Google’s Royal Hansen on AI: Where Are We? Where Are We Going?

Conversations with Bill Kristol

With the recent rollout of ChatGPT and the development of other generative artificial intelligence, the future of AI—and its potential implications for national defense, economics, and society—has become a topic of urgent inquiry.

To discuss where things stand with AI, we are joined by Royal Hansen, Vice President of Engineering for Privacy, Safety, and Security at Google. Hansen explains the breakthroughs achieved over the past decade, and the profound implications that powerful software and computing have brought to domains from language translation and music to medicine, national security, logistics, and other dynamic areas of the economy. Noting the potential of AI for use as well as misuse, Hansen explains why we need to develop thoughtful safeguards in the development of new technologies. According to Hansen, already we are benefiting from just the "low hanging fruit"—as seen in the developments in language translation and other generative AI available today. But the potential for breakthroughs in other fields likely are closer than might have been imagined just a few years ago.