US-India ‘natural partners’ in AI, will co-create global solutions: Google public policy chief Karan Bhatia

Karan Bhatia is Google’s Global boss for Government Affairs and Public Policy. Bhatia – who served as Deputy US Trade Representative (USTR) between 2005 and 2007 -- says India is like a second home for the tech giant and stands as a “natural ally” to America when it comes to the development of AI and subsequent regulations. He says Google’s investments in India, including hirings and development of global solutions, will only strengthen with time, complementing the company’s previously-committed $10 billion India Digitization Fund. He denies the company wants to monopolize the local tech ecosystem by abusing its dominant position, and says the industry is highly competitive which acts as a deterrent against any hegemony of the Big Tech.

Excerpts from an interview given to TOI at Google’s Washington office earlier this month:

Google has been in India for over two decades now, and been an integral part of the country’s digital revolution. How do you see your engagement here going forward and how critical is India when we look at Google's global ambitions?

If you look at the growth and the investments that Google has made in India, it does justify the statement that ‘India is like our second home’.We have more than 13,000 employees in the country, we have five major office sites, and have invested in creating substantial amounts of infrastructure… I think the future is quite optimistic, and quite exciting. India is absolutely one of the most critical markets for Google globally. It's not just its scale, which obviously is huge, but it's also a very, very tech savvy market.

AI has been expanding exponentially across the globe. How do you see India and the US collaborating in the development of AI, and also in creation of regulations around frontier technologies?

I think the US and India are natural partners in the development of AI. There are complementary strengths and strong existing ties in talent and in technology that are going to make the US and India co-creators of AI solutions for years to come.

I'm particularly pleased to see the bipartisan commitment – both under (former) President (Joe) Biden and (current) President (Donald) Trump – to deepen the technology relationship with India. This is important and provides the stability that companies need to strengthen business-to-business relationships.

I think there are a lot of components that make me believe that the future of AI is going to be one where you see the US and India work very closely together.

Beyond the benefits of AI, we have also seen new threats emerge from areas such as deep fakes, synthetic content, and misinformation. This is particularly dangerous in a market like India which has a billion-plus people with smartphones. We've seen instances where misinformation can create havoc.

AI is clearly a very powerful technology. Sundar (Pichai) has said from the outset that AI is too important not to be regulated. But too important not to be regulated smartly.

And I think it starts with how each company itself approaches the area. Google, starting back in 2018 and well before the current AI craze, was probably the first major company to adopt what we called ‘AI principles’, which were certain basic rules that we applied to how we are going to develop AI and what tools and applications we would allow for AI to be deployed in and where we would not. And we've continued to maintain a set of AI principles all the way up to today.

Are you prepared for regulations around AI. There have been instances where regulatory efforts have been fragmented across regions. Does that worry you? Do you believe that regulations around critical technologies like AI should be global in nature and perhaps harmonised?

Very much so. We are quite concerned with what we've seen, not just with respect to AI, but with respect to digital regulation, (and) technology regulation. Over the last decade, there has been an explosion in regulation that we've seen. Just in the Asia Pacific region alone, 1,300 new regulations have been adopted over the past three years that have an impact on the way our services operate or are brought to market. Imagine any other sector going through that.

If you are the airline industry, for instance, and every country, every city, requires that your wings be a little bit longer or your wheels be a little bit shorter. You know, it's crazy.

Even for a big company like Google that has the resources to be able to create complicated and sophisticated compliance systems, this is a challenge. If you talk about smaller companies, it becomes prohibitive to do this. And so, there's much less innovation, there's much less trade that happens.

So, we do believe and think that it would be a great benefit, and maybe something coming of the current trade discussions around the world, that there could be a more harmonized set of rules governing technology and governing digital services.

Google has been a key player in furthering India’s digital ambitions. But there's also this fear – something which is felt globally -- that Big Tech is stifling startups. In India, we saw Google being penalised by fair play regulator Competition Commission (CCI). You also had the billing issue on Play Store where local companies accused Google of abusing dominance, and monopolizing the ecosystem. How much do you agree with the view that the dominance and scale of Big Tech is becoming a challenge for smaller companies?

First of all, I have never seen a sector that is more dynamic and more competitive than the technology sector. You just look back five years ago -- companies like OpenAI, even TikTok, were barely present on the system. Today they are global powerhouses. Two years from now, who knows what the next great company is going to be. So, this is an incredibly dynamic industry. The idea that any one company has got the ability to lock out new products, it just doesn't resonate when you look at what the history of the last five, ten, or 15 years has been.

Secondly, Google has been one of the great incubators of new businesses, startups, sometimes even competitors. And that's great.

Lastly, I will just say that we are very proud of the relationship that we have with small businesses. So, whether you want to talk about a YouTube creator who may be a single mother who has managed to get a global audience watching how she cooks the best biryani, or a developer who's come up with some new great app. They’re utilizing Google’s platforms to be able to build their businesses, compete and grow.

I think there are always going to be people who use the competition laws to try to sort of nudge outcomes that they like.

I can assure you, hand on heart, that we feel like this is a very competitive world.

In India, how do you view the govt’s moves to regulate the tech sector? We had the digital personal data protection (DPDP) law come in. We are now moving towards overhauling the current IT law, while working on Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill, and a Digital Competition Bill. Do you think these steps are in the right direction, or does it complicate things, especially when countries like India mirror legislations enacted in the EU and suddenly implement them.

I won't comment specifically on India. But broadly speaking, we are not opposed to regulation, whether it's of AI or other digital services.

But we do think that it’s important that it be balanced, targeted, and harmonized.

When it comes to balanced, there is always a trade off in regulation between risk and lost opportunity. You just have to figure out what that right balance is. There's so much opportunity now with respect to technology. There are risks of misuse. But there is also the risk of missed use, you know, that you don't use. And when you're a company that's competing globally – say in automotive, pharmaceutical, chemicals, whatever -- and if you don't have access to the best technology to enable you to do the best product innovation or the best marketing or the best production, you are going to be at a disadvantage compared to your global competitors.

So, we think it is critical to have balanced regulation.

Targeted is the second point I would say. Oftentimes, govts find the incentive to just go out and do something. And they don't note that there's already a lot of regulation on the books. Not to make everything about AI, but AI is a perfect example. If it's fraud, it's fraud. Whether you're perpetrating it by AI or whether you're perpetrating it based on, you know, the mail.

Lastly, it being harmonized is the key. You cannot have a hundred different types of regulations, whether it's in a country, a region, the globe.

In the last couple of years, we've seen this rise in instances where nations are going for data sovereignty, including in India. Govts today want greater control on what is happening with the data. There are suspicions over the handling of data by the Big Tech. Are you okay with this sovereign data assertiveness?

We do understand that there is always going to be certain data that is highly sensitive which needs to be stored in the country and completely under the control of a govt entity or sometimes a state-owned entity.

In general, we would say that it is good for having the ability for data to move across borders and for data to be stored in the cloud, frankly, because it is more secure. It has been shown to be more secure when it is in the cloud than when it is stored in on-premise kinds of systems where any individual employee can make a mistake or where you could find some vulnerability of the data in a specific place. Even just storing everything in one place alone creates a risk.

Having said that, there are always situations where there's going to be some sovereignty requirements. We understand that.

However, we think that for the govts to be truly sovereign, we need to do three things. They need to have control and at Google, we believe in giving them that control. We think there needs to be security and then, we think there needs to be choice. Let me walk through each of those a little bit.

On control, what we have said is that if you -- a govt -- wants your data to be running on a Google system, but that you want to control it, fine. We can either put it on the cloud and give you unique access controls, encryption controls, which means that we cannot access the data, there is zero access for us, and there is complete control of the govt. Or if you even want it, you can take it and have what is called an air gap solution which is basically Google's technology residing on an on-premise set of servers. Both of those are fine and we can facilitate it. You can get a lot of the benefits of Google's services and technology while having complete control over the data. That's the control part.

But control without security and without choice really isn't sovereignty. So, security means you've got to have the best-in-class global security. We've hugely invested in this space. I think Google today is widely acknowledged as probably having the best track record for security of our systems. It's built into everything we do, starting with Gmail, starting with Google's own services. So, security is a key component.

And then lastly choice -- If a govt is beholden to one company to provide all of its office software, or all of its cloud solutions, what sovereignty is there really? There is none. You're at the control of the best one company. So, we have strongly advocated that any govt must adopt a multi-cloud, multi-provider solution. Don't go only with Google. We would urge not to go only with Google, but you also should not go with any other one company. There has to be diversity.

What is your view about the impact of AI on jobs? Do you think it will be positive for jobs or do you think it can actually take the number of jobs down?

If you only look at the history of technology writ large, it has been a job creator over the course of history, and continues to be so even now. Will it change the jobs? Absolutely right.

We no longer have people driving horse-drawn carriages anymore, but we have many, many more jobs of people who are building cars, creating automotive systems, and operating highways than existed before. We think the same is going to happen with AI.

Lastly, what is your view on India's talent in IT. This is one area where we started developing very early and we've got a big pool of talented IT professionals.

Also, why do you think India has not been able to produce a Google or a Microsoft or an OpenAI? Do you see that happening anytime soon?

The talent of the Indian IT workforce is well known globally and it's the reason why we and many other companies have a strong presence in India.

On the question of why you don't have a Google or an Amazon born out of India – I feel India is a hotbed of great innovation, and there are great companies in the IT and other space that continue to be born. I have no doubt that the future is going to see even more global IT powerhouses coming out of India.