Google’s chief executive officer has left no doubt about how important he thinks artificial intelligence will be to humanity.

“AI is one of the most profound things we’re working on as humanity. It’s more profound than fire or electricity,” Alphabet Inc. CEO Sundar Pichai said in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Wednesday.

Alphabet, which owns Google, has had to grapple with its role in the development of AI, including managing employee revolts against its work on the technology for the U.S. government. In 2018, a group of influential software engineers successfully delayed the development of a security feature that would’ve helped the company win military contracts.

Google has issued a set of AI principles that prohibit weapons work, but doesn’t rule out selling to the military. It has also pledged not to renew its Project Maven contract, which involves using artificial intelligence to analyze drone footage.

Pichai, who’s led Google since 2015, took control of Alphabet after founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin stepped down from day-to-day involvement last month.

“AI is no different from the climate,” Pichai said. “You can’t get safety by having one country or a set of countries working on it. You need a global framework.”

Current frameworks to regulate the technology in the U.S. and Europe are a “great start,” and countries will have to work together on international agreements, similar to the Paris climate accord, to ensure it’s developed responsibly, Pichai said.

Technology such as facial recognition can be used for good, such as finding missing people, or have “negative consequences,” such as mass surveillance, he said.

Keith Enright, Google’s chief privacy officer, also spoke about the potential of artificial intelligence and machine learning to continue developing new technologies and services using a minimum amount of customer data.

“We’re right now really focused on doing more with less data,” Enright said at a data-protection conference in Brussels on Wednesday. “This is counter-intuitive to a lot of people, because the popular narrative is that companies like ours are trying to amass as much data as possible.”

Holding on to data that isn’t delivering value for users is “a risk,” he said.

Powerful new European Union rules took effect across in May, giving privacy watchdogs the power to fine companies as much as 4% of annual global sales for serious violations. Google has come under scrutiny many times in Europe, with one probe in France resulting in a 50 million euro ($55 million) fine under the new law.

Pichai had also stopped by Brussels on his way to Davos, giving a rare public speech, where he called on regulators to coordinate their approaches to artificial intelligence. The European Union is set to unveil new rules AI developers in “high risk sectors,” such as health care and transportation, according to an early draft obtained by Bloomberg.

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The EU’s proposed temporary moratorium on biometric facial recognition technology use is being supported by Alphabet and Google CEO Sunder Pichai, who spoke at an event organized by the think tank Bruegel in Brussels, Reuters reports.

Nefarious uses of facial recognition and the spread of deepfakes are among the concerns motivating a call for regulation of artificial intelligence made by Pichai in a Financial Times editorial. The executive thinks the biggest risk, however, may be of not allowing AI to continue advancing, causing civilization to miss out on “the potential to improve billions of lives,” he writes.

Pichai notes the attempts in the EU and U.S. to develop regulations for AI, and the importance of international alignment. He also says that market forces are not adequate to ensure the technology is used for good and widely available. Good uses of AI with major potential include improved cancer screening accuracy, tools for mitigating climate change’s effects such as upgraded hyperlocal rainfall forecasts models, and reduced airplane flight delays, according to Pichai.

Pichai compares AI to advances such as the invention of the combustion engine, the primary negative consequence of which he presents as auto accidents, without making mention of climate change. The lesson, according to Pichai, is that people must “be clear-eyed about what could go wrong.”

Google’s AI Principles, developed in 2018, and the company’s efforts to put them into action, are held up as examples of its approach to regulating the tech. Those principles commit the company to not supporting mass surveillance systems or human rights violations. Pichai has also previously said that regulation of AI needs to be limited.

The EU is considering a proposal to disallow facial recognition in public places for up to five years while a legal framework for its use is established, and apparently this proposal fits at least somewhat with Pichai’s perspective.

“I think it is important that governments and regulations tackle it sooner rather than later and gives a framework for it,” Pichai told the Brussels’ audience, citing the nefarious uses briefly referred to in the FT opinion piece.

“It can be immediate but maybe there’s a waiting period before we really think about how it’s being used,” Pichai says. “It’s up to governments to charter the course,” he says, calling for a proportionate approach that recognizes high-risk and high-value areas.

An opinion-heavy article in TechCrunch expresses the skepticism of many observers about the true value of suggestions about AI regulation from a company that works in AI and has frequently fallen afoul of corporate and technology regulations. The article notes a push by some in tech and some in U.S. government to write “innovation-friendly” AI regulation.

Microsoft President Brad Smith, meanwhile, says the EU’s approach is like using a meat cleaver for a job best suited to a scalpel. Smith expresses reluctance to support bans on a technology that can reunite families, and suggests a reasonable alternative to a moratorium can be found.

“There is only one way at the end of the day to make technology better and that is to use it,” according to Smith.

Governments, in addition to corporations, are not yet aligned on the appropriate way to regulate AI.

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