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Sundar Pichai of Google: 'Technology Doesn't Solve Humanity's Problems' (nytimes.com) 137

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
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.
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Sundar Pichai of Google: 'Technology Doesn't Solve Humanity's Problems' More

Sundar Pichai of Google: 'Technology Doesn't Solve Humanity's Problems'

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  • Huh? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Locke2005 ( 849178 ) on Thursday November 08, 2018 @11:52AM (#57612592)
    Technology doesn't guarantee a solution, and it does solve all problems, but I'm pretty sure it has solved some problems, i.e. we're not all starving due to advances in agricultural productivity made possible by... technology.

    • It's a fundamental understanding of technology.

      You use a rock to crush up bits of sticks so they're easier to ignite as tinder. One day, you realize that striking in a different manner better separates the fibers, allowing you to produce 50% more tinder in the same time with the same tools.

      That's technology. You've just invented a new, more-efficient method of manufacturing tinder from sticks using the same tools. You can make the same tinder with less labor and apply other labor to do other things li

      • No, that is not technology. But keep rubbing "sticks" with your blow-buddy. Just stop posting stupid shit on Slashdot

        • Technology ("science of craft", from Greek , techne, "art, skill, cunning of hand"; and -, -logia) is the collection of techniques, skills, methods, and processes used in the production of goods or services or in the accomplishment of objectives, such as scientific investigation.

          In economics, we call the advancement of technology (and its measurable effects on productivity) "technical progress".

          An assembly line is technology. So is cellular manufacture. These are techniques, not tools--although a too

    • I think he meant Google Technology. Prolly forgot the Google part since he is a part of it.

    • Technology can solve all problems, including the existence of humans... Reference: The Matrix, Terminator...

    • They don't really grasp the concept of "technology" outside of computer crap.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Negatif ( 65194 )

      He's using a very narrow definition of technology - the computer and information technology. Most of the rest of us understand technology in the broad sense that covers all the aspects of the process that transforms matter, energy and information.

    • We get to run off the cliff faster and in more comfort.

  • Just buy up thousands of sexbots that are more fun to harass than actual coworkers, and sprinkle them liberally around campus... problem solved! (As long as the sexbots are programmed not to sue.)
  • What he doesn't tell you is that, being obnoxious like Google (Don't Be Evil) actually makes humanity's problems worse. Thanks, Pichai.

  • Can't solve a problem which isn't defined (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    "Technology doesn’t solve humanity’s problems. It was always naïve 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."

    Of course a vague term like "humanity's problems" can't be solved by technology, because we don't know what you're trying to solve. I'm more concerned with resourc

  • He's trapped in a bubble (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Thursday November 08, 2018 @12:37PM (#57612886)
    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.

  • ...on twitter I saw some post about how those retailer not getting involved with AI will be their demise. Reminded me that the tech industry, as Bill Gates indirectly said in saying its not like other markets. Obviously it is an entrapment market. Many of the readers here are familiar with the upgrade trap of wanting to upgrade one thing only to find they have to upgrade other things to do so. And sometime my system response experience is worse than what I recall of a Commodore 64, so where did all the upg

  • Idealism? No. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Kohath ( 38547 ) on Thursday November 08, 2018 @01:17PM (#57613064)

    - Grievance-obsession is not idealism.
    - Making up stories about bad things that might happen is not idealism.
    - Beefing about people or condescending to people or looking down on people in other states who aren't like you is not idealism.
    - Bigotry against religion is not idealism.
    - Name-calling is not idealism.
    - Self-obsession is not idealism.
    - Wanting to spend money other people earned is not idealism.
    - Choosing to side with one group over another group is not idealism.
    - Rejection of science in favor of storytelling about diversity is not idealism.

    Idealism rejects all of these things. Idealism tells the truth and treats everyone with goodwill. You guys at Google should try it.

  • Starvation, lack of a home, those are real problems. Even then humanity goes on, until it doesn't.

  • Not all, not yet. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by HeckRuler ( 1369601 ) on Thursday November 08, 2018 @01:20PM (#57613084)

    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.

    • 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...

      In Tech you'd wind up with a 40-30-30 mix of white, asian, and desi males between 25 and 45.

      They aren't bleating about a meritocracy or equality in opportunity; it's equality of outcome or nothing.

  • Technology evolves faster than humans (Score:3)

    by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Thursday November 08, 2018 @01:22PM (#57613092) Journal
    Our technology has evolved many orders of magnitude faster than our species evolves, especially the hardwiring in our brains. In many ways we'd benefit from slowing down our technological progress (and even backing it up) until the human species can catch up to it. Unfortunately nature may do that for us and in the harshest way possible.

  • Self-fulfilling (Score:3)

    by petes_PoV ( 912422 ) on Thursday November 08, 2018 @02:22PM (#57613476)

    Technology doesn't solve humanity's problems

    It does, technology has solved many of the world's biggest problems. However, once it solves a problem then there is no longer a problem, so it doesn't appear that technology has done anything.

    But take mass transportation as an example. The inability to move millions of people and millions of tons of goods never seemed like a problem before it was possible. Nobody ever thought "Hmmmm, I wish there was a way to get 50 million people a year to visit other countries" or "I wonder how we could possibly move a quarter of a million tons of crude oil across the world?" . Not until the means to do so was delivered. Then after that, the problem disappeared.

    So it is a rather dumb statement. Just like we don't have a "problem" now on how to get 10,000 people a year to The Moon and back. It will become possible - and then easy - to do. And once it does, that will be because technology enabled the solution. But right now, no-one considers our inability to do that to be a "problem".

  • Google is Doomed. (Score:3)

    by AftanGustur ( 7715 ) on Thursday November 08, 2018 @03:54PM (#57614016) Homepage
    The moment Google caved in to the first demands of the SJW, the company was doomed.

    Once you have let that Genie out of the bottle, the is no turning back.

  • The articles related to this protest walkout all say "accused" i would hope that a mere accusation is not enough to make action against a person that could cause them to loose there livelihood and cause the cascade that comes with it loss of home starvation etc. We had this thing for ages and it mostly worked called the presumption of innocence until the accusation can be proven. Did I miss a memo someplace that stated we now run on guilty until proven innocent? because that is some hard core spooky Totali

  • Whenever I see the name Sundar Pichai, my mind changes it to Tsundere Pikachu.

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