Marissa Mayer wants to embrace the AI race and risks — in the right way

Marissa Mayer is well known around Silicon Valley.

She has credentials like Google (first female engineer) and Yahoo (CEO from 2012-2017), and now is CEO and cofounder of the startup Sunshine, a portfolio of apps to help users spend less time with technology and more time on human connection.

"How can you use technology to get time back and to deepen your connection with other people?" is a question she posed to Business Insider.

But perhaps what Mayer should be most known for is her early bet on artificial intelligence. Both her degrees from Stanford University have a specialization in AI. When she was interviewed for that early Google job, the conversation was mostly about AI, not search engines. "I've been fascinated with AI my whole career," she said.

As the generative-AI race picks up speed, Mayer said we have to understand the technology's "discomfort zone." Leaders should talk about the risks, and validate what is risky and what isn't.

"We need to really understand very clearly what the areas of discomfort should be," she said. "What's a real concern in the near term? What's a real concern in the long term?"

It's all about balance, and "I think leaders are getting a lot of it right," she added.

Her biggest concern is how China may be taking a different approach to AI development, compared with the US and other democratic nations.

"What happens with the artificial intelligence the West develops, versus the AI that's developed inside of China?" she asked.

This is a common theme among AI executives in the US. Google CEO Sundar Pichai and other Big Tech leaders have cautioned regulators about constraining AI developments, arguing that America could fall behind China in this crucial technology race.

"A lot of people focus on what's happening between companies in the US, and I think that misses the point," Mayer explained. "The values, standards, and a lot of different things in terms of what goes into the underpinnings of AI is very different across cultures."

Earlier this year, the Chinese government blocked generative AI offerings for months so it could spend time vetting and approving home-grown versions. 

"One of my biggest areas right now is that I worry that the public becomes so afraid, that regulation steps in alters and slows the path of what we develop here in the US and in the West in terms of artificial intelligence," Mayer told BI. "And we end up with an incredibly powerful artificial intelligence that's been developed, you know, from a very different viewpoint in terms of what rules humans play overall in the adoption of the technology."

She added that "there's comfort in it being a real race" but "the danger becomes if one actually pulls far ahead of the other and doesn't have the human-centered view that I think is really important in the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence."