Don’t blindly trust what AI tells you, Google boss tells BBC

People should not “blindly trust” everything artificial intelligence tools tell them, the head of Google’s parent company Alphabet told the BBC.

In an exclusive interview, CEO Sundar Pichai said AI models are “error-prone” and urged people to use them in conjunction with other tools.

Pichai said this highlights the importance of having a rich information ecosystem, rather than relying solely on AI technology.

“That’s why people also use Google search and we have other products that are more based on providing accurate information.”

While AI tools are useful “if you want to write something creatively,” Pichai said people “have to learn to use these tools for what they do well and not blindly trust everything they say.”

He told the BBC: “We are proud of the amount of work we do to give us the most accurate information possible, but current state-of-the-art AI technology is prone to some errors.”

The tech world has been awaiting the latest release of Google’s consumer AI model, Gemini 3.0, which is starting to take back market share from ChatGPT.

Starting in May this year, Google began introducing a new “AI Mode” to its search, integrating its Gemini chatbot that aims to give users the experience of speaking with an expert.

At the time, Pichai said Gemini’s integration with search marked a “new phase of AI platform change.”

The move is also part of the tech giant’s bid to remain competitive against artificial intelligence services like ChatGPT, which have threatened Google’s online search dominance.

His comments support a BBC investigation from earlier this year, which found AI chatbots inaccurately summarized news.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Copilot, Google’s Gemini and Perplexity AI were all fed content from the BBC website and asked questions about it, and the investigation found that the AI’s responses contained “significant inaccuracies.”

In his interview with the BBC, Pichai said there was some tension between how quickly the technology was developing and how mitigations were incorporated to prevent potential harmful effects.

For Alphabet, Pichai said managing that tension means being “bold and responsible at the same time.”

“So we’re moving quickly right now. I think our consumers are demanding it,” he said.

The tech giant has also increased its investment in AI security in proportion to its investment in AI, Pichai added.

“For example, we have open source technology that will allow us to detect if an image is generated by AI,” he said.

When asked about recently uncovered years-old comments from tech billionaire Elon Musk to the founders of OpenAI about fears that DeepMind, now owned by Google, could create an AI “dictatorship,” Pichai said that “no company should own a technology as powerful as AI.”

But he added that there are many companies in the AI ​​ecosystem today.

“If there was only one company building AI technology and everyone else had to use it, that would worry me too, but we’re a long way from that scenario right now,” he said.