It is known worldwide that Google is the most popular search engine. The company conducts many other projects and services aimed at improving the lives of all humanity. These areas include self-driving automobiles, renewable energy, artificial intelligence, cancer research, and drone delivery. Google identifies trends in innovation and new principles of management and business strategy. Much of the company’s activities are performed in accordance with its information technology infrastructure and mission.
Self-Driving Automobile
One of the areas that Google invests in and promotes is self-driving automobiles. Google X led the research for developing the self-driving car, which is also owned by Alphabet. There is also a project called Waymo, which is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc (Badue et al., 2020). The company was founded in December 2016, although Google has been developing UAVs since 2009 (Badue et al., 2020). Nearly all self-driving automobile systems receive information that company technologies collect, for instance, data from Google maps and Google Street View (Badue et al., 2020). In addition to the central processor, such vehicles are equipped with video cameras, Lidar systems, sensors, and radars.
Concerning the history of this research area, it is controversial. In 2012, Google reported that their cars had already covered about 500 thousand kilometers without the driver’s direct participation (Badue et al., 2020). The company announced that the car fleet was replaced with one more model – the Lexus RX450h crossover (Badue et al., 2020). Such a car is needed for testing vehicles on mountainous terrain. Since 2014, Waymo’s advancements have been changing; a driverless car model lacks pedals (Badue et al., 2020). It was fully automated, and in 2016 the firm documented its new invention with the US Patent Office (Badue et al., 2020). A collaboration of significant companies such as Intel and Waymo was declared in 2017 (Badue et al., 2020). In this merger, a breakthrough was planned to develop innovative technologies and the creation of artificial intelligence. In the winter of 2018, the company’s specialists announced that Waymo unmanned vehicles are already driving in 25 cities in the United States (Badue et al., 2020). The significant mileage was covered by self-driving automobiles being entirely controlled by artificial intelligence.
With regard to advantages and positive impact on society, self-driving cars cannot become a cause for an accident due to the driver’s fault. The latter’s performance is controlled by a system of sensors, cameras, and smart radars. Self-driving cars can minimize traffic congestion; reducing the number of accidents should also decrease traffic (Badue et al., 2020). There will be fewer damaged vehicles occupying one or more lanes, and the roads will become freer.
However, there are several ethical concerns about this development. Self-driving cars do not demand a driver, but the human element remains crucial as the software for automated systems is designed by the IT-specialists (Badue et al., 2020). It cannot guarantee road safety; the car’s significant connection to informational technologies makes it more dependent on hackers (Badue et al., 2020). Consequently, even though the vehicles are fully autonomous, there is the likelihood that remote car theft or its reprogramming will become a reality (Badue et al., 2020). Furthermore, another issue is that driverless vehicles are always connected with settings; the program tracks their current position (Badue et al., 2020). Google controls every car in its drone fleet; in other words, any stranger might always be aware of the person’s location in case they have an automated vehicle at their disposal.
Renewable Energy
Google is known not only for its Android mobile operating system, search engine, numerous services, and applications but also for its ecology concern. The company intends to ensure that the energy used proceeds from renewable sources. In 2015, the company’s total electricity consumption was enormous; it is comparable to the entire city of San Francisco (Harjanne & Korhonen, 2019). In 2017, Google became the largest corporate buyer of solar and wind energy (Pichai, 2019). Currently, the company is building new data centers and offices, and its power needs to increase.
Google considers a long-term commitment to energy procurement to develop new energy projects. The company’s corporate leadership emphasizes that there should be a balance in energy consumption and business performance (Pichai, 2019). This means that for every kilowatt-hour of electricity the company used in 2017, it purchased the same amount of renewable energy from solar and wind farms explicitly built for Google (Harjanne & Korhonen, 2019). The advantage of these improvements is that no corporate customer buys such amounts of alternative power from renewable sources compared to Google (Pichai, 2019). More than $3 billion in capital investments have been made in the global economy due to the enterprise renewable energy contracts (Pichai, 2019). However, materials and facilities for constructing the necessary power plants need to be transferred from agricultural land to industrial (Harjanne & Korhonen, 2019). Specific difficulties also arise; connecting such lands to technological networks takes time (Harjanne & Korhonen, 2019). There is a lack of the necessary transport infrastructure, limiting technical solutions for renewable energy facilities.
Therefore, Google plans to continue investing in renewable energy, buying energy from alternative energy power plants that will be built in the future. Google intends to exceed obtaining power from existing wind and solar farms (Pichai, 2019). The company’s new agreements cover the world and include properties located in the United States, Chile, and Europe (Harjanne & Korhonen, 2019). The company is working with the Renewable Energy Buyers Alliance to promote legislative changes that simplify corporate procurement of wind and solar energy (Harjanne & Korhonen, 2019). The advantages of this electricity type include the fact that in most remote and hard-to-reach territories of the country, the economic efficiency of using such energy sources is higher than traditional ones (Harjanne & Korhonen, 2019). Even without government support, many power plants producing unconventional electricity pay off immediately. This might also be highly attractive for investors, consequently affecting the business profit.
Despite benefits, there are some ambiguous negative consequences of developing research on alternative energy. First, the company buys all the energy needed to run Google’s facilities worldwide from energy companies rather than produced by itself (Harjanne & Korhonen, 2019). These sources are considered eco-friendly and profitable in the long-term; however, Google has not built any solar and wind power plants near its own data centers and offices (Harjanne & Korhonen, 2019). It is mainly impossible for offices to be directly provided with energy from renewable facilities. Instead, it is economically unprofitable due to various factors related to electrical networks’ logistics and nature.
Artificial Intelligence
One of the most significant development areas of Google is creating artificial intelligence (AI). DeepMind Technologies Limited is a UK-based AI company acquired by Google in 2014 (Powles & Hodson, 2017). The research company is working on this innovation, and it is continuously being improved. At present, Google’s artificial intelligence can program, play games, and perform various tasks as humans (Powles & Hodson, 2017). Google works closely with other companies to help them integrate AI into their operations. For example, this technology can accurately detect breast cancer in women, weather forecasts, and reduce international flight delays.
The company became famous for developing the AlphaGo computer system, which won the game’s professional player. DeepMind has created a neural network able to learn to play video games at the human level (“Alpha Go,” n.d.). In 2020, the company developed the AlphaFold2 program, which allows one of the fundamental biological science problems to build 3-dimensional models of proteins (“Alpha Go,” n.d.). There is also another research project called Google Brain, studying deep learning-based artificial intelligence. Both Google Brain and DeepMind are primarily concerned with experimental projects without any immediate practical relevance. Among the important DeepMind projects there are the WaveNet neural network speech synthesis system and medicine research (Powles & Hodson, 2017). The challenges that Google faces in implementing this technology are ethical disputes and lack of available information, and the unstudied character of this area.
Concerning the main advantage, it is the ability to automate many areas of activity due to reducing human assistance. Moreover, AI stimulates fields where it is possible to use software instead of human labor (Lu et al., 2018). Companies often need to consider a considerable number of factors that an ordinary person cannot keep in mind to implement new concepts and approaches (Lu et al., 2018). One of the main advantages of artificial intelligence is the ability to account for such a wide variety of real-time factors. The human element and possible errors associated with a person’s character and low working capacity are excluded (Lu et al., 2018). AI networks have no performance threshold, making it easier for managers and contributing to better economic performance.
Meanwhile, there is a need for operational regulation of artificial intelligence technology at the state level. AI might be abused, thus, authorities should reconsider legislation and create more elaborated rules. In 2018, Google published its own set of AI guidelines to help ensure this technology’s ethical use (Pichai, 2018). It also indicates areas in which Google’s AI projects will never be utilized – for example, for mass surveillance or human rights violations (Pichai, 2018). The company’s new operating principles state that artificial intelligence research will be conducted with full responsibility by Google (Pichai, 2018). The company identifies four forbidden areas of its work in the field of AI (Pichai, 2018). Google’s artificial intelligence should not be used to create weapons and the military’s interests (Pichai, 2018). Thus, Google will never develop AI for purposes that may harm society to violate human rights and international law.
Cancer Research
Google has the most significant impact in the cancer research area. The Google development team with specialists from the Institute of Biology of Systems and SRA International has been developing the Cancer Genomics Cloud (CGC) since 2014 (Lau et al., 2017). The platform should serve as a massive data repository and provide the computing support needed to conduct cancer genomics research (Lau et al., 2017). The project, supported by the National Cancer Institute, is supposed to transfer data collected at The Cancer Genomics Atlas (TCGA) to Google’s cloud platform to provide straightforward and secure access to large datasets (Lau et al., 2017). The project’s goal is to accelerate the process of genome sequencing to provide a rapid understanding of cancer’s molecular basis.
Moreover, the company runs methods for diagnosing this disease; this research area is highly correlated with artificial intelligence development. For instance, in 2020, AI scanning of x-ray images obtained during mammography showed that computer analysis reduces the number of incorrect results (Shetty & Tse, 2020). Google scientists have trained artificial intelligence GoogLeNet to recognize breast cancer from tissue samples (Shetty & Tse, 2020). It appeared that the program copes with this task better than an experienced pathomorphologist (Shetty & Tse, 2020). The challenges are mostly the heavy expenses that require considerable investors.
With regard to the benefits for society, there is an optimistic tendency in this field. Google has signed a contract with the Defense Innovation Division of the US Department of Defense to improve cancer diagnostics (“Defense Innovation,” 2020). The company will create a microscope with artificial intelligence and augmented reality (“Defense Innovation,” 2020). It is reported that about 5% of diagnoses are now made incorrectly (“Defense Innovation,” 2020). To solve this problem, Google plans to train AI to detect cancer cells in microscope photos (“Defense Innovation,” 2020). The company has already started developing a corresponding neural network (“Defense Innovation,” 2020). This will allow doctors to see information about cancerous cells. Google noted that speed and accuracy are crucial factors in cancer treatment; the company’s technology might save many human beings’ lives.
The negative impact is difficult to assume; nevertheless, there are some issues to be considered. The main ethical question is who should take responsibility in case the machine misdiagnoses (Lau et al., 2017). At present, the legislative framework has not been developed in detail to regulate artificial intelligent systems (Lau et al., 2017). Consequently, there are several obstacles; medical personnel have no right to add data obtained from algorithms to a patient’s medical record (Lau et al., 2017). In addition, the company that developed such technologies can monopolize the market and command and charge high prices for the software (Lau et al., 2017). All algorithms used in clinics should have a recommendation function. They help narrow the range of information and suggest where to look for the answer, but they do not provide the treatment (Lau et al., 2017). The healthcare system is cautious of these technologies; this approach helps protect patients from the side effects of technological innovations.
Wing Drone Delivery
There is a startup owned by Google’s company, Alphabet, called Wing. This company’s primary purpose is to develop drone delivery. Over the past years, this technology has benefited the business environment, especially in logistics. The Wing has launched one of the world’s first drone transportation services (Block, 2020). The service delivers food, drinks, medicine, and other goods by air directly to the customer’s home. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the company began to enter into partnerships with many new customers, including grocery chains, pharmacies, and various retailers (Block, 2020). At present, Wing is the only drone delivery service in the United States that has access to the broadest audience.
Furthermore, Wing is available in the US and other countries such as Finland and Australia. According to Block (2020), customers often order groceries, baby products, and medicines without a prescription. In 2020, the company’s drones made more than a thousand deliveries (Block, 2020). The speed with the box is about 100 km/h, while when it reaches the desired location, it lowers the load on a special rope to the ground in front of the house (Block, 2020). The main obstacle was a small carrying capacity of up to 3-4 kg, which does not allow drones to transport large loads (Block, 2020). It is impossible to organize the delivery of large household appliances or furniture.
Concerning the positive impact on society, there are multiple advantages of this process of delivery. For instance, rugged terrain such as mountains, the jungle is not difficult as drones overcome it relatively quickly, which in many cases can significantly shorten the route, speeding up the delivery time (Hassanalian & Abdelkefi, 2017). Moreover, logistics is becoming easy due to freedom from transport infrastructure constraints (Hassanalian & Abdelkefi, 2017). For example, these may be old railway lines or broken roads that negatively affect conventional land transport movement (Hassanalian & Abdelkefi, 2017). In addition, high speed of delivery is guaranteed, regardless of the road traffic, including traffic jams, accidents (Hassanalian & Abdelkefi, 2017). A compact drone powered by an electric battery has a much lower environmental impact than a transport vehicle (Hassanalian & Abdelkefi, 2017). In the long term, the commercial use of drones, due to their high energy efficiency and the ability to work in hard-to-reach places, can positively affect many sectors of the economy.
Some negative points prevent the company from starting to use drone delivery. For instance, there is an issue of privacy, which is relevant; the drone uses GPS and a built-in-camera to navigate to the exact destination. It allows the mechanism to avoid obstacles during the flight and land safely; however, it may be considered an invasion of personal privacy (Hassanalian & Abdelkefi, 2017). There is also physical security, which is another potential problem. There is a danger of hundreds of drones flying over citizens’ heads, one of which may cause harm in case of a system outage and falling (Hassanalian & Abdelkefi, 2017). They can also create a potential hazard when used near airports due to the risk of collisions with aircraft.
Conclusion
At present, the market competition increases, Google changed its development strategy. The corporation develops numerous projects to meet emerging global trends. Google integrates its services and technologies into all aspects of the user’s digital life to protect the primary source of revenue. These days, it focuses on medical research, artificial intelligence, self-driving vehicles, drones and renewable energy. Google solves humanity’s arising problems, explores the new technologies, and considers promising directions for the future.
References
Alpha Go. (n.d.). Web.
Badue, C., Guidolini, R., Carneiro, R. V., Azevedo, P., Cardoso, V. B., Forechi, A., & De Souza, A. F. (2020). Self-driving cars: A survey. Expert Systems with Applications, 165, 113816. Web.
Defense innovation unit selects Google Cloud to build secure cloud management solution. (2020). Web.
Harjanne, A., & Korhonen, J. M. (2019). Abandoning the concept of renewable energy. Energy Policy, 127, 330-340. Web.
Hassanalian, M., & Abdelkefi, A. (2017). Classifications, applications, and design challenges of drones: A review. Progress in Aerospace Sciences, 91, 99-131. Web.
Lau, J. W., Lehnert, E., Sethi, A., Malhotra, R., Kaushik, G., Onder, Z., & Davis-Dusenbery, B. (2017). The Cancer Genomics Cloud: Collaborative, reproducible, and democratized—a new paradigm in large-scale computational research.Cancer Research, 77(21), 3-6. Web.
Lu, H., Li, Y., Chen, M., Kim, H., & Serikawa, S. (2018). Brain intelligence: Go beyond artificial intelligence. Mobile Networks and Applications, 23(2), 368-375. Web.
Pichai, S. (2018). AI at Google: our principles. Google Blog. Web.
Pichai, S. (2019). Our biggest renewable energy purchase ever.Google Blog. Web.
Powles, J., & Hodson, H. (2017). Google DeepMind and healthcare in an age of algorithms.Health and Technology, 7(4), 351-367. Web.
Shetty, S., & Tse, D. (2020). Using AI to improve breast cancer screening. Google Blog. Web.