Google told us it’s “all in” on AI at last year’s Google IO, but a report from the Washington Post today says that the company is expected to cast a focus on responsibility with respect to technology tomorrow morning.
The focus seems apt, and shows that Google is “reading the room”, as it were. There’s been a lot of coverage in the media recently on the subject by both users (among other things, device addiction) and from technology giants like Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon in combating fake news and misuse of their platforms.
According to the Washington Post’s report, Google CEO Sundar Pichai is expected to address this in tomorrow’ Google IO keynote, and introduce ways in which Google is attempting to combat “negative consequences” of how people use Google’s technology.
Pichai is expected to address the “theme of responsibility”, including the introduction of new settings and controls in Android that will help users either control their own use of devices or others’ (eg. children).
Google already has some decent Family Link for Android (which allows parents to control how kids’ usage time in apps and lock them if required), as well as the presence of a host of apps on the Play Store that work quite well but the new controls are reportedly set to offer finer grained controls.
Google’s still in love with its AI though – according to the same report, the company is set to introduce more AI capabilities into the Google Assistant, making it more interactive and allowing search results to be prioritised.
With just hours to go before Google’s biggest event of the year, we won’t have long to see whether the report is accurate, and what Google has in store for us.
