Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] Google, The Net, AI, and God.

[Kmicic <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

Michael wrote:

...all the right things. Hey, this has to be the first time I fully
agree with Michael's sympathies. Google is like the next world wonder,
and it has changed my mentality substantially, in the same way Mike
described. In a sense, we'd both be idiots unable to hold intelligent
conversation without it (I should speak for myself here, though). I had
a taste of it during a recent conversation in a bar when I caught myself
making points I knew could be well supported if I only could type those
2 or 3 keywords into Google, but objectively speaking I was just
babbling (and I swear I wasn't smoking anything that night!). Perhaps,
in a decade or so, we'll have public health officials appealing to
people to try and memorize a few poems, much like they talk about
getting daily (physical) exercise today.

One thing which I have not heard much analysis going on about is Google
as a tool of political and economic power. How many businesses could
Google kill by moving their links from the first to the 10th page? How
could Google influence global perception of the breaking news, if it
begun selective ordering of the links? What about more long term
perceptions? How about manipulating Google on many dimensions in order
to start a new fashion trend or bring about positive atmopshere for
certain legislation? What about less malevolent activities: using Google
or Google-like technology as a mining tool to do research on society,
but also political and economic trends?  

Paul
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