Google CEO Sundar Pichai sounds worried about a looming AI bubble – ‘I think no company is going to be immune, including us’

We better all hope claims of an AI “bubble” don’t come to fruition, because we’re all going to suffer if it eventually bursts.

That's according to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who told the BBC in an interview that there was "irrationality" in the AI hype that could impact every company.

"I think no company is going to be immune, including us," he told the BBC, though he stressed Alphabet and Google were in a good position to withstand any potential market shocks.

Pichai compared the hype and investment around AI to the early days of the web, admitting there was "excess investment", but adding that the impact of the internet was worth the costs.

"I expect AI to be the same. So I think it's both rational and there are elements of irrationality through a moment like this."

While concerns still linger over the long-term return on investment from AI adoption, this hasn't stopped big tech companies committing to bold spending plans over the next decade.

Google-rival OpenAI has committed $1.4 trillion in spending over the next several years for cloud and data center infrastructure, despite predictions it will post just $20 billion in revenue itself this year.

At the same time that such wild spending is happening, Pichai told the BBC that anyone using AI should "not blindly trust everything they say."

"We take pride in the amount of work we put in to give us as accurate information as possible, but the current state-of-the-art AI technology is prone to some errors,” he said.

Google's growing energy concerns

Alongside potential market disruptions, Pichai also warned about the long-term impact on the energy sector.

Energy used by data centers in the US is expected to triple by 2028, making up 12% of total demand, and globally AI is predicted to use as much energy as Japan by 2030.

Pichai noted that meeting those supply-related challenges were necessary to keep the economy moving.

"You don't want to constrain an economy based on energy, and I think that will have consequences," he said.

Of course, there are consequences beyond financial ones. When asked about AI's energy requirements, Pichai admitted surging power demands had indeed caused Alphabet's climate targets to slip, though he stressed its 2030 net zero goal was still possible.

Work disruption

In the sweeping interview, Pichai also pointed to the long-term impact of AI on individual workers. The Google chief said that people who adapt to AI will do better in their work than those who don't – despite his own admission of the flaws in the technology that meant it remained prone to errors in accuracy.

Pichai’s comments come in the wake of repeated warnings about how the technology will shape future labor markets.

Entry-level workers, for example, are expected to bear the brunt of the impact from AI, while earlier this month analysts warned that AI job cuts could even prompt a revival of offshoring, meaning any rehiring after AI benefits fail to materialize won't help those laid off.

These concerns have been tempered by some industry stakeholders, however, with OpenAI co-founder Andrej Karpathy recently insisting agents were nowhere near ready to begin stealing jobs.

"It doesn't matter whether you want to be a teacher [or] a doctor," he said. "All those professions will be around, but the people who will do well in each of those professions are people who learn how to use these tools."

"We will have to work through societal disruptions," he said.

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