Google CEO admits he doesn't 'fully understand' how his AI works after it taught itself a new language and invented fake data to advance an idea

Google released Bard in March, an artificial intelligence tool touted as ChatGPT's rival. Just weeks into this public experiment, Bard has already defied expectations and ethical boundaries.

In an interview with CBS' "60 Minutes" that aired Sunday, Google CEO Sundar Pichai admitted that there is a degree of impenetrability regarding generative AI chatbots' reasoning.

"There is an aspect of this which we call ... a 'black box.' You know, you don't fully understand," said Pichai. "You can't quite tell why it said this or why it got wrong. We have some ideas, and our ability to understand this gets better over time. But that's where the state of the art is."

CBS' Scott Pelley asked, "You don't fully understand how it works and yet you've turned it loose on society?"

"Let me put it this way: I don't think we fully understand how a human mind works either," responded Pichai. ---More...

One AI program spoke in a foreign language it was never trained to know. This mysterious behavior, called emergent properties, has been happening – where AI unexpectedly teaches itself a new skill. https://t.co/v9enOVgpXT pic.twitter.com/BwqYchQBuk

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes)April 16, 2023