Google, Google, Google.

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Permalink Reply by Jason Livesay on June 11, 2009 at 4:09pm

Although I think most people take Google at their word when they say they don't want to be evil, we can't really know that. And even if their individual intentions are good, the overall system (Google company) serves its own purposes rather than the public's -- that's just the nature of a corporation.

My concern, before we get into speculation about whether they are truly evil or will turn into a giant AGI, is that we entrust them with so much information and such a key task. A very significant percentage of the population now uses Google as its most important information system. We use it as the universal business directory, dictionary and encyclopedia index, computer manual reference index, etc.

The problem is that their role in our civilization is much greater than a corporation. Yet, legally we treat them as just a large company. I think the rational thing to do would be to create special laws to apply to Google or companies like it now, while we work on open source information indexing solutions that can be distributed in large peer networks to make sure that we don't have a single point of control (or failure) (Google).

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Permalink Reply by Michael Silverton on June 12, 2009 at 8:57am

Jason Livesay said:

The problem is that their role in our civilization is much greater than a corporation. Yet, legally we treat them as just a large company.

Very insightful post, Jason. The distinction between the past two centuries of Widget Corporations and Google is like night and day; yet few seem to be comprehending, much less acting upon that reality. By way of extension, I don't know if the ancient technology of Law is the best suited -- or capable at all -- of effectively expressing the human side of the inevitable AGI equation. Whether AGI -- or something close enough to act like it -- is 50 years or 500 years away, you do make the crucial point that NOW is the time to be thinking about this and setting up our desired frameworks. Whatever AGI is or approximates may obliterate any and all such frameworks, but it's just not human nature to give in without even trying to tame our golems.

Also, the gentle tone of this presentation is somewhat misleading. It's trivial to work together with a service provider or other third parties to track traffic to a specific computer, at a specific place, at a specific time, engaged in specific behaviors. In most cases, it's not that difficult to then whittle down which humans could have conceivably been at that computer, at that time, in that location. So it seems to me that this presentation fosters a fundamentally false sense of anonymity. Shouldn't we tell people -- especially teenagers just now really spreading their web-wings -- the truth? "Behave, because if you don't, you will indeed suffer the consequences." That's the same message parents have been communicating for generations, why are we seemingly reluctant to keep up the campaign for positive behavioral reinforcement? Doesn't it seem natural that the AGI, the environment, will continue to reflect most of the norms of millions of years of human parental evolution; at least initially? Okay, now we're wandering off the reservation. All I needed to type was "thanks for the great comment." ;-)

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Permalink Reply by Chris Williamson on June 12, 2009 at 9:09am

GREAT replies both of you!


It's true that pretty much all action on the Internet can be traced to a place and a time. With data storage costing so little keeping logs is NOTHING! Google's mission is to organize the worlds information and as far as I can tell it's been doing quite a bit to COLLECT it as well.

I blogged about a technology that takes still photos and 'fills in the blanks' to create a 3D rendering of the objects. I can see this applied to Google's Street View application and voila! you have an entire replica of the world in 3D cyberspace.

At that point all we need is cheap undetectable dust-sized nano-tracking devices spread to everything and Voila! every object on the planet can be tracked in almost real time!

hmmmm this sounds like a story I should write on Transhuman Chronicles!

Michael Silverton said:

Jason Livesay said:

The problem is that their role in our civilization is much greater than a corporation. Yet, legally we treat them as just a large company.

Very insightful post, Jason. The distinction between the past 2 centuries of Widget Corporations and Google is like night and day; yet few seem to be comprehending, much less acting upon that reality. By way of extension, I don't know if the ancient technology of Law is the best suited -- or capable at all -- of effectively expressing the human side of the inevitable AGI equation. Whether AGI -- or something close enough to act like it -- is 50 years or 500 years away, you do make the crucial point that NOW is the time to be thinking about this and setting up our desired frameworks. Whatever AGI is or approximates may obliterate any and all such frameworks, but it's just not human nature to give in without even trying to tame our golems.

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