Google co-founder Sergey Brin acknowledges that he was caught off-guard by the phenomenon of artificial intelligence, which he notes now permeates key Google properties.
Speaking at the recent World Economic Forum Meeting in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, Brin, a trained computer scientist, said he didn't pay attention to AI in the 1990s because "everyone knew [AI] didn't work," he said.
Brin was head of the Google X research group, which featured Google Brain, a project centered on machine intelligence, he recalled. "Fast-forward a few years, and now Brain probably touches every single one of our main projects, ranging from search to photos to ads to everything we do."