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Every company would be affected if the artificial intelligence bubble bursts, the head of Google's parent company, Alphabet, told the BBC.
Speaking exclusively to BBC News, Sundar Pichai said that while the surge in investment in artificial intelligence (AI) had been an "extraordinary moment", there is some "irrationality" in the current AI boom.
This comes amid fears in Silicon Valley and beyond of a bubble, as the value of artificial intelligence technology companies has risen sharply in recent months and companies spend heavily on the booming industry.
Asked whether Google would be immune to the impact of the bursting of the artificial intelligence bubble, Pichai said the tech giant could weather that potential storm, but also issued a warning.
"I think no company will be immune, including us," he said.
Alphabet shares have doubled in value in seven months to $3.5 trillion (£2.7 trillion), as markets have become more confident in the search giant's ability to fend off the threat from ChatGPT owner OpenAI.
A particular focus is Alphabet's development of specialized artificial intelligence superchips that compete with Nvidia, led by Jensen Huang, which recently reached a $5 trillion valuation for the first time in the world.
As valuations rise, some analysts have expressed skepticism about a complex web of $1.4 trillion in deals being made around OpenAI, which is expected to have revenue this year of less than a thousandth of its planned investment.
In comments that echo those made by US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan in 1996, who warned of "unreasonable euphoria" in the market during the dotcom boom and well before that market's crash in 2000, Pichai said the industry could "outperform" investment cycles like this one.
"We can look back. There was clearly a lot of overinvestment, but none of us would question whether the internet was important," he said, adding, "I expect artificial intelligence to be the same. So I think it's both rational and there are elements of irrationality at a time like this."
His comments follow a warning from Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of US bank JP Morgan, who told the BBC last month that investment in artificial intelligence would pay off, but some of the money poured into the industry "would probably be lost".
But Pichai said Google's unique model of owning its "own full suite" of technologies, from chips to YouTube data to models and advanced science, meant it was better positioned to weather any turbulence in the artificial intelligence market.
Tech giants are spending big on artificial intelligence in a rush to dominate the boom
In September, Alphabet announced it was investing in artificial intelligence in the UK, committing £5 billion to infrastructure and research over the next two years.
Pichai said Alphabet will conduct "cutting-edge" research work in the United Kingdom, including its flagship artificial intelligence unit DeepMind, headquartered in London.
For the first time, he said Google would "over time" take a step being pushed in government to "train our models" in the UK, a move that cabinet ministers believe would cement the UK as the number three artificial intelligence "superpower" behind the US and China.
"We are committed to investing in the UK in a very meaningful way," Pichai said.
However, he also warned of the "extraordinary" energy needs of artificial intelligence, which accounted for 1.5% of global electricity consumption last year, according to the International Energy Agency.
He also acknowledged that the energy-intensive needs of its expanding artificial intelligence venture meant a drop in the company's climate targets, but insisted that Alphabet still had a goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2030 by investing in new energy technologies.
"The rate at which we hoped to make progress will be affected," he said.
AI will also impact work as we know it, Mr. Pichai said, calling it the “most profound technology” humanity has worked on.
"We will have to work to overcome social divisions," he said, adding that this would also "create new opportunities."
"It's going to evolve and change some jobs, and people are going to have to adapt," he said. Those who adapt to artificial intelligence "will have better outcomes."
"It doesn't matter if you want to be a teacher [or] a doctor. All of these professions will exist, but the people who will do well in each of these professions are the ones who learn how to use these tools," Pichai said. /Adapted from BBC/
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