"I've always thought of AI [artificial intelligence] as the most profound technology humanity is working on. More profound than fire or electricity or anything that we've done in the past," said Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google and its parent company Alphabet. The 50-year-old Pichai gave 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley rare access to the inner workings of Google's AI development, which includes robots that have acquired skills through machine learning and Project Starline, an AI video conferencing experience Google is developing to allow people to feel as though they are together, despite being in different locations. Perhaps Google's most anticipated and noteworthy foray into AI is its chatbot, Bard. The company presently calls it an experiment, in part to do more internal testing.

We may look on our time as the moment civilization was transformed as it was by fire, agriculture and electricity. In 2023, we learned that a machine taught itself how to speak to humans like a peer. Which is to say, with creativity, truth, error and lies. The technology, known as a chatbot, is only one of the recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence -- machines that can teach themselves superhuman skills. CEO Sundar Pichai told us AI will be as good or as evil as human nature allows. The revolution, he says, is coming faster than you know. Scott Pelley: Do you think society is prepared for what's coming? Sundar Pichai: You know, there are two ways I think about it. On one hand I feel, no, because you know, the pace at which we can think and adapt as societal institutions, compared to the pace at which the technology's evolving, there seems to be a mismatch. On the other hand, compared to any other technology, I've seen more people worried about it earlier in its life cycle. The number of people, you know, who have started worrying about the implications, and hence the conversations are starting in a serious way as well.

Despite what you hear about artificial intelligence, machines still can't think like a human, but in the last few years they have become capable of learning. And suddenly, our devices have opened their eyes and ears and cars have taken the wheel. Today, artificial intelligence is not as good as you hope and not as bad as you fear, but humanity is accelerating into a future that few can predict. That's why so many people are desperate to meet Kai-Fu Lee, the oracle of AI. Kai-Fu Lee is in there, somewhere, in a selfie scrum at a Beijing Internet Conference.

Despite what you hear about artificial intelligence, machines still can't think like a human, but in the last few years they have become capable of learning. And suddenly, our devices have opened their eyes and ears and cars have taken the wheel. Today, artificial intelligence is not as good as you hope and not as bad as you fear, but humanity is accelerating into a future that few can predict. That's why so many people are desperate to meet Kai-Fu Lee, the oracle of AI. Kai-Fu Lee is in there, somewhere, in a selfie scrum at a Beijing Internet Conference.