Google’s Focus on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning: The Future of Google
If you watched the launch of the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL smartphones, you’d have noticed how one of the most commonly repeated set of words across the whole presentation were Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. These words were the most frequently repeated words. It was a subtle speech technique by Google which kept remind the users that the company is all about the gen-next technologies.
Sundar Pichai’s speech that kicked off the event was all about Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. He talked about how Google is moving from a mobile-first to an AI-first world. Here, he dropped a major hint.
In fact, those who have been following Google for some time now know that the company has been giving a lot of attention to Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. They came out with ARCore in August which is Augmented Reality based on AI and ML, which was also something that Pichai addressed in his opening speech.
Pichai pointed out 4 things that need to happen in this new AI-first approach that Google has begun to take:
- People should be able to interact with computing in a natural and seamless way.
- It is going to be ambient – computing will evolve beyond the phone, and get around you.
- It needs to be thoughtfully contextual. It’s not just about what you’re looking for, but also what you would like to look for.
- Computing should learn and adapt on a constant basis.
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning go hand-in-hand. AI is basically getting the computer to do smarter tasks. However, AI is often assisted by Machine Learning – which is basically the computer’s ability to learn from a given set of data. This data could be verbal, pictorial, numerical, textual or more.
Google is already putting AI and Machine Learning to good use. Machine Learning is helping empower Google know the user better. Artificial Intelligence is getting smarter with the help of this as the phone knows the user. While users have moved from PC to Phone when it comes to browsing and searching, the future of everything is Artificial Intelligence.
Your phone not only knows you, but it knows where you live, where you go, it even knows how big your room is, where your lights are (if you’re on a connected system), how you sound like (voice recognition on Google Home), what language do you speak, who else are you connected with, the people that you meet, the members of your family, where they go, where they live, what they sound like. Google’s Artificial Intelligence knows how you look like, how your friends and family look like (Google Photos).
It knows many aspects of your private life. Scary as it sounds – it has been built in a way that it will help improve your lifestyle over the long run. With products like Google Home, Google Assistant, and even Google Pixelbuds – which help communicate with users by breaking the language barriers – Google is taking technology to the next level.
It might sound scary and dystopian – but the more your phone knows about you, the better, the more customized offerings it can offer. Could the Science Fiction dream of attaining immortality by transferring your consciousness into an AI system ever be achieved? At this speed, the answer could come to us in a not-so-distant future.
