Sundar Pichai settles the hot dog-sandwich debate with ‘expert viewpoint of a vegetarian’

Sundar Pichai at the Google I/O event 2023

Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Wednesday addressed a contentious issue at the company’s annual developers conference: Is a hot dog a sandwich?

The hot dog-sandwich debate is one that’s as old as time itself (figuratively, at least) and even Google’s new and improved search engine, supercharged with the power of generative AI, does not have a clear answer. But Google CEO Sundar Pichai neither confirmed nor denied whether a hot dog is a sandwich – he went for a totally different third option.

“It's more like a taco,” Pichai said. “The bread goes around it.”

The Cambridge Dictionary defines a hot dog as “a long, tube-shaped, cooked sausage (= meat), usually eaten in a long roll (= loaf of bread).” A taco, on the other hand, is described as “a hard, folded tortilla (= thin flat bread) filled with meat, cheese, etc.”

Pretty similar indeed. But the irony of a vegetarian wading into the hot dog-sandwich debate was not lost on Pichai. “Is a hot dog a sandwich? I think it’s more like a taco – the bread goes around it. Comes from the expert viewpoint of a vegetarian,” he laughed.

Leave it to @sundarpichai to ask the tough questions - is a hot dog a sandwich or a taco? Can't wait to see if Google can settle this debate once and for all! Via @T3Indiamag#HotDogDebate#googleiopic.twitter.com/7kWKl4pF0k

— Kurt Morris (@morris_kurt) May 10, 2023

Google is rolling out more artificial intelligence for its core search product, hoping to create some of the same consumer excitement generated by Microsoft Corp's update to rival search engine Bing in recent months.

At its annual I/O conference in Mountain View, California, on Wednesday, Google offered a new version of its namesake engine. Called the Search Generative Experience, the revamped Google can craft responses to open-ended queries while retaining its recognizable list of links to the Web.