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Welcome to Google Island

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Re: Welcome to Google Island

#21

Post by robterrell »

ender7 wrote: post #20

(disclaimer: I work for Google. My words are not theirs) At first I thought "oh. Google fan fiction. This is what we have come to." After a moment, though, I realized that this article isn't really any different from the other hyperventilating blog posts that have appeared all over HN recently. I'm not saying that these aren't important topics to discuss, but everything I've read recently has come off as a prurient p…

The "Star Trek computer" interface that everyone wants can't function if it doesn't have a sense of the world and the person it's talking to. I would love it if there was a distributed way for people to provide this information without having it live in a centralized datacenter somewhere.

That makes sense. Why can't we have both? If Google needs to store all my context data off in the cloud somewhere, why not absolutely guarantee that no one will get my data without my permission or a court order? And then earn my trust by defending my right to data privacy?

Re: Welcome to Google Island

#22

Post by mindcrime »

scilro wrote: post #19
mindcrime wrote: post #16

Hmm... as a Libertarian / Voluntaryist / Anarcho-capitalist / whatever-you-want-to-call it, I am sympathetic to what Larry Page is saying. But there are definitely aspects of this story that are fairly unappealing (Larry Page naked, for starters). I'm not sure what the answer is though: By now it should be clear that "government" as a tool to social engineer a perfect world, isn't working. Corporations are always the…

Technology can never solve social problems. The answer is to simply work on fixing the problems we have in society the only way we actually can: through discourse, activism, democracy.

Technology can never solve social problems. The answer is to simply work on fixing the problems we have in society the only way we actually can: through discourse, activism, democracy.

I'm not actually sure anything can truly solve social problems. I tend to believe that human nature is such that we will always have some level of strife and conflict in our world. I think the best we can do is to minimize it, and create structures that at least respect the sovereignty of the individual.

But even what I just said gets to the point of why "we" will never be uniformly happy. Different people have fundamentally different goals and principles and there's objective way to resolve those disputes. My foundational principle is freedom from use of force or aggression, and the primacy and sovereignty of the individual. Other people have more of a utilitarian "the most happiness for the maximum number of people" as their principle. And unless the former inevitably leads to the latter by coincidence, there's really no way to reconcile those two positions, in terms of "how do we solve social problems" since those two people don't even agree on what the problem is in the first place.

As for democracy: "Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. Liberty is a well armed sheep contesting the vote".

Even in a representative republic like in the US, democracy is nothing special if you're the under-represented minority who has to suffer the "tyranny of the majority".

Re: Welcome to Google Island

#23

Post by H3g3m0n »

ender7 wrote: post #20

(disclaimer: I work for Google. My words are not theirs) At first I thought "oh. Google fan fiction. This is what we have come to." After a moment, though, I realized that this article isn't really any different from the other hyperventilating blog posts that have appeared all over HN recently. I'm not saying that these aren't important topics to discuss, but everything I've read recently has come off as a prurient p…

>The "Star Trek computer" interface that everyone wants can't function if it doesn't have a sense of the world and the person it's talking to.

Sure it can, at least the sense of the person. I don't need your life story to know how to handle simple instructions like "what year was movie X released", or "Gimme a list of all the elements on the periodic table that contain the letter U in their names".

Sure things like "What time is my flight" will need details, but "What time is flight QF204" doesn't.

The other thing is that the Star Trek computer doesn't have to be in the cloud, it can be on your device. Or it can be both, with the local one keeping your private stuff.

Re: Welcome to Google Island

#24

Post by hahainternet »

H3g3m0n wrote: post #23
ender7 wrote: post #20

(disclaimer: I work for Google. My words are not theirs) At first I thought "oh. Google fan fiction. This is what we have come to." After a moment, though, I realized that this article isn't really any different from the other hyperventilating blog posts that have appeared all over HN recently. I'm not saying that these aren't important topics to discuss, but everything I've read recently has come off as a prurient p…

>The "Star Trek computer" interface that everyone wants can't function if it doesn't have a sense of the world and the person it's talking to. Sure it can, at least the sense of the person. I don't need your life story to know how to handle simple instructions like "what year was movie X released", or "Gimme a list of all the elements on the periodic table that contain the letter U in their names". Sure things like "…

> Sure it can, at least the sense of the person. I don't need your life story to know how to handle simple instructions like "what year was movie X released", or "Gimme a list of all the elements on the periodic table that contain the letter U in their names".

Then that's not the Star Trek computer is it? That is a personal organiser that responds to voice. Google are clearly aiming beyond this.

Re: Welcome to Google Island

#25

Post by mindcrime »

ender7 wrote: post #20

(disclaimer: I work for Google. My words are not theirs) At first I thought "oh. Google fan fiction. This is what we have come to." After a moment, though, I realized that this article isn't really any different from the other hyperventilating blog posts that have appeared all over HN recently. I'm not saying that these aren't important topics to discuss, but everything I've read recently has come off as a prurient p…

Every argument is trivial to win if you first convert your opponent into Mecha-Hitler.

Not everything is an argument that needs to be "won" or "lost" though. Sometimes an article is just an article, that's meant to spark a discussion around a topic. Even if the article seems to overtly take a position, that's kind of irrelevant if you think that it's the resulting discussion that matters.

Given some of the discussion we see in this very HN post, I'd say this article succeeded in that regard.

Re: Welcome to Google Island

#26

Post by [deleted] »

robterrell wrote: post #21
ender7 wrote: post #20

(disclaimer: I work for Google. My words are not theirs) At first I thought "oh. Google fan fiction. This is what we have come to." After a moment, though, I realized that this article isn't really any different from the other hyperventilating blog posts that have appeared all over HN recently. I'm not saying that these aren't important topics to discuss, but everything I've read recently has come off as a prurient p…

The "Star Trek computer" interface that everyone wants can't function if it doesn't have a sense of the world and the person it's talking to. I would love it if there was a distributed way for people to provide this information without having it live in a centralized datacenter somewhere. That makes sense. Why can't we have both? If Google needs to store all my context data off in the cloud somewhere, why not absolut…

[deleted]

Re: Welcome to Google Island

#27

Post by H3g3m0n »

mindcrime wrote: post #16

Hmm... as a Libertarian / Voluntaryist / Anarcho-capitalist / whatever-you-want-to-call it, I am sympathetic to what Larry Page is saying. But there are definitely aspects of this story that are fairly unappealing (Larry Page naked, for starters). I'm not sure what the answer is though: By now it should be clear that "government" as a tool to social engineer a perfect world, isn't working. Corporations are always the…

>but you don't have corporations without government. Who says you don't, or won't in the future.

Many corporations are now bigger and wield more power than quite a few (maybe most) governments. Corporations are often international and don't really care about governments or countries as much as possible.

We live in a world where China is having fights with Google over censorship. That's a government having issues with a corporation, not another country.

In the case of China things are a bit more interesting, with communism in the mix it seems like the .gov and companies are basically the same. There the government tells the companies what to do. Else where it seems the opposite is on the way to becoming true.

Re: Welcome to Google Island

#28

Post by clobber »

robterrell wrote: post #21
ender7 wrote: post #20

(disclaimer: I work for Google. My words are not theirs) At first I thought "oh. Google fan fiction. This is what we have come to." After a moment, though, I realized that this article isn't really any different from the other hyperventilating blog posts that have appeared all over HN recently. I'm not saying that these aren't important topics to discuss, but everything I've read recently has come off as a prurient p…

The "Star Trek computer" interface that everyone wants can't function if it doesn't have a sense of the world and the person it's talking to. I would love it if there was a distributed way for people to provide this information without having it live in a centralized datacenter somewhere. That makes sense. Why can't we have both? If Google needs to store all my context data off in the cloud somewhere, why not absolut…

> And then earn my trust by defending my right to data privacy?

Sadly, they don't have any interest in doing so.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/05/google-nsa-secrecy-...

Re: Welcome to Google Island

#29

Post by Roboprog »

incision wrote: post #2

I see it now, Google is an embryonic stage of The Culture [0]. 0: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture

I always get a chuckle out of the very idea of "post scarcity". Like there won't be some guy who wants to shovel an entire solar system (or two) into his replicator to make a really cool Dyson yacht, or yacht fleet. Or just flat out enjoys going "Dark Phoenix" and destroying a few stars like shooting cans for target practice.

Humans will never have all they want, even though we have enough for subsistance. Only a few would be happy to spend a few years rummaging around in the library between meals.

Re: Welcome to Google Island

#30

Post by mindcrime »

H3g3m0n wrote: post #27
mindcrime wrote: post #16

Hmm... as a Libertarian / Voluntaryist / Anarcho-capitalist / whatever-you-want-to-call it, I am sympathetic to what Larry Page is saying. But there are definitely aspects of this story that are fairly unappealing (Larry Page naked, for starters). I'm not sure what the answer is though: By now it should be clear that "government" as a tool to social engineer a perfect world, isn't working. Corporations are always the…

>but you don't have corporations without government. Who says you don't, or won't in the future. Many corporations are now bigger and wield more power than quite a few (maybe most) governments. Corporations are often international and don't really care about governments or countries as much as possible. We live in a world where China is having fights with Google over censorship. That's a government having issues with…

Note that I'm using "corporation" here to refer specifically to the legal fiction, created by the State, that isolates the owners of a corporation from liablity. The "organization" itself might exist organized through some other means, of course. But using the modern, legal definition of "corporation", they depend on the State for their existence.

Now, you might ask, "mindcrime, aren't you just pedantically arguing about semantics then?" To which I'd say, no. The difference being that the modern, legal definition of "corporation" is a big part of what allows companies to grow very large, thanks to that ability to pool capital and dodge liability as an individual. If we didn't have the corporation (as we know it today) as a legal fiction defined by the State, it's very possible that we wouldn't have the huge mega-companies that you speak of.

Of course that raises the question of whether or not we'd be better off without those, but that's a whole other topic.

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