Future robot human crowd

Tencent Technology News British "Guardian" online version of Google recently published two co-founder Larry Page (Sergey Brin) and Silicon Valley to accept a well-known venture capital firm Vinod Kosley (Vinod Khosla) interview content. The two founders said in an interview at the same time that the two almost sold Excalibur to Excite, the Internet portal at the time, pointing out that the three major areas of healthcare, transportation and robotics will be the focus of Google's future business expansion.

The following is an interview summary:

During this informal informal discussion, Page and Bill Brin admitted that Google is very much interested in getting into the healthcare market, but the United States' over-stringent regulation of the industry kept the company discouraged. During the interview, the two founders showed radically different personalities: Brinchman, the head of Google X, was breaking new ground while the CEO, Page, was more focused on the business.

Two dynamic gold partners have been working for 16 years, so they describe each other's relationship as a bit like an old couple. Brin said: "We will not be particularly excited about a problem or something, we will work together to solve it."

Almost sold "page rank"

"Page Rank" risk is sold

The two said frankly that they had almost sold the site to a then search engine company called Excite before they actually identified the major search engines and portals for Google.

Brin said in an interview: "We had developed the search technology at the time and named it PageRank, and unfortunately it was not a 'Bollinger ranking.' But for its part, It is not a full-fledged search engine, it only searches for page titles and sorts them. "

Brin further explained: "We showed" page rankings "to a few existing search engine companies at the time, and some of you might still remember them, including Infoseek, Excite and Lycos, and Excite told us In the end, I found Excite's top management team not as enthusiastic as their company name. "

Page added: "At that time, search engine companies did not trust Google's search concept."

Extensive business layout

Google X is responsible for expanding several areas

Google is often criticized for being too involved in the field. Its product range covers communications, search, health, robotics, internet hot air balloon and driverless cars.

Page explained: "If I had to face confrontation with Steve Jobs just fine, he might say, 'You have to research and develop too much.' And I would answer him 'yes, indeed He is right in some ways, but I think if you have a big company like Google, but you're afraid to do just a few things in horror, that sounds silly.

Brin also said: "At least we are looking for areas suitable for Google's development, and then try to invest, but this may lead to many, many and many investment projects, of which only a few items can give us a return.

Google's mysterious Google X department is primarily responsible for developing leading technologies. As head of the department, Brin believes his role is to dare to "bet" and hope some of these investments will become a new channel to boost the company's performance.

Driverless cars will liberate the city

Google's new driverless car prototype

For the past three months, the highest-profile Google X project belongs to the new driverless car prototype. Brin hopes that driverless cars can "bring about substantial changes in society," but only if people need to give up buying private cars.

Brin explained: "In most cities, a lot of land (30% to 50%) is built into a parking lot, which is a very serious waste of resources, of course, the urban road situation is difficult to make People are satisfied that the road is not only congested but also occupies a lot of space, and people do not need a lot of parking space after having a self-driving car because you do not have to have a car for each person. You do not need to park your car or car, you need it.

In Brin's opinion, driverless cars can use existing resources more efficiently, such as roads, and this is a special issue for the United Kingdom in the very grave situation of traffic jams. Brin concluded: "Driverless cars can run at high speeds, which may be faster than the speed limit on the freeway, and most importantly, they make more use of space and save people time, so I think that It will be a revolutionary invention. "

Health industry oversight

Google's recent exploration of health includes the Google Fit Health Platform and many more application development projects that are hard to digest. Nowadays, both large and small tech companies are trying to enter the health and pharmaceutical industry. The future health market may be larger than search and media. In 2013, the U.S. health care market alone was close to $ 3 trillion. Although Brin sees tremendous business opportunities in the health industry, strict industry regulation has become a big hurdle.

Brin explained: "In general, the health industry is very rigorous regulation, is a torture business.This is not just how to allocate time.Although we are doing some health projects, but we will only do a certain However, I think the U.S. government's oversight of the health sector has prevented many entrepreneurs from entering. "

In addition to Google Fit, Google has formed a company called Calico, an independent biotechnology research firm focused on health and long-lasting human life. Page said: "I really feel very excited about this, the possible application of the data is likely to improve human health in the future.Identify that you will be able to search for medical record information in the United States.I estimate that this data sharing Will save 10,000 lives in the first year, but all this can not be done with the HIPPA, and I'm really worried that our oversight of ourselves will lead us to miss some really good opportunities. "

The computer is a waste of time

Google Now auto-hints feature to improve search efficiency

Despite the start of desktop search engines, Google quickly moved into other areas of computing, including mobile devices such as Android smartphones and tablets, the new Android Wear smartwatch, and Google Glass smartglasses. However, for Brin and Page, computers and mobile devices do not currently take full advantage of the time.

"People are just wasting time," Page said, looking around and searching for content on touchscreen phones, but you're simply not working if you're in a bumpy car. "

Brin also explained: "I think the amount of information they get on the computer is disproportionately low compared to when people spend on the computer, so I think our job is to solve the problem. There are many things that we are doing that make a lot of sense. "

Google sees search and intelligent messaging as the key to solving the problem. Although the machines understand the answers to search topics and questions, Google can get the information they need more quickly and efficiently. Google's exploration has gone beyond mere search, and it hopes to be able to provide users with the information they need at the right time, without even asking for it.

Earlier, in order to solve this problem and reduce the user's delay in search results, Google developed the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button. This button brings the user directly to the first page of the search results, but it does not work as expected. Later, Google Now Auto-Alert became a more successful solution to the problem.

Artificial intelligence is the future

7. Google's acquisition of Deep Mind optimistic about the future of artificial intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology is one of the technological advances that have enabled Google to deliver smart messaging. Earlier this year, the acquisition of Deep Mind, the British company of artificial intelligence, made Google once again the headline of major newspapers, and the founders of Deep Mind include former chess prodigy, neuroscientist Demis Hassabis, .

In addition to core search products, Google has also invested in several projects in the field of AI. Brin said: "For example, human brain projects focus on the study of machine learning functions.This requires information input, such as vision.In fact, we have been using this feature in driverless cars.Also some more common intelligent projects For example, in theory, we acquired Deep Mind is hoping that one day it will be able to develop a logical AI product, and the development of a real AI product is Google's ultimate goal, for example, one can achieve self-learning and self-thinking The machine. "

Brin explained: "Obviously, computer scientists have spent decades to realize this dream, but never really introduced such a machine.However, we have reason to make such a hypothesis, one day in the future We will be able to develop machines that think logically and think more than humans do. "

Robots replace humans in more situations

Atlas Robotics, manufactured by Google's Boston Dynamics Engineering Company

Google is acutely aware that with the rise of smart robots, people may lose their jobs because, in addition to manufacturing industries, robots will be able to replace humans in more industries.

"I do think that much of what humankind has done over the past century can be replaced by machines, and that trend will continue," Brin said.

Page "More than 90% of people used to work in agriculture, and much of the work has been replaced by machines over the past few centuries." In Page, robots and machines should save people a lot of time , Because everyone's needs will be relatively easily met by then.

Page said: "I talked to Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group and the billionaire in the United Kingdom, where people did not find enough jobs and he was still Efforts have been made to persuade people to hire two part-time employees instead of one full-time employee, and at least young people get a part-time job, which is better than no job. "

At the end of the interview, Brin and Page turned their attention to society as a whole.

Page argues that machines will dramatically increase the productivity and efficiency of society as a whole, and as a result, people can reduce their working hours. Page pointed out that in the past he had repeatedly proposed the idea of ​​extending the week from one week to two weeks each week or four days a week for work and received wide support.

Page said: "Most people like to work, but they also like to spend more time with their family or in pursuit of their own hobbies, and another benefit of doing so is that by reducing the number of workweeks, you can assign work to More people to do. "(King Falcon)