“60 hours is the sweet spot of productivity,” Sergey Brin is said to have written in a letter to the employees of Google's DeepMind. This is Google's AI department. The New York Times quotes the Google co-founder as saying that the competition for AI applications and, above all, an AGI, i.e., an Artificial General Intelligence that is smarter than humans, has intensified to such an extent that full commitment is required.
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Brin had actually withdrawn from the current business, but since the hype surrounding AI, he has become increasingly involved in management again. The reason is said to be his enthusiasm for the topic, but of course also the alarm that OpenAI has triggered at Google with products such as ChatGPT. Ultimately, it is about a kind of domination of the next technology and also of the Internet.
According to Brin, the 60 hours are only a rough guide. He is convinced, writes the New York Times, that employees would burn out and lose their creativity if they worked even more hours. However, this does not apply to everyone; some people are also able to work more. Apparently, people who only work the standard working hours are “unproductive” and “extremely demoralizing” for others.
Brin is also calling for a return to the office and thus a move away from working from home – for at least every working day. Google currently offers hybrid working with remote days and days spent in the office.
No “nanny products” – No guard rails
In the letter, Brin also explains that Google no longer wants to develop “nanny products” in the future. This refers to products that come with filters and “reject decisions”. We need to trust users more. In the case of AI, this would mean going in the direction of Elon Musk's Grok. His AI models come with virtually no guard rails. Accordingly, it is also possible to use the products to generate images showing Donald Trump kissing Elon Musk's feet or having phone sex with an AI voice. However, AI is also to be used even more internally to speed up processes.
Brin is co-founder of Google alongside Larry Page, and together they own the majority of the company's shares. They therefore still have the opportunity to have a say in the business. DeepMind was founded in 2010 by Nobel Prize winner Demis Hassabis. He heads the AI team, which was acquired by Google in 2014. DeepMind actually has a research-oriented approach.
