Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

  • [VIDEO PLAYBACK]

  • - I'll tell people, I work at Google.

  • And they go, what do you work on?

  • I design Search.

  • And they kind of pause for a second

  • and they're like, what is there to design?

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

  • - Oh, I know.

  • It's cat.

  • [BEEP]

  • - Hi.

  • How can I help?

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

  • [END PLAYBACK]

  • BRENDA FOGG: Hello, everybody.

  • I'm Brenda Fogg.

  • I work in the Creative Lab, which

  • is sort of a multi-disciplinary creative group within Google

  • that often collaborates with other teams

  • across the company on product or technology experiments.

  • And sometimes, finding new ways to talk about some

  • of the innovative work that's going on inside of Google.

  • And at some point over the years,

  • I've worked with each of our panelists

  • on some of those projects that you probably saw on the video

  • just now.

  • So we're going to talk a little bit about some things

  • that you may have seen.

  • A little bit about design at Google

  • and what that means as sort of a fundamental framework

  • and connective tissue between the things that Google makes

  • and making them as useful and accessible to as many people as

  • possible.

  • So let's start with some introductions.

  • We have Doug Eck right here to my left,

  • who leads a project called Magenta,

  • which is all about exploring machine learning

  • and creativity.

  • We have Isabelle Olsson, who's responsible for the design

  • of the Google Home and wearables and hardware.

  • And over there is Ryan Germick, Principal Designer,

  • who also is known as the Doodle guy.

  • And has been quite involved in the Google Assistant.

  • And generally, just in the business

  • of delighting users everywhere.

  • So let's start by letting everybody

  • talk a little bit about what you do at Google.

  • And we'll start with Doug, because you're

  • sitting next to me.

  • You head up this project called Magenta.

  • For anybody who doesn't know exactly what that is,

  • maybe you can talk a little bit about that.

  • And maybe touch on what inspired the group

  • and the focus of the team.

  • DOUGLAS ECK: OK, sure.

  • So yeah, I lead a project called Magenta.

  • The M-A-G in Magenta stands for Music and Art Generation.

  • And we started by trying to understand the capacity

  • to use AI, specifically machine learning,

  • to generate music and art.

  • And it took us about a month to realize that that's

  • asking the wrong question.

  • Because if all you're doing is trying

  • to generate music and art, then you

  • just keep pushing this button and the machine learning

  • keeps making music and art for you.

  • And it gets boring fast.

  • So we pivoted very quickly to talking about,

  • how can we use machine learning to enable artists and enable

  • musicians to make something new?

  • To make something different?

  • So it's sitting on the same idea of technology and art

  • interacting with one another in a virtuous way,

  • starting with cave drawings and moving forward

  • through the film camera and other bits of technology.

  • So yeah, I'm about AI and art and music.

  • BRENDA FOGG: So you're not necessarily

  • trying to replace creativity or duplicate creativity,

  • but more providing the tools to enable people to do that?

  • DOUGLAS ECK: Yeah.

  • And I think it's not just because that's

  • what we choose to focus on.

  • I think creativity is fundamentally human.

  • And it's about communication.

  • So if we take the communication loop out,

  • we can imagine in some analytical way, a computer

  • generating new things.

  • But what makes creativity work is how we respond to it

  • and how we then feedback in to that process.

  • So I think it's very much a societal communicative act.

  • BRENDA FOGG: And that idea of creating new things,

  • like maybe some things that weren't

  • necessarily possible before.

  • That weren't humanly possible to create.

  • So there's an-- I don't know if you want to talk about this,

  • but this example that was shown in the lead-up into the keynote

  • yesterday.

  • The NSynth Project, which is one of those things

  • that can sort of augment what human creativity can do.

  • You want to touch on that?

  • DOUGLAS ECK: Yeah, sure.

  • For NSynth and the following hardware device,

  • NSynth Super, you may have seen was

  • played on stage before the keynote and discussed there.

  • I think the main idea there is, can we

  • use machine learning to allow us to generate new sounds?

  • And sounds that are musically meaningful to us?

  • And one thing to point out is that we already

  • have ways to do that.

  • There's a bunch of great software.

  • I have a piano at my house, so I can-- and a guitar.

  • There are lots of ways to make sounds.

  • What we hope we can get is some kind

  • of expressive edge with AI.

  • Something that we can do with these models.

  • A kind of intuitiveness or a kind of new kind

  • of mobility artistically by having a new tool.

  • And the one thing I would say, I don't

  • want to take up too much time because there's

  • a lot of other great people here on stage.

  • But I really like to think about the film camera.

  • The film camera was initially not

  • treated as an artistic device.

  • It was treated as something to capture reality.

  • And it was transformed into an artistic device

  • by artists, by photographers.

  • And our hope on Magenta is that we

  • find the right artists and the right musicians

  • to take what we're doing and turn it

  • into something creative.

  • BRENDA FOGG: So turning something

  • into creative, Isabelle.

  • When you're designing a product, the Home for example,

  • you're trying to create something that appeals

  • to everyone through its design.

  • But everybody's different, right?

  • So these are physical products that share a physical space

  • with the people that use them.

  • And like sometimes, you have to cohabitate.

  • So talk a little bit about how you approach that problem.

  • ISABELLE OLSSON: Yeah.

  • I mean, I think I have the utmost respect

  • for people's homes.

  • And like you said, they're all different.

  • And I think next to your body, your home

  • is your most intimate space.

  • And it's the place for you share with your loved

  • ones and your family.

  • So to enter that space with our products,

  • we have to be super-thoughtful about what we do there.

  • And I think for us, the most important thing

  • is to be inspired by the context in which our products live in.

  • So when we were designing Google Home Mini for example,

  • the goal was to design an Assistant for every room.

  • And that means your bedside table.

  • And your bedside table, that's where you put devices

  • that help you see better.

  • Or like, a book that helps you dream.

  • So that space is just so special.

  • We wanted to create something that was beautiful,

  • that fit into the home, and didn't take up

  • too much attention, and kind of faded a little bit

  • into the background.

  • BRENDA FOGG: And you're also responsible for CMF

  • at Google, which is Color Material Finish, right?

  • ISABELLE OLSSON: Yes.

  • BRENDA FOGG: And I've heard this story about testing,

  • like 150 different versions of color palettes for the Mini.

  • Is that right?

  • ISABELLE OLSSON: Yeah.

  • I mean, I think for us, developing the color palette

  • for the Google family of products

  • and individual products is a very--

  • it's a combination of art and science, I would say.

  • And we start usually two to three years

  • before the products come out.

  • So we have to do a lot of anticipation

  • of where society is going, where trends are going.

  • And take all of those kind of inputs

  • into account to make sure that when we release a product,

  • it makes sense to people.

  • In addition to that, of course when you design for the home,

  • you have to think about the fact that there is going to be light

  • hitting the product.

  • How does it stand the test of time?

  • We want to make sure the products look beautiful

  • for a long time.

  • So we have to go through a lot of iteration to get it right.

  • And then also, especially as we're

  • developing fabrics for example, depending on where you put it,

  • it takes different--

  • it looks different in different lighting conditions.

  • So when we designed Mini, we went through,

  • I think 150 iterations of just the gray color.

  • But it was a lot of fun.

  • And it was about finding that right balance with,

  • what is too light?

  • What's too dark?

  • And the other day, I got this lovely email by someone

  • on the team who had picked out his couch to match Google Home

  • Max.

  • So I took that as a giant compliment

  • because we were trying to do it the other way around.

  • But that was a beautiful story.

  • BRENDA FOGG: What is the intersection of the intuition

  • that you use as a designer when you approach

  • these kinds of problems with the sort of iterative testing?

  • And sort of the scientific materials examination?

  • ISABELLE OLSSON: Yeah, it's a hodgepodge.

  • The process is not linear.

  • It's pretty messy, usually.

  • But we have fun with it.

  • I think the key is gather as much input as possible,

  • and then digest it.

  • And then, come up with prototypes and ways

  • of relating to how this will fit into people's homes.

  • So even right next to my desk, I have a big bookshelf

  • that we place random objects from all

  • over the world for inspiration.

  • But also, to kind of put our stuff there quickly

  • to see, how does it feel?

  • And how does it feel over time?

  • Because it's not only about creating something

  • that you are first attracted to, but it

  • has to be things that you can live with for a long time.

  • BRENDA FOGG: So Ryan, you lead the Google Doodles team.

  • And this team is unique in a lot of ways.

  • Namely, one of them is that you regularly and willfully break

  • the brand rules.

  • RYAN GERMICK: Gleefully, yeah.

  • BRENDA FOGG: Gleefully for Google.

  • In fact, on a daily basis, many, many times.

  • And that's unusual because it's the core of the brand.

  • And that's something that seems to keep working and working

  • and working over the years.

  • So talk a little bit about why you

  • think it's important to have the ability to kind

  • of just mess with it.

  • RYAN GERMICK: Sure.

  • I mean, Google's mission is to organize the world's

  • information and make it universally

  • accessible and useful.

  • And I believe in that mission.

  • I think it's a very powerful, good thing to do for the world.

  • And we hone in on the idea of making

  • things accessible by creating an emotional connection

  • with users.

  • And sometimes, like mucking up the standards.

  • That's like collateral damage for people

  • getting a positive charge and learning something new

  • or having fun with something, then we think it's worthwhile.

  • And yeah, I think on a human level,

  • there are things that are more important than consistency.

  • It's, for us, more about using our creativity and craft

  • to make people feel welcome in the space of technology.

  • BRENDA FOGG: Yeah.

  • So making people feel welcome in the space of technology.

  • You also lead the team who created the personality

  • for the Google Assistant.

  • RYAN GERMICK: Right.

  • BRENDA FOGG: And how do you create a personality?

  • I mean, there's sort of the transactional things that

  • have to happen between a user when they're interacting

  • with a digital assistant.

  • And they have an expectation that they're

  • going to be delivered the information that they

  • asked for.

  • And you felt like it needed to go a little bit farther

  • than that sort of transactional relationship.

  • But people have-- a little bit the way

  • we were talking with Isabella, everyone

  • has different things that they like to interact with.

  • And some people like small talk and some people don't.

  • And some people think things are funny that other people think

  • are totally not funny at all.

  • Talk a little about that.

  • RYAN GERMICK: Yeah.

  • I mean, I think that as Isabella mentioned,

  • that technology, like the assistant that

  • comes in a smart speaker, or a smart display,

  • or in your phone, is really personal.

  • That's one thing.

  • And so we recognize that we have a different set of design

  • challenges than if it was more objective, like a Google Search

  • engine [INAUDIBLE].

  • And then also, when you invite this technology

  • into your life--

  • we're using this conversational interface as a metaphor.

  • You can talk to it and it can respond to you.

  • And as soon as you hear the human voice,

  • it not only opens up an opportunity

  • to have a character, but what we've seen,

  • it's almost like an obligation to design for the character.

  • Because if you don't design for it,

  • then people will just assume you don't have much of a character.

  • But there's still some implicit character.

  • So we took the learnings that we had from Doodles,

  • and being an implicit character for Google

  • where we celebrate certain things

  • and we get creative and nerdy and excited.

  • And we tried to transfer that over to the Google Assistant,

  • where it could be like a character

  • that you'd want to spend time with because it has things

  • that it gets excited about.

  • Or it has a perspective where it really wants to help you.

  • And not just be something that you want to use,

  • but something that you want to spend time with.

  • So yeah, surprising number of the principles

  • are things that we did for Doodles

  • were applicable for the Google Assistant.

  • And it's a huge project.

  • And there's a lot of pieces to the puzzle,

  • but we think it's an important part of the user experience

  • to have a sense of who the character is.

  • BRENDA FOGG: Yeah.

  • So each of you have talked a little bit

  • about how technology interacts with humans and vice-versa.

  • And how those two things have to kind of co-exist.

  • So good design and thoughtful design

  • is a means to make technology, in this case,

  • more approachable and useful and usable.

  • And friendly.

  • And to make people comfortable with that.

  • And you all approach your work and problem-solving

  • in this way from a very human perspective, right?

  • A very like-- you inject empathy.

  • We're going to get real and talk about humanity and empathy,

  • right?

  • Injecting this empathy into your process.

  • So let's talk about that.

  • Doug, do you think--

  • can the work you do with machine learning allow a machine

  • to express art in a human way?

  • Let's start there.

  • DOUGLAS ECK: Start there.

  • Yes, with some constraints on how this all works.

  • I think what we realized early was

  • that we need at least two players in this game,

  • so to speak.

  • Part of the work is building new technology.

  • So in some sense, we're taking on the role

  • that a luthier might take on in building a guitar.

  • Or that someone doing a music tech program

  • might take on in building a new kind of electronic instrument.

  • And I think there's a thought process that

  • goes with building something like that

  • that is very creative.

  • But I think you're also in some very real way constrained

  • by the act of building the thing.

  • To understand it in a certain way.

  • It's your baby.

  • You built it.

  • And so you know-- you wrote the operating manual,

  • so you know what this thing is supposed to do.

  • And in most cases, what we see is that for something to become

  • a truly expressive, artistic device,

  • it has to in some very real way be broken by someone else.

  • And I think it's almost impossible for us

  • as the builders of that device to also

  • be the ones that break it.

  • And so our dream in Magenta is to connect with artists

  • and musicians and people.

  • People that don't know how to code.

  • People that don't necessarily even care

  • much about computation and draw them into this conversation.

  • And so what we found is that we started by releasing machine

  • learning models in open source on GitHub as part of TensorFlow

  • with instructions like, please run this 15-line-long Python

  • command.

  • It's going to be great.

  • Just run this command and hit Enter.

  • And then, just wait because you're

  • going to get 100 MIDI files in a temp directory somewhere

  • on your machine, right?

  • Everybody's like, that's not how I make music.

  • So what we've seen is that part of our work,

  • even on the technologist side, even as luthiers, so to speak--

  • guitar makers--

  • part of our job is to do good design.

  • And to build interfaces that people can use.

  • And then, hopefully the interfaces

  • are flexible enough and expressive enough

  • that in some very meaningful way,

  • people can also do some fun breakage.

  • And getting there requires a lot of moving parts.

  • A large component of which is very good design.

  • BRENDA FOGG: I like that notion of breaking things.

  • You told a story once about--

  • or you made an analogy once about the electric guitar,

  • I think, and how that's a little bit similar.

  • Like the dissonance that people create

  • with electric guitars is not--

  • DOUGLAS ECK: Yeah.

  • That's right.

  • So first, I tell the same stories.

  • I'm like the grandpa--

  • BRENDA FOGG: Well, I don't know if you tell it to everybody.

  • DOUGLAS ECK: Please, tell us that story again.

  • No, but it's true.

  • The electric guitar was invented to be a loud acoustic guitar.

  • To overcome noise on stage.

  • And the worst-- they were trying really hard to not

  • have these amplifiers distort.

  • So imagine a world where amplifiers don't distort

  • and electric guitars sound like acoustic guitars.

  • You actually haven't moved very far.

  • And the breakage there was actually

  • having fun with the distortion.

  • And actually, going for sounds that aren't

  • like an acoustic guitar.

  • BRENDA FOGG: Let's go back to Isabelle.

  • One of the things I think that's so interesting about your work,

  • and that people have to co-habitate

  • with these physical things, is that it's just

  • as important, or maybe more important,

  • how people feel about these things

  • rather than just what their utility is.

  • What kind of considerations do you make for--

  • we're starting to sound like hippies now.

  • But like, what people's feelings and their empathies and the way

  • they co-exist in the space with these things?

  • ISABELLE OLSSON: I think a good tool

  • that I use a lot is that I put stuff in front of people

  • and ask them, what do you think it looks like?

  • It's a fun game.

  • You don't always get back what you want to hear.

  • But it's a really good way of testing

  • if the object you've created, does it

  • have positive connotations or negative connotations?

  • The first time I showed a prototype of Mini,

  • I showed it to a French person who said, it's like a macaron.

  • And I thought that was amazing because, first of all,

  • I love macarons.

  • And then, I think having something connotate

  • something sweet and delicious is just excellent.

  • And again, we surround ourselves with food.

  • That was just--

  • I knew we were onto something there.

  • And food is something universally appealing,

  • generally.

  • So that's one exercise out of many.

  • I think the key is just to really make the thing

  • real really quickly.

  • To translate the big idea into something

  • tangible, and then ourselves living with it for a while,

  • too.

  • And then also, think about not only

  • the food analogies, but also making sure

  • that the objects we design are understandable.

  • You understand what it is.

  • So again with Mini, we wanted it to look

  • a little bit like a speaker and a little bit like a microphone,

  • but not too much of either.

  • But be very honest to that function.

  • And then, connotate that this goes in the home.

  • And therefore, the fabrics and the things that we use to

  • surround ourselves with.

  • BRENDA FOGG: Yeah.

  • It has to have that human touch to it

  • as part of the design process.

  • ISABELLE OLSSON: And the beauty of it

  • is when you find these solutions, a lot of the times,

  • they enhance the function or help with the function.

  • Like fabric is this excellent material

  • that is most of the time audio transparent.

  • You can have lights through it.

  • You can kind of create this calmness in the object itself

  • by getting all the functionality through it.

  • And I'm really passionate about trying

  • to design pieces of technology, which hopefully people think

  • about they're just stuff and not as technology,

  • but that can live out in the open.

  • There's just way too many pieces of furniture

  • that are purely designed to hide technology.

  • So my goal in life is if we could get rid of those things.

  • BRENDA FOGG: And Ryan, that sort of human touch

  • is pretty evident in most everything that you do.

  • So if we can talk about the Google Assistant again.

  • It was designed to operate and to be

  • used through the power of conversation,

  • which is a fundamental human interface, I guess.

  • And through the course of your work on creating a personality,

  • talk a little bit about how you sort of steered through

  • the landmines of what kinds of-- aside

  • from the transactional things, what kinds of things

  • are people going to want to talk about with their Assistant?

  • RYAN GERMICK: Yeah.

  • I mean, I think this may be a bit cliche,

  • but it's so early days.

  • So I think we're still steering.

  • But for us, a guiding principle for our success

  • is, is a feeling thing.

  • Does this feel like a character you want to spend time with,

  • like I mentioned earlier.

  • As far as like finding things that people--

  • we wanted to steer clear of.

  • I mean, it was really interesting to look

  • at the different queries that people ask Google Search,

  • and then what people ask Google Assistant.

  • And at Google, as you might imagine,

  • there's a lot of people that have a background

  • in like information retrieval.

  • And like, data ranking, things like search ranking,

  • things like that.

  • And it kind of turned things on their head

  • when now people are asking questions like,

  • what's your favorite flavor of ice cream?

  • Or like, did you fart?

  • And those are like pretty--

  • more common than you think when people first

  • get a piece of technology that's been lovingly crafted.

  • They all of a sudden have a very different relationship to it.

  • A very sizable number of the queries

  • that we get on the Google Assistant

  • are like, first-date queries.

  • Like, do you have any brothers or sisters?

  • It's really sweet.

  • DOUGLAS ECK: Ryan, you're the only person that can--

  • what is her favorite flavor of ice cream?

  • I'm sure everybody wants to know.

  • RYAN GERMICK: This is a very illuminating question, Doug.

  • Thank you for asking.

  • So basically, we have a principle.

  • And this speaks to Brenda's question, too.

  • We basically set up principles where we--

  • for example, we have one principle

  • that we want to talk like a human.

  • We want to take advantage of the human voice and the interface.

  • But we don't want to pretend to be one.

  • So if you were to ask a question like,

  • what's your favorite flavor of ice cream,

  • we would do what we would call an artful dodge.

  • And we look to our training in improv theater

  • where we don't want to deny the user of like,

  • I do not eat ice cream.

  • I do not have a mouth.

  • That's like a really bummer answer.

  • If you're exploring a new technology,

  • that's a shut down to the conversation.

  • But at the same time, we don't want

  • to lie and say like, well, salted caramel, obviously.

  • This is like a position that is disingenuous because it

  • does not eat ice cream.

  • So we would say something like, you

  • can't go wrong with Neapolitan.

  • There's something in it for everyone.

  • And we would take that question, understand

  • that the subtext is like, I'm getting to know what you are

  • and what your capabilities are.

  • And we would-- yes, and.

  • And we would kind of continue to play the game.

  • And use it actually as an opportunity

  • to make a value statement that we're inclusive.

  • And we want everybody to know--

  • we want to reflect that ice cream that is good for everyone

  • is good.

  • BRENDA FOGG: How much dialog goes on within your team

  • when you're trying to--

  • when you're talking about, OK.

  • What if someone asks the Google Assistant, do you fart?

  • RYAN GERMICK: Yeah.

  • As soon as that question I knew was going to be answered.

  • And it wasn't just going to default to an answer,

  • I knew that we already won.

  • The humanist amongst us already won.

  • Because there was a school of thought that you would say,

  • I don't fart.

  • I don't have a body.

  • And that was like, end of story.

  • And that just seems--

  • that's true, but kind of not in line

  • with keeping the game going.

  • So we would have a lot of back and forth.

  • And we would then like, take that answer.

  • And we'd say, well, at least you could say, I don't have a butt.

  • Because at least then you'd be a little more specific.

  • BRENDA FOGG: Start there.

  • No butt.

  • RYAN GERMICK: But in our case, we

  • ended up with something a little more playful and little more

  • addressing the subtext, which is of the school of like, whoever

  • smelt it, dealt it.

  • Which we said, you can blame me if you want.

  • I don't mind.

  • If the user's asking about that, let's

  • just take it one step further and put them on the spot.

  • BRENDA FOGG: Are you all going to go

  • ask your Google Assistant now?

  • RYAN GERMICK: I think there's like 25 different answers

  • because that is definitely a key use case for--

  • BRENDA FOGG: Keep asking.

  • Just keep asking.

  • OK.

  • So let's talk a little bit about how all of this humanity

  • plays out in the context of a brand, like Google.

  • So Isabelle, the Home Mini, you mentioned,

  • needed to be both a speaker and a microphone

  • as well as an assistant and behave like an assistant.

  • So if you're starting from those kind of very engineering

  • kind of product requirements, how

  • do you go from there into the idea of personality of a brand?

  • In Ryan's case, his work talks.

  • The personality comes through that way.

  • In your work, it comes through sort of the materials

  • and the things.

  • How do you consider the personality of the Google brand

  • in the work that you do?

  • ISABELLE OLSSON: Yeah.

  • I mean, I think it's a huge responsibility.

  • And we're only a few years into making hardware

  • that people actually put down money for.

  • And you know, the brand is just really incredible.

  • So we're trying to figure out, what's core to Google?

  • And how do we translate that into physical form?

  • And sometimes, it's not about a direct translation.

  • Because most people don't want to pay money

  • for something quirky, maybe.

  • So taking that kind of principle and that idea,

  • and then thinking about what it means for hardware.

  • So in this case for example, to me,

  • Google stands for a sense of optimism.

  • And kind of this optimistic outlook on the future.

  • So if I can do things that remind people of that or that

  • makes people smile, I think that that naturally then feels

  • like a Google product.

  • So just one simple example of that

  • is you turn Mini upside down, there

  • is a pop of color on the back.

  • And only you as a person who bought the product know that.

  • But you know it kind of has that Google on the inside.

  • BRENDA FOGG: Yeah.

  • Let's go back to Ryan then.

  • Because over the years, over seven or eight years,

  • or whatever.

  • However many years you've been--

  • DOUGLAS ECK: 12 almost.

  • BRENDA FOGG: 12 years.

  • You've had a lot of opportunities

  • to craft those sort of moments of delight

  • and those sort of little user experiences

  • that are like turning over the Mini

  • and finding a little surprise.

  • So everything from-- you're responsible for the Pegman,

  • which is the character that you drop into Google Maps

  • when you go into Street View.

  • And we talked about the personality of the Google

  • Assistant a little bit.

  • And then of course, the Doodles taking over the Home page.

  • So over the 12 years that you've been

  • kind of working in that territory,

  • and as the Google brand has grown and evolved,

  • have you found-- how has that growth of the brand impacted

  • the work that you do?

  • RYAN GERMICK: I think the core of what I try to do,

  • I almost discovered it by accident.

  • Like the Street View Pegman, maybe

  • is a story for another day.

  • But I was just glad that I worked

  • in a place that had free strawberries when I got here.

  • That was very exciting to me.

  • And then, that they paid me to draw and be creative

  • was just beyond my wildest dream.

  • So I'm just like, happy to be here.

  • Still, I'm happy to be here.

  • But what kind of worked for me because it was always

  • sort of my MO was, how can I use my position of privilege

  • to bring other people up and to give them a sense of belonging?

  • And that has stayed consistent.

  • So whether it's trying to make sure we have inclusive Doodles

  • or creating an opportunity for a little, like mannequin that

  • can be dressed up for holidays or whatever, for Street View.

  • There's been a through line where maybe in the beginning,

  • Google was more of an underdog.

  • And now, Google is like a very important part

  • of people's lives.

  • I don't think you could really say it's a small organization,

  • by any stretch.

  • But there are still human touch points

  • that matter to make people feel like they belong,

  • which is what Google's trying to do for everyone.

  • BRENDA FOGG: I want to make sure we leave time for questions,

  • if anybody has them.

  • So if you have questions, you could

  • start coming to the microphones while we kind of go

  • a little bit into the future.

  • Let's talk about the future.

  • So if we're sitting here a year from now or a few years

  • from now, Doug, what do you expect that machine learning

  • might do for art in the future?

  • Whether it's your aspirations for the next 12 or 18 months,

  • or maybe 5 years from now.

  • DOUGLAS ECK: So I think the really interesting way

  • to think about this is consider generative models as a family

  • of machine learning models.

  • Models that generate new instances of the data

  • upon which they're trained.

  • Where I see us going is actually very heavily integrating

  • the design process of products with generative models.

  • We're seeing machine learning generating part

  • of what we're trying to do.

  • And I think that's going to touch our lives in the arts

  • and music and communication in a number of ways.

  • And to those of you who are-- anybody

  • in the room a developer?

  • It's an easy question because we're at a developer

  • conference, right?

  • So we're going to have a responsibility

  • as machine learning experts to understand

  • a little bit about design.

  • A responsibility as back-end engineers

  • to understand a little bit about machine learning and design.

  • I think we're going to see much more of a need

  • for end-to-end integration.

  • For me, the future started happening already in a sense.

  • I have teenage kids, and I watched just how they

  • use Snapchat to communicate.

  • And how they've built their own kind of grammar around it.

  • And it's a very, very simple product.

  • Now, imagine 10 years of advances in assistive writing.

  • So you know, you're using Google Docs and you're writing.

  • And you have some machine learning algorithm

  • helping you communicate, right?

  • We're going to get very good at this very fast.

  • And I expect that when my kids were younger,

  • the teachers were all worried if they used Wikipedia

  • too much to write their papers.

  • And now it's going to be like, wait, how much of this

  • did you actually write?

  • What part of it did you write?

  • And what part of it did your Assistant write?

  • And I think we can be dystopian about that.

  • There are potentially some very difficult issues here.

  • But it's also wonderful, I think.

  • As long as we use this to communicate

  • more effectively and in different ways,

  • and we make it into something creative,

  • I think it's very exciting to think

  • about how machine learning can become

  • really more deeply integrated in the process of communicating.

  • And again, that's what I see the arts as being about

  • and music being about.

  • It's about communicating.

  • It's about sharing our thoughts, our feelings,

  • our beliefs with each other.

  • And I'm seeing in my career that happening more deeply

  • with machine learning as well.

  • So that's my future vision.

  • BRENDA FOGG: I love it.

  • I love your vision.

  • Isabelle, what about hardware?

  • What do you what do you want to see in hardware

  • in the next year or two?

  • ISABELLE OLSSON: Well, number 1, I

  • hope people find out about it.

  • So we just did a small exhibition in Milan

  • a couple of weeks ago.

  • And part of the exhibition was the portfolio

  • that we launched last year.

  • A lot of people will come up to me and say,

  • these concepts are great.

  • And I'm like, they're not concepts.

  • They're actual products.

  • So I think it was a little bit of that.

  • And then, I hope we just continue to design

  • for everyone in everyday life.

  • BRENDA FOGG: And Ryan, what would you like to--

  • what would you say?

  • What would you like people to take away today?

  • RYAN GERMICK: I think just remember that technology is

  • for people, first and foremost.

  • So just always keep that question

  • in the back of your mind of like,

  • how is what I'm doing helping people?

  • BRENDA FOGG: OK.

  • Do we have questions?

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it