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

[Michael <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

> ...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.

I might compare it to learning abstract reasoning.. call it abstract 
memorizing if you want. I think overall it gives a lot stronger mental 
abilities.. if you're in proximity with Internet access. I don't know if 
I'd say we're idiots without the Internet (I still remember a lot more 
raw knowledge than 99% of the population) but it does dramaticly reduce 
our abilities.

> 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?  

I'm not overly worried about misuse of power by Google because there is 
always room for a better search engine and there is always somebody 
waiting to provide it. You can, and I do, often use Google for mining 
out social data.. I don't know if there is any harm in that? No doubt it 
will chance society though.

-- 
Peace, Love, Linux

Michael <EMAIL:PROTECTED>
http://kavlon.org

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