Google's boss warns about blindly trusting AI

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, said that people should not “blindly trust” everything that artificial intelligence tools tell them.

In an interview with the BBC, Mr Pichai said that AI is “prone to errors” and should be used alongside other tools and information.

The BBC conducted its own research earlier in the year which found that artificial intelligence systems summarised news stories inaccurately.

Sundar Pichai said that users "have to learn to use these tools for what they're good at, and not blindly trust everything they say". He went on to add: “We take pride in the amount of work we put in to give us as accurate information as possible, but the current state-of-the-art AI technology is prone to some errors.”

Mr Pichai recgonised the fast pace of AI development, commenting that “we are moving fast through this moment. I think our consumers are demanding it”.

He was asked about comments made by Elon Musk several years ago about the danger of one company dominating the market and creating an AI “dictatorship”. Mr Pichai replied that “no one company should own a technology as powerful as AI”.

“If there was only one company which was building AI technology and everyone else had to use it, I would be concerned about that too, but we are so far from that scenario right now,” he said.