Google CEO Sundar Pichai warned Sunday that the U.S. must “get the balance right” on artificial intelligence (AI) regulation or risk falling behind China.
In an interview on “Fox News Sunday” with Shannon Bream, Pichai noted that more than 1,000 AI-related bills currently moving through state legislatures could create confusing rules that make it harder for U.S. companies to compete globally.
“How do you cope with those varied regulations, and how do you compete with countries like China, which are moving fast in this technology?” Pichai questioned. “So I think we have to get the balance right.”
Pichai said the U.S. must strike a balance between encouraging innovation and creating guardrails —something he said would be “better done at the national level.”
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He also said that both governments and tech companies must strengthen their defenses, adding that countries must also work together to “develop international frameworks of cooperation so that we don’t weaponize these technologies against each other.”
“Part of it is us as companies making our products better,” Pichai said. “Part of it is governments working together to create standards and frameworks by which we all use technology in a cooperative way.”
Pichai noted that AI has “great benefits” — including the potential to develop new drugs and cancer treatments — but warned that the same tools can be weaponized by bad actors.
“Any technology has a dual side to it,” Pichai said. “… The journey of humanity is always, ‘How do you harness technology to benefit society?’ And I think this technology is no different.”
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Google is using AI defensively to stop criminals who may use the technology for scams and hacking. SynthID is a Google DeepMind tool that can identify AI-generated images and videos, according to Pichai.
The chief executive noted a court ruling, handed down just hours earlier, in Google’s favor against a phishing operator that had targeted more than a million people across over 100 countries.
“You want to use AI on the defense side too,” Pichai said. “The same way bad actors can use AI, we can also use AI to better detect those operations.”
Pichai also discussed Google’s “Suncatcher” project, an initiative to build solar-powered AI data centers in outer space.
“There’s no doubt to me that a decade or so away we’ll be viewing it as a more normal way to build data centers,” he said.
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When asked whether AI is undermining human thought, Pichai compared concerns to early criticism of Google decades ago.
“About twenty-five years ago, people were asking the same questions about Google search,” he said. “I think as a society we will adapt, and I expect our creative days are going to be even richer in the future.”
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