Sergey Brin Has Some Advice for Students in the Age of AI

On December 12, Sergey Brin (The Google co-founder spoke at the Stanford School of Engineering's centennial) offered advice for students facing AI right now. The co-founder of Google and parent company Alphabet appeared onstage with Stanford president Jonathan Levin and dean Jennifer Widom for the School of Engineering’s 100-year anniversary. Brin received his master’s degree in computer science from Stanford University in 1995, before meeting prospective PhD student Larry Page and founding Google a few years later. When Widom asked if he would recommend a computer science major to current students, Brin said he chose that field because he was passionate about it, which made it a “no-brainer.” Still, he wouldn’t suggest students change their academic plans solely because of AI. “I wouldn’t go off and, like, switch to comparative literature because you think the AI is good at coding,” Brin said. “When the AI writes the code, and just to be honest, sometimes doesn’t work, it’ll make a mistake that’s pretty significant. You know, getting a sentence wrong in your essay about comparative literature isn’t going to really have that consequence. So, it’s honestly easier for AI to do some of the, you know, creative things.” Levin asked Brin more broadly about the advice he had for students who are facing AI today. “The AI we have today is very different from the AI that we had five years ago, or the AI we are going to have in five years,” Brin said. “I think it’s tough to really forecast. I mean, I would for sure use AI to your benefit. There are just so many things that you can do.” He added that he personally “turn[s] to AI all the time now,” whether to help him find gifts for people close to him or to brainstorm new ideas and products. “It doesn’t do it for me, because I’ll typically ask it, ‘Give me five ideas, blah, blah, blah,’ and probably three of them are going to be junk in some way, but I’ll just be able to tell,” he said. “But two will have some grain of brilliance, or possibly put it in perspective for me or something like that, that I’ll be able to refine and think through my ideas.” BY AVA LEVINSON