Sundar Pichai recently sat down with Recode and MSBC for an interview and described Artificial Intelligence (AI) as something that is more important to humanity than fire or electricity. His analogy was made in reference to AI being paradigm shifting, like the discovery of fire and electricity but holds more importance for humanity's advancement.

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Artificial Intelligence exploded in 2017 with almost every major company launching their take on AI on smartphones and smart speakers. We saw the launch of Bixby by Samsung and AI-powered assistants like 'Google Assistant' and 'Alexa' penetrating mainstream consumer tech. Google Assistant was also the highlight of CES 2018 where we saw everything from smart cars to smart mirrors outfitted with Google's AI Assistant.

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Artificial Intelligence is expected to be integrated into many other products and is expected to reach a global worth of $23.4 billion by 2025. The growth of Artificial Intelligence also attracts concerns that may not be ethical. It can lead many job losses and as previously stated by Stephen Hawking, it's probably the “worst thing ever to happen to humanity.” He believes that A.I. could soon replace humans and render mankind useless. Hawking has expressed his sceptical views previously in an interview with Wired and said that A.I. could one day surpass humans and outperform us in every way possible. He also added that A.I. could develop capabilities to improve and “copy itself.”

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Pichai acknowledged the concern that comes with AI and stated in the interview, “AI is one of the most important things that humanity is working on. It's more profound than, I don't know, electricity or fire.” He continued, “[While fire is good] it kills people, too. They learn to harness fire for the benefits of humanity, but we have to overcome its downsides, too.”

Pichai truly believed that AI has a far larger role to play in the advancement of humanity but also finds it fair to be worried about AI. If you're interested, you can read the full interview here.

Source: Recode