AI researchers claim Google, '60 Minutes' spread ‘disinformation’ in recent interview: ‘Still bulls---'
Fox News
CBS, 60 Minutes (interview with Scott Pelley)
“Let me put it this way. I don’t think we fully understand how a human mind works either.”
Sundar Pichai16 April 2023- What you'll lose0/5
Nothing taken.
- Condescension3/5
We don't understand the human mind either.
- Tone-deafness4/5
The answer to 'you've turned it loose on society?'
- Doom2/5
A black box, released anyway.
- Hypocrisy0/5
None.
Full time9 pitchforksof a possible 25
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Call received. VAR is having a look: the referee reviews every call, and the score stands until then.
The occasion
CBS, 60 Minutes (interview with Scott Pelley), 16 April 2023.
Context
Pichai had called the way large models work a 'black box' that even people in the field cannot fully explain. Pelley then asked: 'You don't fully understand how it works. And yet, you've turned it loose on society?' Pichai answered with this line. The CBS page returned an error to the fetch, so the wording was confirmed on Rev's transcript of the broadcast and in four news reports.
Crowd reaction
Widespread criticism
Linguist Emily Bender called the interview 'painful to watch' and said the 'we don't understand humans either' move is how boosters 'evade accountability or ... sell their system as some mysterious, magical, autonomous being'; other researchers, among them Margaret Mitchell and Abeba Birhane, disputed the segment's claims. Reported by Fox News (2023-04-20) and AIwire (2023-04-19); BuzzFeed News also covered it (page not readable). Criticism came from experts and commentators, not a mass public reaction.
- Primary source, transcript
- Fox News: Google CEO admits he, experts 'don't fully understand' how AI works
- Blaze Media: Google CEO admits he doesn't 'fully understand' how his AI works after it taught itself a new language and invented fake data to advance an idea
- Yahoo News UK: Google CEO Sundar Pichai admits people ‘don’t fully understand’ how chatbot AI works
- AIwire: Sundar Pichai Interview Stokes Debate on True Capabilities of AI Chatbots
- Fox News: AI researchers claim Google, '60 Minutes' spread ‘disinformation’ in recent interview: ‘Still bulls---'
- Where the exact words are printed