Google Speaks: Secrets of the World's Greatest Billionaire Entrepreneurs, Sergey Brin and Larry Page

11.1. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Hidden behind its simple white pages, Google has already created what it says is one of the most sophisticated artificial intelligence systems ever built. In a fraction of a second, it can evaluate millions of variables about its users and advertisers, correlate them with its potential database of billions of ads and deliver the message to which each user is likely to respond.^[]

—Saul Hansell, writer, New York Times

During a question-and-answer session after a May 2002 speech at Stanford University, Larry Page said that Google would fulfill its mission only when its search engine was "AI-complete.... You guys know what that means? That's artificial intelligence."^[]

Page told the American Association for the Advancement of Science that artificial intelligence was getting a bad rap, but that it was doable and on its way. "My prediction is that when AI happens, it's going to [require] a lot of computation. Not so much clever algorithms. Just a lot of computation. If you look at [a human's] programming, your DNA, it's about 600 megabytes, compressed. So it's smaller than any modern operating system. Smaller than Linux or Windows.... So your program algorithms probably aren't that complicated. We have some people at Google who are trying to build artificial intelligence, and to do it at a large scale.... I don't think it's that far off."^[]

Like humans, AI learns from experience and logic: "The system can use all the signals available," explained Jeff Huber, ...