AI anxiety reflects social change, not just product quality

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

1. 26:19

   like all the time they have that experience or they kick to ai mode and there's a stuff you can measure about user satisfaction. And then there's how the public feels about AI. And I think there's a pretty yawning gap in, hey, there's these user numbers going up and we're close to a billion users and the free products people are experiencing, how good they might be. And then just the polling data. Young people dislike AI. It's as objective as that gets. You can go ask them and they will tell you in measurable ways they dislike it. Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, booed at a college graduation speech he was giving, seven in 10 Americans opposed data center construction.

2. 26:55

   There's some gap between the product experiences people are having and how they feel about the technology. Do you think you can close that gap? Do you think these products are good enough? I think it is a very profound topic, and I feel like you're linking the two things. I think people rightfully so. AI is the most profound technology humanity is going to deal with. It's happening at a very fast pace.

3. 27:23

   I don't think humans are evolved for processing this much change. And the rate of change, particularly over the last few years, is incredibly high. And people rightfully so, particularly with all what they are hearing, I think people are trying to understand the future and in their personal context of their lives. including you know what it means at an economic level and so on right and so to me really makes sense why there is anxiety around this technology um and and i think we should be very attuned to that and i think that's an important topic and i think that's much broader and bigger than the facets of what's happening you know people don't directly associate these two all the time. In some cases, yes, they're linked in certain ways. I think people experience the free versions of these models and various products. I think they open their social media feeds and they

4. 28:28

   see slop. I think they see headlines about all that stuff. I think they have the tools just sort of presented to them. The Gemini Sparkle shows up in all the Google products, whether you ask for it or not. And then I do think you link it to, oh, they're asking for a lot of electricity and maybe my rates will go up and maybe all the jobs will go away and that's pretty scary and i i don't know if the value exchange is there i think these are good things to study i think you're being too specific on what's happening versus i'm just broadening it out and saying that might be part of the explanation i do think there are other cheaper factors too i do you think it's just a marketing problem i've heard your peers say the ai just has a marketing problem no i don't think so that's the point i'm making i'm in fact arguing against it i think it makes sense to me

5. 29:13

   why people would feel consents about it. It feels natural to me. You know, people are standing and telling about how AI could make a lot of jobs go away, right? And like, you know, why wouldn't you feel a sense of anxiety about it, right? And like, you know, I think those are deeper issues which we have to tackle as a society. That doesn't mean, yes, there's concern about AI slop at a product level.

6. 29:38

   All that are true. All I'm pointing out is it's a multi-layered problem but I don't think all the source of the data center angst is directly related to one specific experience you're having in a product or something alone like that. That's all the point I'm making, right? It is broader and bigger than that. I do think there's a lot of AI slop out there. I feel it. And so, you know, in an early phase of technology with the competitive dynamic that exists, I think a lot of things are getting rolled out.

7. 30:07

   But we also see empirically how people are using these products in very deep ways. And, you know, I think not all of it is. If you go in a place where Waymo hasn't come and you just poll people, talk about self-driving cars, what you get in the polls is different from how they feel when they use these cars. So technology also goes through these things. People have pretty negative views of the internet too, by the way, if you go poll, right?

8. 30:34

   If you ask about the internet, but it's a fabric of our lives and we have to adapt to it. So all of that is simultaneously happening, I think. It's a complex topic. To me, it feels like people are worried about rising energy prices. And if so, they want to make sure the AI is not exacerbating the problem. And that's a valid concern. And I think it's up to us as an industry. Make sure if you're building data centers, what can we do to make sure we aren't contributing to that problem?

9. 31:10

   So I think that I view as our responsibility, not just us. And the government, I think, you know, there's bipartisan concerns around some of this stuff. So, for example, there's a rate payer pledge we all signed up to with a set of commitments. Maybe there needs to be more done. I think all of that goes hand in hand. I think it's important to talk about topics like skilling, workforce, you know, adaptations.

10. 31:40

    I think we are driving a lot of change very fast through society. I think those end up being very important topics as well. So I think there's concerns at all those levels. And I expect those concerns to be meaningful as we go forward. I think it is, you know, many years ago I said this is more profound than fire or electricity. So I've always felt that. And so, you know, or think about deep fakes and how do you know whether something is, you know, these models are getting better at simulating reality.

11. 32:17

    This is why we were working so hard. We built SynthID. We are open sourcing it. We are pulling many, many partners together. And it's great for me to see the industry collaborate on a topic like this. Cybersecurity is another good example. I think these are all real concerns, right? So I do think as an industry, we need to do more. Governments will have a stronger role to play. So all of that. And the public needs to be involved.

12. 32:42

    You cannot have the most consequential technology rolling out to the world in a way in democracies without the public citizens rightfully having a voice around it. Yeah. So to me, it is really important that we go through this phase and that's how we learn how to adapt. Yeah. I'll leave it.