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Sundar Pichai of Google: 'Technology Doesn't Solve Humanity's Problems' (nytimes.com)
In a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times, Google CEO Sundar Pichai has addressed some of the recent tensions within the company and those that the entire industry appears to be grappling with. From the story: Question: An estimated 20,000 Googlers participated in a sexual harassment protest this month. What's your message to employees right now?
Pichai: People are walking out because they want us to improve and they want us to show we can do better. We're acknowledging and understanding we clearly got some things wrong. And we have been running the company very differently for a while now. But going through a process like that, you learn a lot. For example, we have established channels by which people can report issues. But those processes are much harder on the people going through it than we had realized.
Question: Do you worry that Silicon Valley is suffering from groupthink and losing its edge?
Pichai: There is nothing inherent that says Silicon Valley will always be the most innovative place in the world. There is no God-given right to be that way. But I feel confident that right now, as we speak, there are quietly people in the Valley working on some stuff which we will later look back on in 10 years and feel was very profound. We feel we're on the cusp of technologies, just like the internet before.
Question: Do you still feel like Silicon Valley has retained that idealism that struck you when you arrived here?
Pichai: There's still that optimism. But the optimism is tempered by a sense of deliberation. Things have changed quite a bit. You know, we deliberate about things a lot more, and we are more thoughtful about what we do. But there's a deeper thing here, which is: Technology doesn't solve humanity's problems. It was always naive to think so. Technology is an enabler, but humanity has to deal with humanity's problems. I think we're both over-reliant on technology as a way to solve things and probably, at this moment, over-indexing on technology as a source of all problems, too. Further reading: After Paying Off Men Accused of Sexual Harassment, Google Says It Will Meet Many of the Protesters' Demands.
Pichai: People are walking out because they want us to improve and they want us to show we can do better. We're acknowledging and understanding we clearly got some things wrong. And we have been running the company very differently for a while now. But going through a process like that, you learn a lot. For example, we have established channels by which people can report issues. But those processes are much harder on the people going through it than we had realized.
Question: Do you worry that Silicon Valley is suffering from groupthink and losing its edge?
Pichai: There is nothing inherent that says Silicon Valley will always be the most innovative place in the world. There is no God-given right to be that way. But I feel confident that right now, as we speak, there are quietly people in the Valley working on some stuff which we will later look back on in 10 years and feel was very profound. We feel we're on the cusp of technologies, just like the internet before.
Question: Do you still feel like Silicon Valley has retained that idealism that struck you when you arrived here?
Pichai: There's still that optimism. But the optimism is tempered by a sense of deliberation. Things have changed quite a bit. You know, we deliberate about things a lot more, and we are more thoughtful about what we do. But there's a deeper thing here, which is: Technology doesn't solve humanity's problems. It was always naive to think so. Technology is an enabler, but humanity has to deal with humanity's problems. I think we're both over-reliant on technology as a way to solve things and probably, at this moment, over-indexing on technology as a source of all problems, too. Further reading: After Paying Off Men Accused of Sexual Harassment, Google Says It Will Meet Many of the Protesters' Demands.
Seriously? This guy runs Google?
How many people does he think could survive on Earth without technology?
Keeping literally billions of people from dying sure seems like "solving problems".
I think the whole point is that technology is not a panacea. It helps solve problems, but deep down a lot of problems like hunger or poverty have underlying causes beyond the remedy of technology. A lot of it is simply getting past the human element: greed, corruption, stubbornness, mistrust, etc. Then you have natural causes such as simple physics, ecology, geography, etc that technology can mitigate but not effectively or realistically fully overcome. A lot of people in Silicon Valley (and tech in general) have grand ideas about changing or saving the world, and those dreams just simply aren't realistic or feasible. Limited or localized change and improvement is certainly possible and is a laudable achievement, but expectations must be realistic. And in quite a few instances, but trying to solve problems you end up only creating more.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
he's only thinking about Information Tech. Most of society's problems are economic. Food, shelter, healthcare. Look at every major societal in human history it's always been traceable to money. WWI and II were land grabs by nations looking for more wealth. 9/11 was due to US meddling in the middle east to secure cheap oil. The only other problem to solve is disease, and we're doing pretty good there. No more small pox. We kept bird flu in check.
Bio tech changes everything. People don't realize how much we've changed farming in the last 100 years. We use oil byproducts to recondition land so that we need fewer or no crop rotation cycles. We used genetic modification to massively increase yields and make pest resistant crops. We can feed everyone on the plant now.
Yeah, tech moved faster than our society at fixing problems, but our society wouldn't even get a chance to fix them without tech.
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But there's a deeper thing here, which is: Technology doesn't solve humanity's problems. It was always naive to think so. Technology is an enabler, but humanity has to deal with humanity's problems. I think we're both over-reliant on technology as a way to solve things and probably, at this moment, over-indexing on technology as a source of all problems, too.
It won't solve all our problems. But we've made the blind see, the lame walk, fed the world, cured a lot of cancer, fought off a lot of diseases, empowered billions, and unless we have some sort of additional advances things look pretty damn grim when it comes to global warming.
You are working on self-driving cars. "1.3 million people die in road crashes each year. An additional 20-50 million are injured or disabled". This is a problem. You are working on solving it. That justifies the investment, all the work, and your fucking stock price.
You want non-discriminatory hiring practices that truly adhere to being an equal opportunity employer? Automate it. Remove discriminatory factors and strive for a meritocracy that's blind to race, religion, or creed. If the process for raising complaints is painful, fix it. Streamlining and automating HR sounds like something you could sell.
You are a technology company. Act like it.
Technology doesn't solve ALL of humanity's problems. Yet.