I spoke to him at Google's HQ in Silicon Valley, for the first of a series of interviews I am doing for the BBC with global figures. As boss of

Google boss Sundar Pichai warns of threats to internet freedom

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2021-07-12 01:30:06

I spoke to him at Google's HQ in Silicon Valley, for the first of a series of interviews I am doing for the BBC with global figures.

As boss of both Google and its parent company Alphabet, he is the ultimate leader of companies or products as varied as Waze, FitBit and DeepMind, the artificial intelligence pioneers. At Google alone he oversees Gmail, Google Chrome, Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Docs, Google Photos, the Android operating system and many other products.

Over the past 23 years, Google has probably shaped the mostly free and open internet we have today more than any other company.

According to Pichai, over the next quarter of a century, two other developments will further revolutionise our world: artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Amid the rustling leaves and sunshine of the vast, empty campus that is Google's HQ in Silicon Valley, Pichai stressed how consequential AI was going to be.

"I view it as the most profound technology that humanity will ever develop and work on," he said. "You know, if you think about fire or electricity or the internet, it's like that. But I think even more profound."