• Sundar Pichai said Google was still in the early phases of recursively self-improving AI.
• Researchers are working with AI agents to build better models, he said.
• Sergey Brin recently said Google was "starting to get onto that RSI treadmill."

Google's AI models may be helping to build their successors, but CEO Sundar Pichai says the moment of fully self-improving AI is still a while away.

Speaking on an episode of the "Big Technology Podcast" this week, Pichai said that Google researchers were using AI agents to assist them when building models, but caveated that it was still early days.

"We are pretty far from the end state of RSI," said Pichai, referring to recursive self-improvement. "The right way to describe it is, you have RSI loops along with AI researchers in various aspects of model development. I would say you almost have agents helping AI researchers, in some automated way, work together to build these models."

Pichai added that he expected that continuum to keep making progress into next year.

Earlier this month, Google cofounder Sergey Brin said the company's Flash series of models, as well as Gemini 4, were demonstrating how AI was helping to build itself, and that Google was "starting to get onto that RSI treadmill."

"And now our researchers and the model work hand in hand to make the next version of the model," he said.

Brin has been increasingly involved in Google's Gemini efforts and has leveraged his power as cofounder to shift resources to projects he deems most effective, Business Insider previously reported. This has included pushing for more focus on RSI.

A report from the firm Gladstone AI, published earlier this month, said that most researchers interviewed from companies including Anthropic and DeepMind believed RSI will start within the next three to 12 months, and possibly sooner without government intervention.

In another moment on the "Big Technology Podcast," Pichai was asked about how much AI was being used to code internally. The company said in April that 75% of new code inside Google was generated by AI.

"That number in our world today is like meaningless in the sense that every part of code we now touch is influenced by AI deeply," Pichai said. With Gemini 4 Argon, he said, people were going to tackle harder problems. He also said Google was seeing a one-third decrease in code rollbacks, where software is reverted to a previous version because of a bug or system issue.

"And so I think people are writing code more productively, and better code with it," he said of AI tools.

Pichai also uses AI to track Google's model development and internal discussions, he told the "Sources" podcast this week.

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Company ordered to stop work at two sites in country, which has found itself at forefront of tech firms’ latest push

Behind a wire fence lies a vast gaping wound of earth. Before Google’s arrival a few months ago, an estimated quarter of a million trees occupied the 330 hectares (815 acres) of forest near the town of Muhos in rural northern Finland. Now they are all gone.

After the tech company illegally stripped the entire area to build a datacentre – taking even the top soil with it – all that remains is a vast expanse of mud indented with the trail marks of machinery, puddles and mounds of earth, roots and branches. Residents say that brown water flowing off the site is going into a stream that feeds the Oulujoki River.

The International Monetary Fund warned Tuesday that the global economy faces serious risks from Big Tech firms taking on massive debt to fund the buildout of artificial intelligence data centers worldwide. The IMF’s latest Global Financial Stability Report outlines a number of risks to economic growth in the coming years, including a reliance on AI […]

The post IMF warns of debt-fueled AI spending as bubble fears grow appeared first on Asia Times.

As the controversy over AI safety grows, another debate is emerging. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, has said that artificial intelligence should pay taxes to compensate for the jobs that will be destroyed by the deployment of this technology.

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Google has asked the European Union’s General Court to suspend an order requiring it to make search data available to competing search engines and artificial-intelligence services while its wider legal challenge proceeds.

The application for interim measures follows Google’s challenge to a European Commission decision adopted in July under the Digital Markets Act. The company argues that implementation before the court rules on the main case could cause serious harm to the privacy of European users.

The Commission maintains that its requirements already contain safeguards for privacy, security and personal data.

At the centre of the dispute is Article 6(11) of the Digital Markets Act, which requires Google to give eligible rival search services access to anonymised ranking, query, click and viewing data on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.

The Commission opened specification proceedings in January and adopted binding measures on 16 July.

The rules explicitly allow AI chatbots offering search functions to qualify for access.

Brussels argues that Google has accumulated a quantity of search information which competitors cannot readily reproduce. User queries and interactions can improve search algorithms, reinforcing the position of an established provider and creating a substantial entry barrier for newcomers.

EU Today examined the issue in April, when the Commission first set out its proposed Google search-data sharing measures.

The final July decision turned those proposals into binding requirements.

The inclusion of AI services gives the case wider significance. Generative AI products increasingly answer questions directly rather than sending users through a conventional list of search results. That is putting AI developers and traditional search engines into increasingly direct competition.

The Commission’s data-access framework is intended to reduce the advantage obtained from data accumulated by designated gatekeepers and make it easier for competing services to enter the market.

Access will not be unrestricted.

Applicants must operate a genuine online search service in the EU and satisfy eligibility requirements. Established applicants generally need at least 50,000 average monthly EU users during the previous year, while newer companies can qualify under investment criteria.

They must also comply with security and data-protection requirements and undergo independent auditing. The Commission can exclude applicants presenting public-security risks, while the data must be processed within the European Economic Area or under arrangements providing equivalent protection.

Google argues that these safeguards do not remove the underlying privacy risk.

The company has therefore asked the General Court for an interim suspension while judges consider the legality of the Commission’s decision.

The case adds another front to an increasingly difficult relationship between Google and Brussels.

In July, the Commission imposed two Digital Markets Act fines on Google totalling €890 million. As EU Today reported following the penalties, one case concerned Google’s treatment of its own services in search results while another dealt with restrictions preventing app developers from directing users towards alternative offers.

The dispute subsequently developed into a wider transatlantic issue when President Donald Trump threatened a Section 301 trade investigation in response to the EU penalties, a development examined by EU Today.

Google has meanwhile begun altering some of its European services in response to regulatory pressure. Earlier this month it changed the presentation of European search results, while warning that the new format could make searches less useful.

The present case is different because it deals with access to the underlying information generated by searches rather than only the way results are displayed.

The Commission wants qualifying competitors to obtain data that could help them improve their own services. Google says opening those datasets creates privacy and security risks which cannot simply be reversed if it eventually wins the court case.

That is why the interim application is important.

Google is not asking the court merely to overturn the Commission decision at the end of the litigation. It wants implementation halted before the full case is resolved.

Unless judges intervene, the Commission timetable continues.

The wider dispute will determine how far Brussels can require a dominant digital platform to share data accumulated through its own users in order to encourage competition — an issue that is becoming increasingly important as search and generative AI converge.