Kenrick Cai
SAN FRANCISCO – Alphabet’s ( NASDAQ 🙂 Google, already facing an unprecedented regulatory onslaught, is looking to shape public perception and policy on artificial intelligence ahead of a global wave of AI regulation.
A key priority, one executive told Reuters, comes in building education programs to train the AI workforce.
“Getting more people and organizations, including governments, familiar with AI and using AI tools enables better AI policy and opens up new opportunities — it’s a virtuous cycle,” said Kent Walker, Alphabet’s president of global affairs.
As Google races against the best big tech rivals, including Microsoft OpenAi and Meta (NASDAQ 🙂 In the AI arena, it is mindful of the tough regulatory oversight it faces at existing companies in advertising and search.
In the European Union, Google has offered to sell part of its technology business to appease regulators, Reuters reported. In the US, the Justice Department is trying to force the demise of its chrome web browser — though it may reverse course under President Donald Trump’s administration.
Meanwhile, governments globally are drafting new regulations on issues that could be exacerbated by AI, such as copyright and privacy. The EU AI law, which seeks to assess risk and require disclosures from general-purpose AI systems, has received pushback from tech giants who could find themselves on the receiving end of multibillion-dollar fines.
The DOJ also sought to curtail Google’s AI advances as a remedy in a federal case that held the search business was an illegal monopoly.
Google executives see an opportunity to shape the narrative around a technology that has persisted in emerging from massive job losses.
CEO Sundar Pichai announced a $120 million investment fund in September to build AI education programs. Advocates, including Walker and Ruth Porat, president and chief investment officer, are increasingly traveling to discuss policy recommendations with governments.
“There’s a lot of progress in terms of helping people who may be displaced. We want to focus on that,” Walker said.
Efforts include expanding growth with Google, a website that teaches workers skills like data analysis or IT support that should expand career prospects in technical fields. In December, the company announced that 1 million people had been certified for the program. It’s adding specialized courses related to AI, such as one aimed at teachers, said program manager Lisa Gevelber.
Courses alone are not enough to prepare workers, Walker said. “What’s really important is if you have some kind of goal that people are working toward, like a credential that people can use to apply for a job.”
Google wants to increase experimentation on public-private partnerships, he said. A leading example so far is the “skilled trades and readiness” program, in which the company has partnered with community colleges to train workers for potential jobs building data centers. Google is including AI education in the program, he said.
“Ultimately, the federal government is going to look and see which proofs of concept play out — which of the green shoots take root,” Walker said. “If we can help fertilize that effort, that’s our role.”
In the long term, Walker said he expects a small fraction of existing jobs to be entirely displaced by AI, citing several studies commissioned by Google, Goldman Sachs and McKinsey. These studies suggest that AI will be involved in most jobs in some capacity.
As part of Google’s efforts to prepare for this shift, it hired economist David Autor as a visiting fellow to study the impact of AI on the workforce. The author said in an interview that AI could be used to create more immersive training programs, similar to flight simulators.
“The history of adult retraining is not particularly illustrious,” he said. “Adults don’t want to go back to school. Classroom training will not be the solution to a lot of retraining. ”
