict.
But all that said, what do you think are
some of the early things we might see in
the quote unquote AI
package? I mean, most of it probably we
don't know today, but like you know the
one thing which we can tangibly start
seeing now
is you know obviously with the coding
progress you got a sense of it. It's
going to be so easy to imagine like
thoughts in your head translating that
into things that exist. That'll be part
of the package, right? Like it's going
to empower almost all of
humanity to kind of express
themselves. Maybe in the past you could
have expressed with
words but like you could kind of build
things into existence, right? You know,
maybe not fully today. We are at the
early stages of VIP coding. You know,
I've been amazed at what people have put
out online with V3, but it takes a bit
of work, right? You have to stitch
together a set of prompts,
but all this is going to get better. The
thing I always think about, this is the
worst it'll ever be, right? Like at any
given moment in time. Yeah, it's
interesting you went there as kind of a
first thought. So the exponential
increase of access to creativity,
software
creation, are you creating a program, a
piece of content for to be shared with
others, games down the line, all of that
like just becomes infinitely more
possible. Well, I think the big thing is
that uh it makes it accessible. It
unlocks the cognitive capabilities of
the entire 8 billion. No, I agree. Look,
think about 40 years
ago, maybe in the US there were five
people who could do what you were doing.
Mhm. Like go do a interview, you know,
and you know, but today think about with
YouTube and other other products etc.
Like how many more people are doing
it? So I think this is what technology
does, right? Like when the internet
created blogs, you know, you heard from
so many more people. So I
think but but with AI I think that
number won't be in the few hundreds of
thousands it'll be tens of millions of
people maybe even a billion
people like putting out things into the
world in a deeper way and I think it'll
change the landscape of creativity and
makes a lot of people nervous like for
example uh whatever Fox MSNBC CNN are
really nervous about this part like you
mean this dude in a who could just do
this and and use and YouTube and and and
thousands of others, tens of thousands,
millions of other creators can do the
same kind of thing. That makes him
nervous. And now you get a podcast from
Nobook LM. That's about five to 10 times
better than any podcast I've ever done.
True. I'm I'm joking at this time, but
maybe not. And that changes. you have to
evolve because I on the podcasting
front, I'm a fan of
podcasts much more than I am a fan of
being a host or whatever. If there's
great podcasts that are both AIs, I'll
just stop doing this podcast. I'll
listen to that podcast. But you have to
evolve and you have to change and that
makes people really nervous, I think.
But it's also really exciting future.
The only thing I may say is I do think
like in a world in which there are two
AI, I think people value and uh
choose just like in chess you and I
would never watch Stockfish 10 or
whatever and Alph Go play against each
like it would be boring for us to watch
but Magnus Carlson and Gish that game
would be much more fascinating to watch.
So it's tough to say like one way to say
is you'll have a lot more content and so
you will be listening to AI generated
content because sometimes it's efficient
etc. But the premium experiences you
value might be a version of like the
human essence wherever it comes through
going back to what we talked earlier
about watching Messi dribble the ball. I
don't know one day I'm sure a machine
will dribble much better than Messi but
I don't know whether it would evoke that
same emotion in us. So I think that'll
be fascinating to see. I think the
element of
podcasting or
audiobooks that is about
information gathering that part might be
removed or that might be more
efficiently and in a compelling way done
by AI but then it'll be just nice to
hear humans struggle with the
information contend with the information
try to internalize it combine it with
the complexity of our own emotions and
consciousness and all that kind of stuff
but if you actually want to find out
about a piece of history, you go to
Gemini. If you want to see Lex struggle
with that history, then you look or
other humans, you look you look at that.
But that the point is it's going to
change the nature
uh continue to change the nature of how
we discover information, how we consume
the information, how we create that
information. The same way that YouTube
change everything completely, change
news, it change and that's something our
society is struggling with. Yeah,
YouTube look YouTube enabled I mean you
know this better than anyone else. It's
enabled so many creators. There is no
doubt in me that like we will enable
more filmmakers than there have ever
been right. You're going to empower a
lot more people. Um so I think there's
an expansionary aspect of this which is
underestimated. I think I think it'll
unleash human creativity in a way uh
that hasn't been seen before. It's tough
to internalize. The only way is if you
if you brought someone from the 50s or
40s and just put them in front of
YouTube, you know, I think it would blow
their mind away. Similarly, I think we
would get blown away by what's possible
in a 10 to 20 year time frame. Uh do you
think there's a future? How many years
out is it that let's say let's put a
marker on it? 50% of
content in a compel good content 50% of
good content is generated by V4 56. You
know, I think depends on what it is for.
Um, like you know, maybe if you look at
movies today with
CGI, there are great filmmakers like you
still look at like who the directors are
and who use it. There are filmmakers who
don't use it at all. You value that.
There are people who use it incredibly.
You know, think about somebody like a
James Cameron like what he would do with
these tools in his hands. But I think
there'll be a lot more content created
like just like writers today use Google
Docs and not think about the fact that
they using a tool like that like people
will be using the future versions of
these things like it won't be a big deal
at all to them.
I've gotten a chance to get to know
Darren Aronowski well. He's been really
leaning in and trying to figure it's
it's fun to watch a genius who came up
before any of this was even remotely
possible. He created Pi, one of my
favorite movies, and from there just
continued to create a really interesting
variety of movies. And now he's trying
to see how can AI be used to create
compelling films. You have people like
that. You have people I've gotten to
just know uh edgier folks uh that are AI
first like Door Brothers. Both
Areronowski and Door Brothers create at
the edge of the Overton window of
society. You know, they push whether
it's uh sexuality or or violence. It's
edgy like artists are, but it's still
classy. It doesn't cross that line. Uh
whatever that line is, you know. Um
Hunter S. Thommpson is this
line that the uh the only way to find
out where the edge where the line is is
by crossing it. Uh and I think for
artists that's true. That's kind of
their purpose. Sometimes comedians and
artists just cross that line. I wonder
if you can comment on the weird place
that puts
Google because Google's line is probably
different than some of these artists.
What what's your how do you think about
specifically Vio um and Flo about like
how to allow artists to get do crazy
but also like the responsibility of
like
um not for it not to be too crazy. I
It's a great question. Look, part of you
mentioned Darren uh you know he's a
clear visionary, right? Part of the
reason we work started working with him
early on VO is he's one of those people
who was able to kind of see that future
get inspired by it and kind of showing
the way for how creative people can
express themselves with it. Look, I
think when it comes to allowing artistic
free expression is one of the most
important values in a society, right? I
think you know artists have always been
the ones to push push boundaries expand
the frontiers of thought uh and so look
I think I think that's going to be an
important value we have so I think we
will provide tools and put it in the
hands of artists for them to use and put
out their
work those APIs I mean I almost think of
that as infrastructure just like when
you provide electricity to people or
something you want them to use it and
like you're not thinking about the use
cases on top of it. So it's a
paintbrush. Yeah. And and so I think
that's how obviously there have to be
some things and you know society needs
to decide at a a fundamental level
what's okay, what's not. Uh we'll be
responsible with it. Um but I do think
you know when it comes to artistic free
expression I think that's one of those
values we should work hard to defend. Uh
I wonder if you can comment on
um maybe earlier versions of Gemini were
a little bit careful on the kind of
things you would be willing to answer. I
just want to comment on I was really
surprised and uh pleasantly surprised
and enjoy the fact that Gemini 25 Pro is
a lot less careful in a good sense.
Don't ask me why, but I've been doing a
lot of research on Jenghask Khan and the
the Aztecs. Uh, so there's a lot of
violence there in that history. It's a
very violent history. I've also been
doing a lot of research on World War I
and World War II. And earlier versions
of Gemini were very
um basically this kind of sense, are you
sure you want to learn about this? And
now it's actually very factual,
objective, uh, talks about very
difficult parts of human history and
does so with nuance and depth. It's it's
been really nice. But there's a line
there that I guess Google has to kind of
walk. I wonder if it's and it's also an
engineering challenge how to how to do
that at scale across all the weird
queries that people ask. What um can you
just speak to that challenge? How do you
allow Gemini to say again, forgive,
pardon my French, crazy but not
too not not too crazy. I think one of
the good insights here has been as the
models are getting more capable, the
models are really good at this stuff,
right? And so I think in some ways maybe
a year ago the models weren't fully
there. So they would also do stupid
things more
often and so you know you're trying to
handle those edge cases but then you
make a mistake in how you handle those
edge cases and it compounds. But I think
with 2.5 what we particularly found is
once the models cross a certain level of
intelligence and
sophistication you know they are they
are able to reason through these nuanced
issues pretty well. And I think users
really want that right like you know you
want as much access to the raw model as
possible right but I think it's a great
area to think about like you know over
time you know we should allow more and
more closer access to it maybe obviously
let people custom prompts if they wanted
to and like you know and you know
experiment with it etc. uh I I think
that's an important direction but look
the first principles we want to think
about it is you know from a scientific
standpoint like making sure the models
and I'm saying scientific in the sense
of like how you would approach math or
physics or something like that from
first principles having the models
reason about the world be nuanced etc uh
you know from the ground up is the right
way to build these things right not like
some subset of humans is kind of hard
coding things on top of it. Uh so I
think it's the direction we've been
taking and I think you'll see us
continue to push in that direction.
Yeah. I actually asked uh I gave these
notes I took extensive notes and I gave
them to Gemini and said can you ask a
novel question that's not in these notes
and it wrote Gemini continues to really
surprise me really surprise me. It's
been really beautiful. It's incredible
model. Uh the the question it's it it
generated was you meaning Sundar told
the world Gemini is turnurning out 480
trillion tokens a month. Uh what's the
most life-changing fiveword sentence
hiding in that hast stack? That's a
Gemini question, but it made me it gave
me a sense. I don't think you can answer
that, but it gave me it made it woke me
up to like all of these tokens are
providing little aha moments for people
across the globe. So that's like
learning that those tokens are people
are curious. They ask a question and
they find something out and it truly
could be life-changing. Oh, it is. I
look I know I had the same feeling about
search many many years ago. You you know
you you
definitely you know this tokens per
month is like grown 50 times in the last
12 months. Is that accurate by the way?
Yeah, it is. You know it is it is
accurate. I'm glad it got it right. Um,
but you know that number was 9.7
trillion tokens per month 12 months ago,
right? It's gone gone up to 480. You
know, it's a 50x increase. So there's no
limit to human cur curiosity. Uh, and I
think it's it's one of those moments.
Uh, maybe I don't think it is there
today, but maybe one day there's a
fiveword
phrase which says what the actual
universe is or something like that and
something very meaningful. But I don't
think we are quite there yet. Do you
think the scaling laws are holding
strong on
um there's a lot of ways to describe the
scaling laws for AI, but on the
pre-training on the post-training
fronts? So the flip side of that, do you
anticipate AI progress will hit a wall?
Is there a wall? You know, it's a
cherished micro kitchen conversation.
Once in a while I have it, you know,
like when Demis is visiting or, you
know, Dennis, Cori, Jeff, Gnome, Sergey,
a bunch of our people like we sit and
uh, you know, you know, talk about this,
right? And um, look, I we see a lot of
headroom ahead, right? I think uh, we've
been able to optimize and improve on all
fronts, right? uh pre-training,
post-raining, test time, compute, tool
use, right? Over time, making these more
agentic. So, getting these models to be
more general world models in that
direction like V3 uh you know, the
physics understanding is dramatically
better than what V1 or something like
that was. So, you kind of see on all
those dimensions. I I feel you know
progress is very obvious to see and I
feel like there is significant headroom
more importantly you know I'm fortunate
to work with some of the best
researchers on the planet right they
think uh there is more headroom to be
had here uh and so I think we have an
exciting trajectory ahead it's tougher
to say you know each year I sit and say
okay we're going to throw 10x more
compute over the course of next year at
it and like will we see
progress sitting here today I feel like
the year ahead we'll have a lot of
progress and do you feel any limitations
like that the bottlenecks compute
limited uh data limited idea limited do
you feel any of those limitations or is
it full steam ahead on all fronts I
think it's compute limited in this sense
right like you know we can all part of
the reason you've seen us do flash nano
flash and pro models
but not an ultra model. It's like for
each generation, we feel like we've been
able to get the Pro model at like I
don't know 80 90% of ultra capability,
but ultra would be a a lot more
uh like slow and lot more expensive to
ser.
But what we've been able to do is to go
to the next generation and make the next
generation's pro as good as the previous
generation's ultra. Yeah. But be able to
serve it in a way that it's fast and you
can use it and so on. So I do think
scaling laws are working. But it's tough
to get at any given time. The models we
all use the
most is maybe like a few months behind
the maximum capability we can deliver,
right? because that won't be the
fastest, easiest to use, etc. Also,
that's in terms of intelligence. It
becomes harder and harder to measure
uh performance in quotes because, you
know, you could argue Gemini Flash is
much more impactful than Pro just
because of the latency. It's super
intelligent already. I mean sometimes
like latency is uh maybe more important
than intelligence especially when the
intelligence is just a little bit less
in flash not it's still incredibly smart
model. Yeah. And so you you have to now
start measuring impact and then it feels
like benchmarks are less and less
capable of capturing the intelligence of
models, the effectiveness of models, the
usefulness, the real world usefulness of
models. Uh another kitchen question. So
lots of folks are talking about
timelines for AGI or ASI artificial
super intelligence. So AGI loosely
defined is basically human expert level
at a lot of the main fields of pursuit
for humans and then ASI is what AGI
becomes presumably quickly by being able
to self-improve. So becoming far
superior in intelligence across all
these disciplines than humans. When do
you think we'll have HGI? Is 2030 a
possibility? Uh there's one other term
we should throw in there. I don't know
who who used it first. Maybe Karpati did
AJI. Have you have you heard AJI? The
artificial jagged intelligence sometimes
feels that way right both there are
progress and you see what they can do
and then like you can trivially find
they make numerical errors or like you
know counting Rs and strawberry or
something which seems to trip up most
models or whatever it is, right?
So uh so maybe we should throw that term
in there. I feel like we are in the AJI
phase where like dramatic progress some
things don't work well but overall you
know you're seeing uh lots of progress
but if your question is will will it
happen by 2030 look we constantly move
the line of what it means to be
AGI there are moments today you know
like sitting in a way in a San Francisco
street with all the crowds and the
people and kind of work its way through
I see glimpses of it there. The car is
sometimes kind of impatient trying to
work its way uh using Astra like in
Gemini Live or seeing uh you know asking
questions about the world. What's this
skinny building doing in my
neighborhood? It's a street light, not a
building. You you see glimpses. That's
why I use the word AJI because then you
see stuff which obviously you know we
far from AGI too. So you have both
experiences simultaneously happening to
you. I'll answer your question, but I'll
also throw out this. I almost feel the
term doesn't matter. What I know is by
2030 there'll be such dramatic
progress. We'll be dealing with the
consequences of that progress both the
positives uh both the positive
externalities and the negative
externalities that come with it in a big
way by 2030. So that I strongly feel
right whatever we may be arguing about
the term or maybe Gemini can answer what
that moment is in time in
2030 but I think the progress will be
dramatic right so that I believe in will
the AI think it has reached AGI by
2030 I would say we will just fall short
of that timeline right so I think it'll
take a bit longer it's amazing in the
early days of Google deep mind in 2010
they talked about a 20-year time frame
to achieve uh AGI So which is which is
kind of fascinating to see.
But you know I for me the whole thing
seeing what Google brain did in 2012 and
when we acquired deep mind in 2014 uh
right close to where we're sitting in
2012 you know Jeff Dean showed the image
of when the neural networks could
recognize uh a picture of a cat right
and identify it. you know this is the
early versions of brain right and so you
know we all talked about couple decades
I don't think we'll quite get there by
2030 so my sense is it's slightly after
that but I I would stress it doesn't
matter like what that definition
is
because you will have mind-blowing
progress on many dimensions maybe AI can
create videos we have to figure out as a
society how do we we need some system by
which we all agree that this is AI
generated and we have to disclose it in
a certain way because how do you
distinguish reality otherwise? Yeah,
there's so many interesting things you
said. So, first of all, just looking
back at this recent now feels like
distant history uh with Google brain. I
mean that was before TensorFlow before
TensorFlow was made public and open
sourced. So, the tooling matters too
combined with GitHub ability to share
code. Then you have the ideas of
attention transformers and the diffusion
now and then there might be a new idea
that seems simple in retrospect but will
change everything and that could be the
post training the inference time
innovations and I think Shad Cen tweeted
that Google is just one great UI from
completely winning the AI race meaning
like UI is a huge part of it like how
that intelligence
uh uh I think Logan Cop project likes to
talk about this right now. It's an LLM
but it become like when is it going to
become a system where you're talking
about shipping systems versus shipping
the particular model. Yeah, that matters
too. How the system is um manifest
itself and how it presents itself to the
world that really really matters. Oh
hugely so. There are simple UI
innovations which have changed the world
right and uh I absolutely think so. um
we will see a lot more progress in the
next couple of years is I think AI
itself uh on a self-improving track for
UI itself like you know today
we are like constraining the models the
models can't quite express themselves in
terms of the UI to to people um but that
is uh like you know if you think about
it we've kind of boxed them in that way
but given these models can code
uh you know they should be able to write
the best interfaces to express their
ideas over time, right? That is an
incredible idea. So the APIs are already
open. So you you create a really nice
agentic system that continuously
improves the way you can be talking to
an AI. Yeah. But it a lot of that is the
interface and then of course the
incredible multimodal aspect of the
interface that Google's been pushing.
These models are natively multimodal.
They can easily take content from any
format, put it in any format. They can
write a good user interface. They
probably understand your preferences
better that over time like you know and
so so all this is like the evolution
ahead, right? And so
um that goes back to where we started
the conversation. I like I think
there'll be dramatic evolutions in the
years ahead. Maybe one more kitchen
question. uh this even further
ridiculous concept of P doom. So the
philosophically minded folks in the AI
community think about the probability
that AGI and then ASI might destroy all
of human civilization. I would say my
PDM is about
10%. Do you ever think about this kind
of long-term threat of ASI and what
would your P doom be? Look, I mean for
sure. Look, I've uh both been uh very
excited about AI. Uh but I've always
felt uh this is a technology, you know,
we have to actively think about the
risks and work very very hard to harness
it in a way that it it all works out
well. Um on the PDOM question, look,
it's you know, won't surprise you to say
that's probably another micro kitchen
conversation that pops up once in a
while, right? And given how powerful the
technology is, maybe stepping back, you
know, when you're running a large
organization, if you can kind of align
the incentives of the organization, you
can achieve pretty much anything, right?
Like, you know, if you can get kind of
people all marching in towards like a
goal uh in a very focused way, in a
mission-driven way, you can pretty much
achieve anything. But it's very tough to
organize all of humanity that way. But I
think if pedom is actually high at some
point all of humanity is like aligned in
making sure that's not the case right
and so we'll actually make more progress
against it I think so the irony is so
there is a
self-modulating aspect there like I
think if humanity collectively puts
their mind to solving a problem whatever
it is I think we can get there so
because of that you know I I I I think
I'm optimistic take on the pdoom
scenarios, but that doesn't mean I think
the underlying risk is actually pretty
high, but I'm uh you know, I have a lot
of faith in humanity kind of rising up
to the to meet that moment. That's
really really well put. I mean, as the
threat becomes more concrete and real,
humans do really come together and get
their together. Well, the other
thing I think people don't often talk
about is probability of doom without AI.
So, there's all these other ways that
humans can destroy themselves. And it's
very possible, at least I believe so,
that AI will help us become
smarter, kinder to each other, uh more
efficient. uh it it'll help more parts
of the world flourish where it would be
less resource constrainted which is
often the source of military conflict
and tensions and so on. So we also have
to load into that what's the pdoom
without AI with AI Poom with AI Poom
without AI cuz it's very possible that
AI will be the thing that saves us saves
human civilizations from all the other
threats. I agree with you. I think I
think it's insightful. Uh look, I felt
like to make progress on some of the
toughest problems would be good to have
AI like pair helping you, right? And and
like you know, so that resonates with me
for sure. Yeah. Quick pause. Bathroom
break. You know, let's do that. If
notebook LM was the same compel like
what I saw today with Beam, if it was
compelling in the same kind of way,
blew my mind. It was incredible. Oh, I
didn't think it's possible. I didn't My
was like, can you imagine like the US
president and the Chinese president
being able to do something like Beam
with the live me translation working
well? So, they're both sitting and
talking, make progress a bit more. Uh
yeah, just uh for people listening, we
took a quick bath break and now we're
talking about the demo I did. We'll
probably post it somewhere somehow,
maybe here. the I got a chance to
experience beam and it
was it's hard to it's hard to describe
in words how real it felt with just what
is it six cameras. It's incredible. It's
incredible. It's it's one of the
toughest products of you can't quite
describe it to people even when we show
it in slides etc like you don't know
what it is you have to kind of
experience it on the world leaders front
on politics geopolitics that there's
something really special again with
studying World War II and uh how much
could have been saved if Chamberlain met
Stalin in person and I sometimes also
struggle explaining to people
articulating Why I believe meeting in
person for world leaders is powerful. It
just seems naive to say that but there
is something there in person and with
beam I I felt that same thing and then
I'm unable to explain all I kept doing
is what like a child does you look real
you know and I mean I don't know if that
makes meetings more productive or so on
but it certainly makes them more
uh the same reason you want to show up
to work versus remote sometimes that
human connection
I don't know what that is. It's hard to
it's hard to put into words.
Um there's
some there's something beautiful about
great teams collaborating on a thing
that's that's not captured by the
productivity of that team or by whatever
on paper. Like some of the most
beautiful moments you experience in life
is at work pursuing a difficult thing
together for many months.
There's nothing like it. you're in the
trenches and yeah, you do form bonds
that way for sure. And to be able to do
that like somewhat remotely in that same
personal touch, I don't know, that's a
deeply fulfilling thing. I know a lot of
people I I personally hate meetings
because a significant percent of
meetings when done uh poorly are are
don't don't serve a clear purpose. So,
but that's a meeting problem. That's not
a communication problem. If you can
improve the communication for the
meetings that are useful, that's just
incredible. So yeah, I was blown away by
the great engineering behind it and then
we we get to see what impact that has.
That's really interesting. But just
incredible engineering. Really
impressive. Oh, it is. And obviously
we'll work hard over the years to make
it more and more accessible. But yeah,
even on a personal front outside of work
meetings, you know, a grandmother who's
far away from our grandchild and being
able to, you know, have that kind of an
interaction, right? All that I think
will end up being very mean. Nothing
substitutes being in person, but you
know, it's not always possible. You
know, you could be a soldier deployed,
right, trying to talk to your loved
ones. So, I think uh you know, so that's
what inspires us when you and
I hung out last year and took a walk. I
remember I don't think we talked about
this but but I remember uh you know
outside of that seeing dozens of
articles written by analysts and experts
and so on that um Sundar Pay should step
down because the perception was that
Google was definitively losing the AI
race has lost its magic touch in the uh
rapidly evolving uh technological uh
landscape and now a year later it's
crazy you showed this plot
of all the things that were shipped over
the past year is incredible and Gemini
Pro is winning across many benchmarks
and products as we sit here today. So,
take me through that experience when
there's all these articles saying you're
the wrong guy to lead Google through
this. Google's lost, it's done, it's
over to today where Google is winning
again. What were some low points during
that time? Look, I
um I mean lots to unpack. Um you know,
obviously
like the main bet I made as a CEO was to
really
uh you know, make sure the company was
approaching everything in a AI first
way. Really, you know, setting ourselves
up to develop AGI responsibly, right?
and and and make sure we're putting out
products uh which which embodies that
things that are very very useful for
people. So look, I I knew even through
moments like that last year,
uh, you know, I had a good sense of what
we were building internally, right? So
I'd already made, you know, many
important decisions, you know, bringing
together teams of the caliber of brain
and deep mind and setting up Google deep
mind. There were things like we made the
decision to invest in TPUs 10 years ago.
So, we knew we were scaling up and
building big models. Anytime you're in a
situation like
that, a few aspects,
uh, I'm good at tuning out noise, right?
Separating signal from noise. Do you
scuba dive? Like, have you? No. You
know, it's amazing. Like I'm not good at
it, but I've done it a few times. But
sometimes you jump in the ocean, it's so
choppy. But you go down one ft under,
it's the calst thing in the entire uh
universe, right? So there's a version of
that, right? Like you know, uh running
Google, you know, you may as well be
coaching Barcelona or Real Madrid,
right? Like you know, you have a bad
season. So there are aspects to that but
you know like look I I'm good at tuning
out the noise. I do watch out for
signals you know it's important to
separate the signal from the noise. So
there are good people sometimes making
good points outside. So you want to
listen to it. You want to take that
feedback
in. But you know internally like you
know you're making a set of
consequential decisions. Right? As
leaders you're making a lot of
decisions. Many of them are like
inconsequential like it feels like but
over time you learn that most of the
decisions you're making on a day-to-day
basis doesn't matter. like you have to
make them and you're making them just to
keep things moving but you have to make
a few consequential decisions right and
and
uh we
had set up the right teams right leaders
we had world-class
researchers we were training
Gemini internally there are factors
which were for example outside people
may not have appreciated I mean TPUs are
amazing but we had to ramp up TPUs two
that took time, right? And and uh to
scale, actually having enough TPUs to
get the compute
needed, but I could see internally the
trajectory we were
on and and be, you know, I was so
excited internally about the
possibility. To me, this moment felt
like one of the biggest opportunities
ahead for us as a company. That the
opportunity space ahead over the next
decade, next 20 years is bigger than
what has happened in the past. Um, and I
thought we were set up like better than
most companies in the world to go uh
realize that vision. I mean you had to
make some consequential bold decisions
like you mentioned the merger of deep
mind and
brain.
Uh maybe it's my perspective just
knowing humans. I'm sure there's a lot
of egos involved. It's very difficult to
merge teams and I'm sure there are some
hard decisions to be made. Can you take
me through your process of how you think
through that? Do you go to pull the
trigger and make that decision? Maybe
what were some painful points? How do
you navigate those turbulent waters?
Look, we were fortunate to have two
world-class teams. Uh but you're right,
like it's like somebody coming and
telling to you, take Stanford and MIT,
right? And then put them together and
create a great department, right? And
and easier said than done. Uh but we
were fortunate, you know, phenomenal
teams, both had their strengths, you
know, they were run very differently,
right? like uh brain was kind of a lot
of diverse projects bottoms up and out
of it came a lot of important research
breakthroughs. Deep mind at the time had
a strong vision of how you want to build
AGI and so they were pursuing their
direction. But I think through those
moments luckily tapping into um you know
Jeff had expressed a desire to be more
to go back to more of a scientific
individual contributor roots. You know
he felt like management was taking up
too much of his time. uh and and and
Demis naturally I think uh you know uh
was running deep mine and was a natural
choice there but I think it was you were
right you know it took us a while to
bring the teams together credit to Deis
Jeff Kai all the great people there they
worked super hard to combine the best of
both worlds when you set up that team a
few sleepless nights here and there as
we put that thing together we were
patient in how we did it so that it
works well for the long term, right? And
and some of that in that moment, I think
yes, with things moving fast, uh I think
you definitely uh felt the pressure, but
I think we pulled off that uh transition
well and you know, I think I think uh
you know, they've obviously
uh doing incredible work and there's a
lot more incredible things ahead coming
from them. Like we talked about, you
have a very calm, eventempered,
respectful demeanor. During that time,
whether it's the merger or just dealing
with the noise, uh did were there times
where frustration boiled over? Like, did
you uh have to go a bit more intense on
everybody than you usually would?
Probably. You know, probably right. I
think I think in the sense that you know
it was a moment where we were all
driving hard but when you're in the
trenches working with
passion you're going to have days right
you disagree you argue but like all that
I mean just part of the course of
working intensely right and uh you know
at the end of the day all of us are
doing what we're doing because uh the
impact it can have we're motivated by it
it's like uh you know for many of us
this has been a long-term
uh journey and so it's been super
exciting the positive moments far
outweigh the kind of stressful moments
just early this year I had a chance to
celebrate backto back over two days like
you know Nobel Prize for Jeff Finton and
the next day a Nobel Prize for Dennis
and John Jumper you know you worked with
people like that all that is super
inspiring is there something like with
view where you had to like put your foot
down maybe with less uh versus more
where like I'm the CEO and we're m we're
doing this to my earlier point about
consequential decisions you make there
are decisions you make people can
disagree pretty vehemently and but at
some point like you know you make a
clear decision and you you just ask
people to commit right like you know you
can disagree
But it's time to disagree and come it so
that we can get moving and whether it's
put putting the foot down or you know
like you know it's it's a natural part
of what all of us have to do and you
know I think you can do that calmly and
be very firm in the direction you're
making the decision and I think if
you're clear actually people over time
respect that right like you know if you
can make decisions with clarity I find
it very effective in meetings where
you're making such decisions
to hear everyone out. I think it's
important when you can to hear everyone
out. Sometimes what you're hearing
actually influences how you think about
and you're wrestling with it and making
a decision. Sometimes you have a clear
conviction and you state so look I
uh I you know this is how I feel and you
know this is my conviction and you kind
of place the bet and you move on. other
big decisions like that. I'm kind of
intuitively assume the merger was the
big one. I think that was a very
important decision uh you know for for
the company to to meet the moment. I
think we had to make sure we were uh we
were doing that and doing that well. I
think that was a consequential
decisions. There were many other things.
We set up a AI infrastructure team like
to really go meet the moment to scale up
the compute we needed to and really
brought teams from desperate parts of
the company kind of created it to to
move forward.
um you know bringing people like getting
people to kind of work together
physically both in London with Deep Mind
and what we call Gradient Canopy which
is where the Mountain View Google Deep
Mind teams are. But one of my favorite
moments is I routinely walk uh like
multiple times per week to the graining
canopy building where our top
researchers are working on the models.
Sergey is often there amongst them,
right? Like you know just you know
looking at uh you know getting an update
on the model seeing loss curves. So all
that I think that cultural part of
getting the teams together
back with that energy I think ended up
playing a big role too. What about the
decision to recently add AI mode? So
Google search is the uh as they say the
front page of the internet. It's like a
legendary
minimalist thing with 10 blue links.
Like that's when people think internet
they think that page and now you're
starting to mess with that. So the AI
mode which is a separate tab and then
integrating AI in the results. I'm sure
there were some battles in meetings on
that one. Look uh you know in some ways
when mobile came you know people wanted
answers to more questions. So we're kind
of constantly evolving it. But you're
right this moment you know that
evolution uh because the underlying
technology is becoming much more
capable you know you can have AI give a
lot of context you know but one of our
important design goals though is when
you come to Google search you're going
to get a lot of context but you're going
to go and find a lot of things out on
the web so that will be true in AI mode
in AI overviews and so
on but I think to our earlier
conversation We are still giving you
access to links but think of the AI as a
layer which is giving you context
summary maybe in AI mode you can have a
dialogue with it back and forth. Mhm. On
your journey right and but through it
all you're kind of learning what's out
there in the world. So those core
principles don't change but I think AI
mode allows us to push the we have our
best models there right uh models which
are using search as a deep
tool really for every query you're
asking kind of fanning out doing
multiple searches like kind of
assembling that knowledge in a way so
you can go and consume what you want to
right and and and that's how we think
about it I got a chance to listen to a
bunch of Elizabeth Liz Reed yeah
describe this two things stood out to me
that you mentioned. One thing is what
you were talking about is the query fan
out which I didn't even think about
before
uh is the the powerful aspect of
integrating a bunch of stuff on the web
for you in one place. So yes, it
provides that context so that you can
decide which page to then go on to. The
other really really big thing speaks to
the earlier in terms of productivity
multiplier that we're talking about that
she mentioned was um language. So one of
the things you don't quite understand is
it through AI mode you make for
non-English speakers you make sort of
let's say English language websites
accessible by in the reasoning process
as you try to figure out what you're
looking for. Of course, once you show up
to a page, you can use a basic
translate. Yeah. But that process of
figuring it out, if you empathize with a
large part of the world that doesn't
speak English, their like web uh is much
smaller in that original language. And
so it unlocks again unlocks that huge
cognitive capacity there that we don't,
you know, you take for granted here with
all the bloggers and the journalists
writing about AI mode. you forget that
this now unlocks
um because Gemini is really good at
translation. No, it is I mean the
multimodality, the translation, uh its
ability to reason, we are dramatically
improving tool use. Uh like I as putting
that power in the flow of search, I I
think look I'm I'm super excited with AI
overviews. We've we've seen the product
has gotten much better. we know we
measure it using all kinds of user
metrics. It's obviously driven strong
growth of the product uh and you know
we've been testing AI mode you know it's
now in the hands of millions of people
and the early metrics are very
encouraging. So look I I I'm excited
about this next chapter chapter of
search for people who are not thinking
through or aware of this. So there's the
10 blue links with AI overview on top
that provides a nice summarization. You
can expand it and you have sources and
links now. Yep. Embedded. Yeah, I
believe at least Liz said so. I actually
didn't notice it, but there's ads in the
AI overview.
Also, I don't think there's ads in AI
mode.
uh when ads in AI mode. So now when do
you think I mean it's okay we should say
that in the '9s I remember the animated
gifts banner gifts that take you to some
shady websites that have nothing to do
with anything. AdSense revolutionized
advertisement. It's one of the greatest
inventions
um in in recent history because it
allows us for
free to have access to all these kinds
of services. So ads fuel a lot of really
powerful
services and at its best it's showing
you relevant ads but also very
importantly in a way that's not super
annoying. Mhm. Right. In a classy way.
So
uh when do you think it's possible to
add ads into AI mode and what does that
look like from a classy non-anoying
perspective? Two things. early part of
AI mode uh will obviously focus more on
the organic experience to make sure we
are getting it right. I think the
fundamental value of ads are it enables
access to deploy the services to
billions of people. The second is ads
are the reason we've always taken ads
seriously is we view ads as commercial
information but it's still information
and so we bring the same quality metrics
to it. I think with AI mode to our
earlier conversation about I think AI
itself will help us over time figure out
you know the best way to do it. I I
think given we giving context around
everything we I think it'll give us more
opportunities to also explain okay
here's some commercial information like
today as a podcaster you do it at
certain spots and you probably figure
out what's best in your podcast.
Um I I think so there are aspects of
that but I think you know I think the
underlying need of people value
commercial information businesses are
trying to connect to users all that
doesn't change in a AI moment but look
we will rethink it you've seen us in
YouTube now do a mixture of subscription
and ads like
obviously you know we we are now
introducing subscription offerings uh
across everything and so as part of that
we can optim the optimization point will
end up being a different place as well.
Do you see a trajectory in the possible
future where AI mode completely
replaces the 10 blue links plus AI
overview? Our current plan is AI mode is
going to be there as a separate tab for
people who really want to experience
that but it's not yet at the level where
our main search page is but as features
work we'll keep migrating it to the main
page and so you can view it as a
continuum AI mode will offer you the
bleeding edge
experience but it'll work will keep
overflowing to AI overviews and the main
main experience and the idea That AI
mode will still take you to the web to
the human created web. Yes, that's going
to be a core design principle for us. So
really, if users decide, right, they
drive this. Yeah, it's just exciting, a
little bit scary that it might change
the
internet because you Google has been
dominating with a very specific look and
idea of what it means to have the
internet and to as you move to AI
mode. I mean, I it's just a different
experience. Um, I think Liz was talking
about I think you've mentioned that you
ask more questions, you ask longer
questions, dramatically different types
of questions. Yeah. Like it actually
fuels curiosity. Like I think it's for
me, I've been asking just a much larger
number of questions of this blackbox
machine, let's say, whatever it is. and
and with AI overview, it's interesting
like I because I still value the
human I still ultimately want to end up
on the human created
web but I like you said the context
really helps it helps us deliver higher
quality referrals right you know where
people are like they have much higher
likelihood of finding what they're
looking for they're exploring they're
curious their intent is getting
satisfied more so all that's what all
our metrics
It makes the humans that create the web
nervous. The journalists are getting
nervous. They've already been nervous.
Like we mentioned, CNN is nervous
because of podcasts. Um, it makes people
nervous. Look, I I I think news and
journalism will play an important role,
you know, in the future. Uh, we're
pretty committed to it, right? And uh so
I think making sure that ecosystem in
fact I think we'll be able to
differentiate ourselves as a company
over time because of our commitment
there. So it's it's it's something I
think you know I definitely value a lot
and and as we are designing we'll
continue prioritizing approaches. I'm
sure for the people who want they can
have a fine-tuned AI model that's
clickbait hit pieces uh that will
replace current journalism. Uh that's a
shot of journalism, forgive me. Uh but I
I find that if you're looking for really
strong criticism of things that Gemini
is very good at providing that. Oh,
absolutely. It's better than anything
the for now I mean people are concerned
that there would be bias that's
introduced that as the AI systems become
more and more powerful there's incentive
from sponsors
uh to roll in and try to control the
output of the AI models. uh but for now
the objective criticism that's provided
is way better than journalism. Of course
the argument is the journalists are
still valuable but then I don't know the
crowd search journalism that we get on
the open internet is also very very
powerful. I feel like they're all super
important things. I think it's good that
you get a lot of crowdsourced
information coming
in, but I feel like there is real value
for high quality journalism, right? And
and I think these are all complimentary.
I think like I view it as I find myself
constantly seeking out also like try to
find objective reporting on on things
too. uh and and sometimes you get more
context from the crowdfunded sources you
read online but I think both end up
playing a super important role. So
there's uh you spoken a little about
about this de talked about this is sort
of
the the slice of the web that will
increasingly become about providing
information for agents. So we can think
about as like two layers of the web. One
is for humans, one is for agents. Do you
see the AI agents? Do do you see the one
that's for AI agents growing over time?
Do you see there still being long-term 5
10 years value for the human created
human created for the purpose of human
consumption web or will it all be agents
in the end? Yeah.
today, like not everyone does, but you
know, you you go to a you go to a big
retail store, you love walking the
aisle, you love shopping
uh or grocery store, picking out food,
etc., but you're also online shopping
and they're delivering, right? So, both
are complimentary and like that's true
for restaurants,
etc. So, I do feel like over time
websites will also get better for
humans. they will be better designed. Uh
AI might actually design them better for
humans. So I I expect the web to get a
lot richer and more interesting and uh
better to
use. At the same time, I think there'll
be an agentic
web which is also making a lot of
progress and you have to solve the
business value and the incentives to
make that work well, right? like for
people to participate in
it but I think both will coexist and
obviously the agents may not need the
same I mean not may not they won't need
the same design and the UI paradigms
which humans need to interact with uh
but I think both will both be there I
have to ask you about Chrome uh I have
to say for me personally Google Chrome
is
probably I don't know I'd like to see
where I would rank it. But in this
temptation, this is not a recency bias,
although it might be a little bit, but I
think it's up there top three, maybe the
number one piece of software for me of
all time. It's just incredible. It's
really incredible. The browser is our
window to the web. And Chrome really
continued for many years, but even
initially to push the innovation on that
front when it was stale, and it
continues to challenge, it continues to
make it more uh performant. so
efficient, just innovate constantly. Uh,
and the the the Chromium aspect of it.
Anyway,
uh, you were one of the pioneers of
Chrome, pushing for it when it was an
insane idea, probably one of the ideas
that was criticized and doubted and so
on. So, can you tell me um the story of
what it took to push for Chrome? What
was your
vision? Look, it was a
such a dynamic time uh in around 2004
2005 with Ajax the web suddenly becoming
dynamic in a matter of few
months, Flickr,
Gmail, Google Maps all kind of came into
existence, right? like the fact that you
have an interactive dynamic web. The web
was evolving from simple uh text pages,
simple HTML to rich dynamic
applications. But at the same time, you
could see the browser was
never meant for that world, right? Like
JavaScript execution was super slow. uh
you know the browser was far away from
being an operating system for that rich
modern web which was coming into uh
coming into place. So that's the
opportunity we saw like uh you know it's
an amazing early team. I still remember
the day we got a shell on WebKit running
and how fast it was.
uh you know we had the clear vision for
building a browser like we wanted to
bring core OS principles into the
browser right like so we built a secure
browser sandbox each tab was its own not
these things are common now but at the
time like it was pretty unique
uh we found an amazing team in our
Denmark uh with a leader who built a V8
the JavaScript VM which at the time was
25 times faster than uh any other
JavaScript VM out there. And by the way,
you're right. We open sourced it all and
you know and put it in Chromium too. But
we really thought the web could work
much better um uh you know much faster
and you could be much safer browsing the
web. And the name Chrome came was
because we literally felt people were
like the the the Chrome of the browser
was getting clunkier. We wanted to
minimize it. And so that was the origins
of the project. Definitely obviously
uh highly biased person here talking
about Chrome. Uh but you know it's the
most fun I've had uh building a product
from the ground up and you know it it
was an extraordinary team. Uh had uh my
co-founders on the project were
terrific. So definite fond memories. So
for people who don't know Sundar it's
probably fair to say you're the reason
we have Chrome. Yes. I know there's a
lot of incredible engineers, but pushing
for it inside a company that probably
was opposing it because it's a crazy
idea because um as everybody probably
knows, it's incredibly difficult to
build a browser. Yeah. Look, I uh Eric
who was the CEO at the time, I think it
was less that he was opposed to it. He
kind of firsthand knew what a crazy
thing it is to go build a browser. And
so he definitely was like this is, you
know, there was a crazy aspect to
actually wanting to go build a browser.
But um he was very supportive uh you
know everyone the founders were I think
once we started you know building
something and we could use it and see
how much better from then on like you
know you're you're really tinkering with
the product and making it better it came
to life pretty fast. What uh wisdom do
you draw from that from
um pushing through on a crazy idea in
the early days that ends up being
revolutionary? what for future crazy
ideas like it. I mean this this is
something Larry and Sergey have
articulated clearly. I really internal
internalized this early on which is you
know their whole feeling around working
on
moonshots like as a way when you work on
something very ambitious first of all it
attracts the best people right so that's
an advantage you get number two because
it's so ambitious you don't have others
working on something crazy so you pretty
much have the path to yourselves right
it's like way more self-driving number
three it is even if you end up quite not
accomplishing what you set out to do and
you end up doing 60 80% of it, you'll
end up being a terrific success. So, so
you know that's the advice I would give
people, right? I think like you know
it's just aiming for big ideas has all
these
advantages and and it's risky but it
also has all these advantages which
people I don't think fully internalize.
I mean you mentioned one of the craziest
biggest moonshots which is Whimo. Uh
it's when when I first saw over a decade
ago a way more vehicle a Google
self-driving car
vehicle. It was it was for me it was an
aha moment for robotics. It made me fall
in love with robotics even more than
before. It gave me a glimpse into the
future. So it's incredible. I'm truly
grateful for that project for what it
symbolizes. But it's also crazy
moonshot. is for for a long time has
been just like you mentioned with scuba
diving just not listening to anybody
just calmly improving the system better
and better more testing just expanding
uh the operational domain more and more
first of all congrats on uh 10 million
paid robo taxi rides uh what
lessons do you take from Whimo about
like the the perseverance the
persistence on that project I look
really proud of the progress uh we have
had with whimo one of the things I think
we were very committed to you know the
final 20% can look like I mean we always
say right the first 80% is easy the
final 20% takes 80% of the time I think
we
definitely were we're working through
that phase with whimo but I was aware of
that so but you know we knew we were at
that
stage we knew we were the technology gap
between while there were many people
many other self-driving companies we
knew the technology gap was there in
fact right at the moment when others
were doubting Whimo is
when I don't know made the decision to
invest more in Whimo right because so uh
so in some ways it's it's
counterintuitive uh but I think look
we've always been a deep technology
company and like uh you know is a
version of kind of building a AI robot
that works well And so we get attracted
to problems like that. the caliber of
the teams there uh you know uh
phenomenal teams and so I know you
followed the space super closely uh you
know I'm talking to someone who knows
the space well but it was very obvious
it's going to get there and you know
there's still more work to do but we you
know it's a good example where we always
prioritized being ambitious and safety
at the same time right and and and
equally committed to both and and pushed
odd and you know couldn't be more
thrilled with uh how it's working uh how
much people love love the
experience and it this year is
definitely we've scaled up a lot and
we'll continue scaling up in 26 that
said uh the competition is heating up
you've been uh friendly with Elon uh
even though technic is a competitor but
you've been friendly with a lot of tech
CEOs in that way just showing respect
towards them and so on what do you think
about the robo taxi efforts that Tesla
is doing. Do you see it as competition?
What do you think? Do you like the
competition?
We are one of the earliest and biggest
backers of SpaceX uh as Google uh right
so uh you know thrilled with uh what
SpaceX is doing and fortunate to be uh
investors as a company there right and
and look we don't compete with Tesla
directly we are not making cars etc
right we building L45 autonomy we're
building a way driver which is general
purpose and can be used in many
headings. They're obviously working on
making Tesla self-driving too. I've just
assumed it's a the facto that Elon would
succeed in whatever he does. So like you
know you know that that that is uh not
something I question. So but I think we
are so far from these spaces are such
vast spaces like I I think about
transportation the opportunity space.
The Whimo driver is a general purpose
technology we can apply in many
situations. So you have a vast green
space. Uh in all future scenarios, I see
Tesla doing well and you know way more
doing well. Like we mentioned with the
Neolithic package, I think it's very
possible that in the quote unquote AI
package when the history is written,
autonomous vehicles, self-driving cars
is like the big thing that changes
everything. Imagine over a period of uh
a decade or two just a complete
transition from manually driven to
autonomous in ways we might we might not
predict it might change the way we move
about the world completely. So that you
know the possibility of that and then
the second and third order effects as
you're seeing now with Tesla very
possibly you would see some
um internally with Alphabet maybe Whimo
maybe some of the Gemini robotics stuff
it might lead you into the other domains
of robotics because we should remember
that Whimo is a robot. Mhm. It just
happens to be on four wheels. So you you
said that the next big thing we can also
throw that into AI package. The big aha
moment might be in the space of
robotics. What do you think that that
would look like? Dispoint team is very
focused on Gemini robotics, right? So we
are definitely building the underlying
models. Well, so we have a lot of
investments there and I think we also
pretty cutting edge in our uh research
there. So we are definitely driving that
direction. We obviously are thinking
about applications in robotics. We'll
we'll kind of work seriously. We are
partnering with a few companies today.
But it's an area I would say stay tuned.
We are you know we are yet to fully
articulate our plans outside but it's an
area we are definitely committed to
driving a lot of progress but I think AI
ends up driving that massive progress in
robotics. The field has been held back
uh uh for for a while. I mean the
hardware has made extraordinary uh
progress. Uh the software had been the
challenge but you know with AI now and
uh and and the and the generalized
models we are building uh you know we
are building these models getting them
to work in the real world in a safe way
in a generalized way is the frontier
we're pushing pretty hard on. Well it's
really nice to see the the models and
the different teams integrated to where
all of them are pushing towards one
world model that's being built. to from
all these different angles
multimodal. You're ultimately trying to
get
Gemini. So the same thing that would
make AI mode really effective in
answering your questions, which requires
a kind of world model is the same kind
of thing that would help a robot be
useful in the physical world. So
everything is aligned. That that is what
makes this moment so unique because
running a company for the first time you
can do one investment in a very deep
horizontal way on top of it you can like
drive multiple businesses forward right
and you know and that's that's
effectively what we are doing in Google
and alphabet right yeah it's all coming
together like it was planned ahead of
time but it's not of course it's all
distributed I mean if uh Gmail and
sheets and all these other incredible
services. I can sing Gmail praises for
years. I mean, it's just just
revolutionized email, but the moment you
start to integrate AI Gemini into Gmail,
I mean, that's the other thing. Speaking
of productivity multiplier, people
complain about email, but that changed
everything. Email, like the invention of
email changed everything. And it's been
ripe. There's been a few folks trying to
revolutionize email. Some of them on top
of Gmail, but that's like ripe for
innovation. not just spam filtering,
but you uh you you demoed a really nice
demo of personalized responses, right?
Personalized responses. And it at first
I was like at first I felt really bad
about
that. But then I realized that's there's
nothing wrong to feel bad about because
will you uh the example you gave is when
a friend asks you know you went to
whatever hiking location
uh do you have any advice and they just
searches through all your information to
give them good advice and then you put
the cherry on top maybe some love or
whatever camaraderie but theformational
aspect the knowledge transfer it does
for you I think there'll be important
moments like it should be like today if
you write a card in your own handwriting
and send it to someone that's a special
thing. Similarly, there'll be a time I
mean to your friends maybe your friend
wrote and said he's not doing well or
something you know those are moments you
want to save your times for writing
something reaching out but you know like
saying give me all the details of the
trip you took you know to me makes a lot
of sense for a AI assistant to help you
right and so I think both are important
but I think I think I'm excited about
that direction yeah I think ultimately
it gives more time for us humans us to
do the things we humans find meaningful.
And I think it scares a lot of people
because we're going to have to ask
ourselves the hard question of like what
do we find meaningful? And I'm sure
there's answers. I it's the old question
of the meaning meaning of existence is
you you have to try to figure that out.
That might be ultimately uh parenting or
being creative in some domains of art or
writing. And it it challenges to to to
like you know it's a good question of to
ask yourself like in my life what is the
thing that brings me most joy and
fulfillment and if I'm able to actually
focus more time on that that's really
powerful. I think that's the uh you know
that's the holy grail. If you get this
right I think it allows more people uh
to find that. I have to ask you on the
programming front uh AI is getting
really good at programming. Gemini, both
the Agentic and just the LLM has been
incredible. So, a lot of programmers are
really worried that their jobs they will
lose their jobs uh how worried should
they be and how should they adjust so
they can be thriving in this new world
where more and more code is written by
AI? I think a few things looking at
Google
um you know we've given various stats
around
like you know 30% of uh code now uses
like AI generated suggestions or
whatever it is but the most important
metric and we carefully measure it is
like how much has our engineering
velocity increased as a company due to
AI right and it's like tough to measure
and we kind of rigorously try to measure
it and our estimates are that number is
now at 10%. Right? Like now across the
company we've accomplished a 10%
engineering velocity
increase using
AI but we plan to hire engineers more
engineers next year right so you because
the opportunity space of what we can do
is expanding too right and so
I think hopefully you know for at least
the near to midterm term for many
engineers it frees up more and more of
the you know even in engineering and
coding there are aspects which are so
much fun you're designing you're
architecting you're solving a problem
there's a lot of grunt work you know
which all goes hand in hand but it
hopefully takes a lot of that away makes
it even more fun to code frees you up
more time to create problem solve
brainstorm with your fellow colleagues
and so on, right? So that's that's the
opportunity there. And second, I think
like you know it'll
attract it'll put the creative power in
more people's hands which means people
will create more that means there'll be
more engineers doing more things.
So it's tough to fully predict but you
know I I think in general in this moment
it feels like you know you know people
uh adopt these tools and be better
programmers like there are more people
playing chess now than ever before.
Right? So uh you know it feels positive
that way to me at least speaking from
within a Google context uh is how I
would you know talk to them about it. I
still I just know anecdotally a lot of
great
programmers are generating a lot of
code. So their productivity they're not
always using all the code just you know
there's still a lot of editing but
like even for me it's still programming
as a side thing. I think I'm like 5x
more productive. I don't I I think
that's uh even for a large code base
that's touching a lot of users like
Google's does. I'm imagining like very
soon that productivity should be going
up even more. The big unlock will be as
we make the agent capabilities much more
robust, right? I think that's what
unlocks that next big wave. I think the
10% is like a massive number like you
know if tomorrow like I showed up and
said like you can improve like a large
organization's productivity by
10%. When you have tens of thousands of
engineers that's a phenomenal number. uh
and you know that's different than what
others site as statistics saying like
you know like this percentage of code is
now written by AI I'm talking more about
like overall productivity the actual
productivity right engineering
productivity which is two different
things and and which is the more
important uh
metric and but I think it'll get better
right and like you know uh I think
there's no engineer who tomorrow if you
magically became 2x more productive it's
just going to create more things you're
going to create more value added things
and so I think they you'll you'll find
more satisfaction in your job right so
and there's a lot of aspects I mean the
actual Google codebase might just
improve because it'll become more
standardized more um easier for people
to move about the codebase because AI
will help with that and therefore that
will also allow the AI to understand the
entire codebase better which makes the
engineering aspect that's I've been
using cursor a lot
uh as as a way to program with Gemini
and other models is like it. One of its
powerful things is it's aware of the
entire codebase and that allows you to
ask questions of it. It allows the
agents to move about that code base in a
really powerful way. I mean that's a
huge unlock. Think about like you know
migrations refactoring old coal bases.
Refactoring. Yeah. I mean think about
like you know once we can do all this in
a much better more robust way than where
we are today. I think in the end
everything will be written in JavaScript
and run run in Chrome. I think it's all
going to that uh direction. I mean just
for fun, Google has legendary code
coding interviews
uh like rigorous interviews for the
engineers. How can you comment on how
that has changed in the era of AI? It's
just such a weird
uh you know the whiteboard interview I I
assume is not allowed to have some
prompts. Such a a good question. Look, I
do
think, you know, we're making
sure, you know, we'll we'll introduce at
least one round of inperson interviews
for people just to make sure the
fundamentals are there, I think that'll
end up being important, but it's an
equally important skill. Look, if you
can use these tools to generate better
code, uh like you know, I think I think
that's an asset. And so uh you know I
think uh so overall I think it's a it's
a massive positive vibe coding engineer
uh do you recommend uh pe people uh
students interested in programming still
get an education uh in computer science
and college education what do you think
I do if you have a passion for computer
science I would you know computer
science is obviously a lot more than
programming alone so I would I still
don't think I would
change what you pursue you
um I think AI will horizontally allow
impact every field. It's pretty tough to
predict in what
ways. So any education in which you're
learning good first principles thinking
I think is good education. You've
revolutionized web browsing, you've
revolutionized a lot of things over the
years. Um Android changed the game. It's
an incredible uh operating system. And
we could talk for hours about Android.
What does the future of Android look
like? Is it is it possible it becomes
more and more
AIcentric? Uh especially now that you
throw into the mix Android XR
with being able to do augmented reality,
mixed reality and virtual reality in the
physical world. Yeah. The best
innovations in computing have come when
you're uh through a paradigm IO change,
right? like you know when when with GUI
and then with a graphical user interface
and then with multi-touch in the context
of mobile voice later on similarly I
feel like you know AR is that next
paradigm I think it was held back both
the system integration challenges of
making good AR is very very hard the
second thing is you need AI to actually
kind of otherwise the IO is too
complicated for you to have natural
seamless IO to that uh uh
paradigm AI ends up being super
important and so this is why project
Astra ends up being super critical for
that Android uh XR world uh but it is I
think when you use glasses and you know
always been amazed like at at the how
useful these things are going to be so I
look I think it's a real opportunity for
Android I think XR is one way it'll kind
of really come to life. But I think
there's an opportunity to rethink the
mobile OS too, right? I think we've been
kind of living in this paradigm of like
apps and shortcuts, all that won't go
away. But again, like if you're trying
to get stuff done at an operating system
level, you know, it needs to be more
agentic so that you can kind of describe
what you want to do or like it
proactively understands what you're
trying to do, learns from how you're
doing things over and over again and
kind of is adapting to you. All that is
kind of like the unlock we need to go
and do with a basic efficient minimalist
uh UI. I've gotten a chance to try the
glasses and they're incredible. It's the
little stuff. It's hard to put into
words, but no latency. It just works.
Even that little map demo where you look
down and you look up and there's a very
smooth transition between the two and
useful very small amount of useful
information is shown to you. Enough not
to distract from the world outside, but
enough to provide a bit of context when
you need it. and some of
that be in order to bring that into
reality, you have to solve a lot of the
OS problems to make sure it works when
you're integrating the AI into the whole
thing. So every everything you do
launches an agent that answers some
basic question. A good moonshot, you
know, it's crazy. No, but but you know,
I think uh we are, you know, but
it's much closer to reality than uh
other moonshots. you know, we expect to
have classes in the hands of developers
later this year and and you know, in
consumer science next year. So, it's an
exciting time. Yeah. Well, extremely
well executed beam all the stuff, you
know, cuz I sometimes you don't know
like somebody commented on a a top
comment on one of the demos of Beam.
They said uh this will either be killed
off in 5 weeks or revolutionize all
meetings in 5 years. And there's very
much Google tries so many things and
sometimes sadly kills off very promising
projects but because there's so many
other things to focus on. I use I use so
many Google products. Google voice I
still use. I'm so glad that's not being
killed off. That's still alive. Thank
you whoever is defending that cuz it's
it's it's awesome and it's great they
keep innovating. I just want to list off
just as a big thank you. So, search
obviously Google revolutionized. Chrome
and all of these could be multi-our
conversations.
Gmail have been singing Gmail praises
forever. Maps incredible technological
innovation on revolutionizing mapping.
Android like we talked about, YouTube
like we talked about. AdSense
uh Google translate for the academic
minded Google
Scholar is incredible when with the book
and also the scanning of the books. So
making all the world's knowledge um
accessible even with that knowledge is a
kind of niche thing which Google Scholar
is. Uh and then obviously with Deep Mind
uh with Alpha Zero, Alpha Fold, Alpha
Evolve, I could talk forever about Alpha
Evolve. That's mind-blowing. All of that
released and as part of that uh set of
things you've released in this year when
uh those brilliant articles were written
about Google is done. Uh and uh like we
talked about pioneering self-driving
cars and quantum computing, which could
be another thing that is
lowkey is scuba diving. its way to
changing the world forever. Uh so
another ptheads slash um micro kitchen
question. If you build
AGI, what kind of question would you ask
it? What would you what would you want
to talk
about? Definitively Google has created
AGI that can basically answer any
question. What topic are you going to?
What where's it where's it? Where are
you going? It's a great question.
Um, maybe it's proactive by then and
should tell me a few things I should
know. But I think if I were to ask it, I
think it'll help us understand ourselves
much better. Um, in a way that'll
surprise us, I think. Um, and so maybe
that's you already see people do it with
the products and so but you know in a
AGI context I think that'll be pretty
powerful at a personal level or or
general human nature at a personal level
like you talking to AGI I think I think
you know
uh there is some chance it'll it'll kind
of understand you in a in a very deep
way. Uh I think uh you know in a
profound way that's a
possibility. Uh I I think there is also
the obvious thing of like maybe it helps
us understand the universe better. Um
you know in a way that expands the
frontiers of our understanding of the
world. Uh that is something super
exciting. But look I I really don't
know. I think you know I haven't haven't
had access to something that powerful
yet. But I think those are all
possibilities. I think on the personal
level asking questions about yourself
could a sequence of questions like that
about what makes me happy. I think we
would be very surprised to learn those
kind of the um a sequence of questions
and answers. We might explore some
profound truths in the way that
sometimes art reveals to us, great books
reveal to us, great conversations with
loved ones reveal. Uh things that are
obvious in retrospect, but are nice when
they're said. Uh but for me, number one
question is about how many alien
civilizations are there? 100%. Are they
That's going to be your first question.
Number one, how many living and dead
alien civilizations? Uh maybe a bunch of
follow-ups like how close are they? Are
they dangerous?
Um, if if there's no alien
civilizations, why? Uh, or if there's no
advanced alien civilizations, but
bacteria like life everywhere, why? What
is the barrier preventing it from
getting to that? Uh, is it because that
there's uh that when you get
sufficiently intelligent, you end up uh
destroying ourselves because you need
competition in order to develop an
advanced civilization. And when you have
competition, it's going to lead to
military conflict and conflict
eventually kills everybody. I don't
know. I'm going to have that kind of
discuss. Get an answer to the Fermy
paradox. Yeah, exactly. And like have a
real discussion about it. I'm not sure
it's a um I'm realizing now with your
answer is a more productive um answer
because I'm not sure what I'm going to
do with that information, but maybe it
speaks to the general human curiosity
that Liz talked about that we're all
just really curious and making the
world's information accessible allows
our curiosity to be satiated some with
AI even more. We can be more and more
curious and learn more about the world,
about ourselves. And in so doing, I
always wonder if I don't know if you can
comment on like is it possible to
measure the not the GDP productivity
increase like we talked about but maybe
the whatever that increases
the the breadth and depth of human
knowledge that Google has unlocked with
Google search and now with AI mode with
Gemini is a difficult thing to measure.
many years ago there was a I think it
was a MIT study they just estimated the
impact of Google search and they
basically said it's the equivalent to on
a per person basis it's few thousands of
dollars per year per person right uh
like is the value that got created per
year right and and but it's yeah it's
tough to capture these things right you
kind of take it take it for granted as
these things come uh and and the
frontier keeps moving think but uh you
know how do you measure the value of
something like AlphaFold over time right
and and and and so on so and also the
increase in quality of life when you
learn more I have to say like with uh
some of the programming I do done by AI
for some reason I'm more excited to
program
uh and so the same with knowledge with
discovering things about the world uh it
makes you more excited to be alive it
makes you more curious to and it keeps
the more curious you are, the more
exciting it is to live and experience
the world. And it's very hard to I don't
know if that makes you more productive.
It probably not nearly as much as it
makes you happy to be alive. And that's
a hard thing to measure. The quality of
life increases some of these things
do. As AI continues to get better and
better at everything that humans do,
what do you think is the biggest thing
that makes us humans special?
Look, I I
I
think it's stuff taught in the essence
of humanity. There's something about
uh you
know the consciousness we have, what
makes us uniquely human. Maybe the lines
will blur over time uh and and it's
tough to articulate but uh I hope
hopefully you know we live in a world
where if you make resources more
plentiful and make the world lesser of a
zero sum game over time, right? And and
which it's not, but you know in a
resource constraint environment people
perceive it to be, right? and and um and
so I hope the the values of what makes
us uniquely human, empathy, kindness,
all
that surfaces more is the aspirational
hope I have. Yeah, it multiplies the
compassion but also the curiosity just
the the banter the debates we'll have
about the meaning of it all. And I I I
also think in the scientific domains,
all the incredible work that Deep Mind
is
doing, I think we'll still continue to
to play to explore scientific questions,
u mathematical questions, physics
questions, even as AI gets better and
better at helping us solve some of the
questions. Sometimes the question itself
is a really difficult thing. uh both the
right new questions to ask and the
answers to them and and and the
self-discovery process which it'll drive
I think you know our early work with
both co-scientist and alpha evolve just
super exciting to see what gives you
hope about the future of human
civilization
I've always I'm I'm an optimist and you
know I I I look at
um now if you were to say you take the
journey of human civilization. Uh it's
been you know we've relentlessly ma made
the world better right in many ways. At
any given moment in time, there are big
issues to work through. It may look, but
you know, I always ask myself the
question, would you have been born now
or any other time in the past? I most
often, not most often, almost
always would rather be born now, right?
You know, and so that's the
extraordinary thing the human
civilization has accomplished, right?
And like, you know, and we we've kind of
constantly made the world a better
place.
And so something tells me as humanity we
always rise
collectively to drive that uh frontier
forward. So I expect it to be no
different in the future. I agree with
you totally. I'm truly grateful to be
alive in this moment and I'm also really
excited for the future and the work uh
you and incredible teams here are doing
is one of the big reasons I'm excited
for the future. So thank you. Thank you
for all the cool products you've built
and please don't kill Google Voice.
Thank you. We won't. Yeah. Thank you for
talking today. This was incredible.
Thank you. Real pleasure. I appreciate
it. Thanks for listening to this
conversation with Sundar Pachchai. To
support this podcast, please check out
our sponsors in the description or at
lexfreedman.com/sponsors. Shortly before
this conversation, I got a chance to get
a couple of demos that frankly blew my
mind. The engineering was really
impressive. The first demo was Google
Beam and the second demo was the XR
glasses and some of it was caught on
video. So, I thought I would include
here some of those uh video clips.
Hey, Lex. My name is Andrew. I lead the
Google Beam team and we're going to be
excited to show you a demo. We're going
to show you, I think, a glimpse of
something new. So, that's the idea. A
way to connect, a way to feel present
from anywhere with anybody you care
about. Here's Google Beam. This is a
development platform that we've built.
So, there's a prototype here of Google
Beam. There's one right down the
hallway. I'm going to go down and turn
that on in a second. We're going to
experience it together. We'll be back in
the same room. Wonderful.
Wa. Okay. Here we are. All right. This
is real already. Wow. This is real. Good
to see you. This is Google Beam. We're
trying to make it feel like you and I
could be anywhere in the world, but when
these magic windows open, we're back
together. I see you exactly the same way
you see me. It's almost like we're
sitting at the table sharing a table
together. I could learn from you, talk
to you, share a meal with you, get to
know you. So, you can feel the depth of
this. Yeah. Great to meet you. Wow. Wow.
So, for people who probably can't even
imagine what this looks like, there's a
there's a 3D version of It looks real.
You look real. It looks to me it looks
real to you. It looks like you're coming
out of the screen. We quickly believe um
once we're in beam that we're just
together. Like you settle into it.
You're naturally attuned to seeing the
world like this and you just get used to
seeing people this way but literally
from anywhere in the world with these
magic screens. This is incredible. It's
a neat technology. Wow. So I saw demos
of this but they don't come close to the
experience of this. Yeah. I think one of
the top YouTube comments on one of the
demos I saw was like why would I want a
high definition? Like I'm trying to turn
off the camera, but this actually is
this feels like the camera has been
turned off and we're just in the same
room together. This is really
compelling. That's right. I I know it's
kind of late in the day, too, so I
brought you a snack just in case you're
a little bit hungry. But um So what can
you push it further? And it just becomes
Let's Let's try to float it between
rooms. You know, it kind of fades it
from my room into your room. And then
and then you see my hand the depth of my
hand. Of course. Yes, of course. Yeah.
It feels like you um try this. Try give
me a high five. And there's almost a
sensation of feeling touch. You almost
feel because you're so attuned to, you
know, that should be a high five. It
feeling like you could connect with
somebody that way. So, it's kind of a
magical experience. Oh, this is really
nice. How much does it cost? Yeah, with
got a lot of companies testing it. We
just announced that we're going to be
bringing it to offices soon as a set of
products. We've got some companies
helping us build these screens. Um, but
eventually, I think this will be in
almost every screen. There's nothing I'm
not wearing anything. Well, I'm wearing
a suit tie to clarify. I ain't wearing
clothes. This is not CGI. But outside of
that, cool. And the audio is really
good. And you can see me in the same
threedimensional way. Yeah, the audio is
spatialized. So if I'm talking from
here, of course it sounds like I'm
talking from here. You know, if I move
to the other side of the room here. So
these little subtle cues, these really
matter to bring people together. All the
non-verbals, all the emotion, the things
that are lost today. Here it is. We put
it back into the system. You pulled this
off. Holy They pulled it off and
integrated into this. I saw the
translation also. Right. This is the
Yeah, we got a bunch of things. Let me
show you a couple kind of cool things.
Let's do a little bit of work together.
Maybe we could um critique one of your
latest uh um so you know it's you and I
work together, so of course we're in the
same room, but with this superpower, I
can bring other things in here with me.
Um and it's it's nice, you know, it's
like we could sit together, we could
watch something, we could work. Um,
we've shared meals as a team together in
this system, but once you do the
presence aspect of this, you want to
bring some other superpowers to it. And
so, you could do review code together.
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I've got some uh
slides I'm working on. You know, maybe
you could help me with this. Keep your
eyes on me for a second. I'll slide back
into the center. I didn't really move,
but the system just kind of puts us in
the right spot and knows where we need
to be. Oh, so you just turn to your
laptop, the system moves you, and then
it does the overlay automatically. It
kind of morphs the room to put things in
the spot that they need to to be in.
Everything has a place in the room.
Everything has a sense of presence or
spatial consistency and that kind of
makes it feel like we're together with
us and other things. I I should also say
you're not just threedimensional. It
feels like you're leaning like out of
the screen. You you're like coming out
of the screen. You're not just in that
world threedimensional. Yeah, exactly.
Holy crap. Move back to center. Okay.
Okay. Okay. Let let me tell you how this
works. You probably already have the the
premise of it, but there's two things,
two really hard things that we put
together. One is a AI video model. So,
there's a set of cameras. You asked kind
of about those earlier. There's six
color cameras just like webcams that we
have today. Taking video streams and
feeding them into our AI model and
turning that into a 3D video of you and
I. It's effectively a light field. So,
it's kind of an interactive 3D video
that you can see from any perspective.
that's transmitted over to the second
thing and that's a light field display
and it's happening birectionally. I see
you and you see me both in our light
field displays. These are effectively
flat televisions or flat displays but
they have the sense of dimensionality,
depth, size is correct. You can see
shadows and lighting are correct and
everything's correct from your vantage
point. So if you move around ever so
slightly and I hold still, you see a
different perspective here. You see kind
of things that were oluded become
reveal. you see shadows that you know
move in the way they should move. All of
that's computed and generated using our
AI video model for you. It's based on
your eye position. Where does the right
scene need to be placed in this light
field display for you just to feel
present? It's real time, no latency. I'm
not seeing lat. You weren't freezing up
at all. No, no, I hope not. I think it's
it's you and I together real time.
That's what you need for real
communication and at a at a quality
level
realistic. Is it possible to do three
people? like is that going to move that
way also? Yeah. Let me let me kind of
show you. So if if she enters the room
with us, you can see her, you can see
me. And if we had more people, you
eventually lose the sense of presence.
You kind of shrink people down. You lose
a sense of scale. So think of it as the
window fits a certain number of people.
If you want to fit a big group of
people, you want, you know, the
boardroom or the big room, you need like
a much wider window. Um if you want to
see, you know, just grandma and the
kids, you can do smaller windows. So
everybody has a seat at the table or
everybody has a sense of where they
belong and there's kind of the sense of
presence that's obeyed. If you have too
many people, you kind of go back to like
2D metaphors that we're used to. People
in tiles placed anywhere for the image
I'm seeing. Did you have to get scanned?
I I mean I see you without being
scanned. So it's just so much easier if
you don't have to wear anything. You
don't have to pre-scan. You just do it
the way it's supposed to happen without
anybody having to learn anything or put
anything on. I thought you had to solve
the the scanning problem, but here you
don't. It's just cameras. It's just
vision.
it it's video. Yeah. We're not trying to
kind of make an approximation of you
because everything you do every day
matters. You know, I cut myself shaving.
I put on a pin. Um all the little kind
of, you know, aspects of you, those just
happen. Um we don't have the time to
scan or kind of capture those or dress
avatars. We we kind of appear as we
appear. And so all that's transmitted
truthfully as it's happening.
Still, how you doing? Good to meet you.
Nice to meet you. So, um as Max
mentioned, got the eye glasses here. We
start with um a foundation of great
glasses, something stylish, lightweight,
wearable. And we say, how can we build
great technology and experiences on top
of that? Um, one of the core tenants of
the Android XR platform, this idea of a
multimodal conversational device, see
what you see, hear what you hear. So,
we've got a camera, you've got speakers,
multiple microphones for speaker
isolation. Um, I'll give you a chance to
try these yourself. Yeah. Sorry, woke it
up there. Whoa. Yeah. So, the first
thing you see, it's a super uh simple,
straightforward home screen. So, you
probably see the time, the weather,
calendar, appointments there. This is
designed to be sort of your one-stop
shop for quick glanceable information
throughout the day. We want to be
something that's um easy to, you know,
get what you need and then go back to
what you're doing. So, you can imagine,
you know, turning on the display,
getting that quick glance, and then um
continuing on your way. You can be fully
conversational at this point. You can um
ask questions, for example, about the
paintings. You can interrupt. You can
ask follow-up questions. And as I
mentioned before, if you want to at any
time pause, you just tap there on the
right. Gemini, how much does this
painting cost? The painting is called
the bridge of belief leap 1875 by Arman
Gome. It appears to be a print and it
would be impossible to know its cost
without finding the seller. Okay, so
this is fake. I understand. Why do
humans pay so much money for paintings?
People pay a lot for paintings because
of their artistic merit, the artist, the
decent rarity, and for the appreciation.
So, uh, a few more things that we want
to show you just for, uh, sake of time.
Did you go ahead and long press on the
side again to to sleep Gemini there? Um,
there you go. Um, did you catch Google
IO last week by any chance? So, you
might have seen on stage the uh, Google
Maps experience very briefly. Want to
give you a chance to get a sense of what
that feels like today. You can imagine
you're walking down the street. If you
look up like you're walking straight
ahead, you get quick turnbyturn
directions. So, you have a sense of what
the next turn is like, sticking your
phone in your pocket. Oh, that's so
intuitive. Sometimes you need that quick
sense of which way is the right way.
Sometimes. Yeah. So you, let's say
you're coming out subway, getting out of
a cab, you can just glance down at your
feet. We have it set up to translate
from Russian to English. I think I get
to wear the glasses. You speak to me if
you don't mind.
I can speak Russian.
I'm doing well. How are you doing?
Tempted to swear. Tempted to say
inappropriate things.
uh I see it transcribed in real time and
so obviously you know based on the uh
different languages and the sequence of
subjects and verbs there's a slight
delay sometimes but it's really just
like subtitles for the real world. Thank
you for this. All right, back to me.
Hopefully watching videos of me having
my mind blown like the apes in 2001
Space Odyssey playing with a monolith
was uh somewhat interesting. Uh like I
said, I was very impressed. And now I
thought if it's okay, I could make a few
additional comments about the episode
and just in general. In this
conversation with Sundar Pachai, I
discussed the concept of the Neolithic
package which is the set of innovations
that came along with the first
agricultural revolution about 12,000
years ago which included the formation
of social hierarchies, the early
primitive forms of government, labor
specialization, domestication of plants
and animals, early forms of trade, large
scale cooperations of humans like that
required to build yes the pyramid. s and
temples like Gobeclete. I think this may
be the right way to actually talk about
the inventions that changed human
history, not just as a single invention,
but as a kind of network of innovations
and transformations that came along with
it. And the productivity multiplier
framework that I mentioned in the
episode I think is a nice way to try to
concretize the impact of each of these
inventions under consideration. And uh
we have to remember that each node in
the network of the sort of fast followon
inventions is in itself a productivity
multiplier. Some are additive, some are
multiplicative. So in some sense the
size of the network in the package is
the thing that matters when you're
trying to rank the impact of uh
inventions on human history. The easy
picks for the period of biggest
transformation at least in sort of uh
modern day discourse is the industrial
revolution or even uh in the 20th
century the computer or the internet.
I think it's because it's easiest to
intuit it for modern-day humans the
impact the exponential impact uh of
those technologies. But recently and I
suppose this changes week to week but uh
I have been doing a lot of reading on
ancient human history. So recently my
pick for the number one invention would
have to be the first agricultural
revolution. The Neolithic package that
led to the formation of human
civilizations. That's what enabled the
scaling of the collective intelligence
machine of humanity and for us to become
the early bootloadader for the next
10,000 years of technological progress
which yes includes AI and the tech that
builds on top of AI. And of course it
could be argued that the word invention
doesn't properly apply to the
agricultural revolution. I think
actually uh Yvallo Harrari argues that
it wasn't the humans who were the
inventors but uh a handful of plant
species namely wheat, rice, and
potatoes. This is strictly a fair
perspective, but I'm having fun like I
said with this discussion here. I just
think of the entire earth as a system
that continuously transforms and I'm
using the term invention in that context
asking the question of when was the
biggest leap on the log scale plot of uh
human progress. Will AI AGI ASI
eventually take the number one spot in
this ranking? I think it has a very good
chance to do so due again to the size of
the network of inventions that will come
along with it.
I think we discuss in this podcast
uh the kind of things that would be
included in the so-called AI package but
I think there's uh a lot more
possibilities including uh discussed in
previous podcasts in many previous
podcasts including with Darede uh
talking on the biological innovation
side the science progress side in this
podcast I think we talk about something
that I'm particularly excited about in
the near term which is unlocking the
cognitive capacity of the entire
landscape of brains that is the human
species. Making it more accessible
through education and through machine
translation making information knowledge
and the rapid learning and innovation
process accessible to more humans to the
entire 8 billion if you will. So I do
think language or machine translation
applied to all the different methods
that we use on the internet to discover
knowledge is uh a big unlock. But there
are a lot of other stuff in the
so-called AI package like discuss with
Daario curing all major human diseases.
He really focuses on that in the
machines of love and grace essay. I
think there will be huge leaps in
productivity for human programmers and
semi-autonomous human programmers. So,
humans in the loop, but most of the
programming is done by AI agents and
then moving that towards a superhuman AI
researcher that's doing the research
that develops and programs the AI system
in itself. I think there would be huge
transformative effects from autonomous
vehicles. These are the things that we
maybe don't immediately understand or we
understand from an economics
perspective. But there will be a point
when AI systems are able to interpret,
understand, interact with the human
world to a sufficient degree to where
many of the manually controlled human
and loop systems we rely on become fully
autonomous. And I think mobility is such
a big part of human civilization that
there will be effects on that that
they're not just
economic but are social, cultural and so
on. And there's a lot more things I
could talk about for a long time. So
obviously the integration utilization of
AI in the creation of art, film,
music I think the digitalization and um
automating basic functions of government
and then integrating AI into that
process thereby decreasing corruption
and cost and increasing transparency and
uh efficiency. I think we as humans,
individual humans will continue to
transition further and further into
cyborgs. Sort of there's already
a AI in the
loop of the human condition and that
will become increasingly so as AI
becomes uh more powerful. The thing I'm
obviously really excited about is major
breakthroughs in science and not just on
the medical front but uh on physics
fundamental physics which would then
lead to energy
breakthroughs increasing the chance that
we become we actually become a
cardarterf type one civilization and
then enabling us in so doing to do
interstellar exploration of space and
colonization of space. I think they're
also in the near
term much like with the uh industrial
revolution that led
to rapid specialization of skills of
expertise there might be a great sort of
despization. So as the AI systems become
superhuman experts at particular
fields, there might be greater and
greater value to being the
integrator of AIS for humans to be sort
of
generalists. And so the great value of
the human mind will come from the
generalists, not the specialists. That's
a real possibility that that changes the
way we are about the world that we want
to know a little bit of a lot of things
and move about the world in that way.
That could have when passing a certain
threshold a complete shift in who we are
as a collective intelligence as a as a
human species. Also, as an aside, when
uh thinking about the invention that was
the greatest in human history, again,
for a bit of fun, we have to remember
that all of them build on top of each
other. And so we need to look at the
delta, the step change on the I would
say impossibly to perfectly measure plot
of exponential human progress. Really,
we can go back to the entire history of
life on Earth. and a previous podcast
guest Nick Lane does a great job of this
in his book Life Ascending, listing
these 10 major inventions throughout the
evolution of life on Earth, like DNA,
photosynthesis, complex cells, sex,
movement, sight, all those kinds of
things. I forget the full list that's on
there, but I think that's so far from
the human experience that my intuition
about let's say productivity multipliers
of those particular invention completely
uh breaks down and uh a different
framework is needed to understand the
impact of these inventions of evolution.
the origin of life on Earth or even the
Big Bang itself, of course, is the OG
invention that set the stage for all the
rest of it. And there are probably many
more turtles under that which are yet to
be discovered. So anyway, we live in
interesting times, fellow humans.
I do believe the set of positive
trajectories for humanity outnumber the
set of negative trajectories but not by
much. So uh let's not mess this up. And
now let me leave you with some words
from French philosopher Jean
Debrier. Out of difficulties grow
miracles. Thank you for listening and
hope to see you next time.