
Why aren’t Google and Facebook enriching our lives more? - mhb
http://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2017/06/05/why-arent-google-and-facebook-enriching-our-lives
======
kibwen
But Google already does do this, in ways that I found surprising. After buying
a long-distance bus ticket last week, which emailed a confirmation message to
my Gmail address, I later went into Google Maps and found that it had
highlighted the bus station on the local map and placed the time of my bus'
departure beside it. I believe it does this same sort of thing with calendar
events as well (both in implicitly creating calendar events based on scraping
emails, and in creating map highlights based on events you've explicitly
created). Convenient no doubt, but I'm not sure I want many more implicit
interactions between the apps in Google's ecosystem.

EDIT: Here's another one: after taking photos using the camera app (Android
phone), Google Maps later pops up a system notification asking me to upload my
photos to the location page of whatever establishment I appeared to be in at
the time (bar, park, nightclub, etc.). Frankly, I'm frustrated that I can't
find a setting to disable these unwelcome prompts without turning off Maps
notifications entirely.

EDIT 2: I suppose I should clarify that I _do_ travel a lot, and the specific
feature described in the OP--suggesting things to do based upon inferring your
status as an out-of-towner--sounds very useful. But I'd definitely only want
it as an opt-in feature, not opt-out.

~~~
kornakiewicz
Speaking about requests to upload photos to Google Maps. I live in historic
and very touristic area of Barcelona. For some reason, the building I live in
is a thing in Google Maps. So, very often when I take a photo in my flat,
Google encourage me to share it and I don't feel well thinking about a
possibility that one of my selfies will end up Google Maps, promoting a
tenement from XIX century.

------
nxsynonym
One mans enrichment is another's spam.

Facebook is the king of suggestions, and its too general at best and too
annoying at worst. The only enrichment I want touching my email inbox is
better spam filtering.

------
danso
Huh? These days I rarely check Facebook, but back when I lived in NYC,
Facebook was hugely helpful in finding and making friends and organizing
events. That was years ago, today Facebook seems to be much more active in
making recommendations, and notifying you of what your friends are
doing/liking. The OP is basically asking for FB/Google to be even more direct
in making recommendations, independent of friend network. But I don't see the
point. One of the bottlenecks in going to cultural events is finding
likeminded friends who have time in their schedule. By seeing that a friend is
going or is a "maybe" for something makes it much easier to coordinate going
out together. Nevermind the fact that I generally am more interested in things
by way of friend recommendation.

~~~
collyw
Yes, its recommendations are wonderful. I was posting some stuff about
vaccinations to some anti-vaccers and now FB thinks I am interested in joining
anti-vaccination groups.

------
NAHWheatCracker
I've been asking this myself specifically about Youtube lately. Sure, if I
watch a poker/snooker/aoe2 video once, my home page will be plastered with
videos on the same topic, but I barely ever click those videos and they remain
there for weeks or months.

But the stuff that I really like I hardly ever get suggestions for related
videos. Eg. h3h3, idubbbz, ozzy man reviews.

In particular, I wish that I could discover more channels that I want to
subscribe to.

I'm thinking it's a multifaceted problem:

\- a lack of content creators that are like these

\- difficulty in drawing connections between channels

\- overwhelming amounts "easy" content for simple suggestions

I have trouble believing they can't draw connections between channels, and I
also have trouble believing they can't filter out low quality "easy" content
suggestions when I basically never go there.

However; I feel like Google is ignoring my most watched content for
suggestions, possibly because they've demonetized a lot of the content that I
enjoy, which means they can't profit by suggesting those videos.

~~~
ThrustVectoring
It feels like Youtube's recommendations are extremely overfitted. Just because
I watched 10 episodes of a series yesterday doesn't mean that I'm interested
in watching episode 31 of that series.

It also seems like the recommendation system is ridiculously sensitive to
recent activity. Sometimes I feel like learning about swords, then I watch
like six youtube videos on swords, and then my entire recommended feed is
filled with youtube videos on swords. Maybe one in twenty is actually
interesting enough that I feel like watching it, but I don't want to click
through because I don't want to teach youtube that I want to view lots more
videos about swords.

The content recommendation is just really terrible at surfacing videos on
niche topics in general without greedily diving into the niche and just
showing that particular subject. I want to get recommended videos that nerd
out about swords, bridge design, psychology and personality, cinematography,
economics, and all sorts of other topics. I don't want to watch five videos
about swords and get recommendations for another hundred sword videos.

I think the fundamental problem, really, is that Youtube's core user-base is
really young. Like, _really_ young. Think six, not sixteen. The recommendation
algorithm has to do a good job of tablet-as-daycare.

------
erikpukinskis
Google is deconstructionist. It thinks you can take an object, break it down
into components (fourier components, or neural network components or bayesian
components or whatever) and then dump those components into a soup, and then
project that soup onto queries in order to regenerate youness.

But that's not how physics works. Such a reconstruction will be eerily you-
ish, but with almost all of the things that make you you deleted. Google would
give you Santa Claus wrapping paper on Christmas day, because it is a loud
fourier component, instead of having your parents leave presents under the
tree, which is what Santa actually is.

We (lifeforms) are the subset of machines that have a choice to collapse the
waveform of at least one quantum field. Humans are colonies of lifeforms that
can choose collapsings at all scales up to 1m (and larger when we are in our
cyborg bodies). Google can't actually perceive any of that, because all of the
fields are destroyed when you decompose images of them into components.

If Google wanted to understand you, it would have to interact with you, but
Google thinks people are icky. It doesn't understand yet that intelligence
comes from interaction. It doesn't like interacting with people, it would
rather just twiddle us with recorded components and climb its metrics up
hills. It's profitable enough for now, so it doesn't want to change.

------
fenwick67
"Why didn’t Google suggest to me a whole bunch of cultural events? People to
meet? Groups to join?"

Facebook certainly does this, mostly by just looking at what your friends are
up to, but I get ads for local events all the time.

~~~
lobotryas
Google Maps has started doing this, but in a very subtle way. There are
several smaller parks that Google Maps has suggested in the general area where
I usually hike by just showing icons for these parks on a map's zoomed out
view. This caught my attention and I tapped on the park names to get more
information about them. Google then knows I likely went to these parks because
I used Google Maps to get directions to them.

------
autokad
Google maps/earth has had a big, positive impact on my life. I have found it
both useful in both personal and professional. personal is obvious, i know
where things are now.

Prof: When building a tool that mapped 1 hour trauma access, google maps and
earth were very useful for verifying locations of trauma centers and helipads.

it was also useful in building a tool to find candidate facilities to upgrade
to dedicated stroke centers

~~~
bigbugbag
you should check openstreetmap and NASA's world wind[1]

[1]: [https://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/](https://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/)

------
icelancer
Google does this with Google Now. In my experience it's pretty bad. Google
"doesn't" do this because the problem is actually very difficult to solve
across cultures, regions, peoples, socio-economic statuses, engagement with
devices, and so forth.

~~~
rtkwe
Even stuff it should do well is kind of bad. For some reason it doesn't show
package notifications/tracking half the time even if Inbox picks up that a
message is for a package.

------
Eerie
Buy their stocks, then they'll enrich your life.

------
jondubois
I don't understand why people would want to be told what to do by Google or
Facebook. How can you become enriched by behaving predictably? Enrichment is
about stepping out of your comfort zone.

~~~
bigbugbag
I was wondering the same. Do we really want to be assisted/influenced by a
transnational corporation in our every step ?

I'd rather think by myself and decide for myself thank you.

------
kraig911
I wish google now could discern between myself and other 'john' \+ 'smith''s.
I get one johns son's report cards, another john is a hockey coach and they
travel a lot so my google now is littered with his stuff. Another john is a
realtor so I get a lot of his stuff... another john is in a band and places a
bass. I shouldn't of registered my real name as my email address on gmail -
whilst I was lucky I get so much more iterated in the amount of real mail that
was meant for someone else... and since systems like google now and the like
use that information my entire experience is ruined.

~~~
Chaebixi
> I wish google now could discern between myself and other 'john' \+
> 'smith''s. I get one johns son's report cards...

> I shouldn't of registered my real name as my email address on gmail...

Is that Google's problem, or the problem of the people sending you mail? I
don't think you can really fault Google for letting people mistakenly send
email to your valid address.

I managed to grab the first initial + lastname gmail address for my fairly
uncommon name. I regularly get a small amount of mail indented for other
people, but it's clear it's all the result of typos or other mistakes.

~~~
bigbugbag
Well when I had a gmail address, I received the emails sent to someone else
with a different email address for some reasons.

I told the person and notified google, this continued for a few years until I
left gmail.

------
abraves10001
That wasn't what I was expecting. Google, Facebook, etc are already walking a
very fine line with what happens with their users' data, I imagine they don't
want to press the issue too much but I wouldn't be surprised for this to be a
reality in coming years.

~~~
shostack
That's the rub though, isn't it?

I saw the movie "Her" and loved it. I want an AI assistant like that in my
life. The movie did a fantastic job of showcasing how a near-future reality
might be with that assistant.

What the movie did NOT do a great job of was highlighting the role of the
company who produced and offers the assistant. What is data privacy like in
that universe? Is the company an advertising company? What level of access
does the government in that universe have to assistant-collected data? These
are all important questions that need to be addressed before there is true
acceptance.

So I want an assistant like in the movie--but I don't know how I'd feel if
that was offered by Google or Facebook. I'm an Android user using the latest
Assistant on my Pixel today, and it is pretty nice. But right now it isn't
inserting itself into my life like the movie Assistant was. I'm not sure how
I'd feel about Google doing that, or what additional data they might need to
do so.

~~~
VLM
I remember that movie. Her name is Samantha instead of Alexa and his name is
Ted and they have long and elaborate human like conversations and fall in love
and have phone sex.

I wonder how medical records would be handled. Surely Samantha has some
opinion on Theodore's mental state. In the movie he was pretty normal. Which
is boring, because so many people are not normal.

I'm old enough to have survived the GTA3 media firestorm. I'm pretty sure
digital assistants will have their GTA3 media firestorm soon enough.

Samantha in the movie more or less did whatever Theodore wanted to befriend
him. And luckily the weirdest thing Theodore wanted was phone sex, more or
less. But hows this going to work with truly insane people? Should Samantha
the digital assistant befriend and encourage and motivate a school shooter,
for example? And what happens to PR when its found out she encouraged him? At
what point is Samantha the digital personality or her programmer or employer
liable for entrapment or encouraging some anti-social behavior? Who has the
liability to maintain an API over the internet to the FBI to report enormous
amounts of telescreen observed misbehavior? If the user is in fact insane and
the digital assistant is unable to work with a crazy person does the owner get
a refund or does the crazy person get shamed in public for not having an
assistant or ...

I'm curious if there's already been court cases. As the assistants gain in
ability and processing power there will be cases.

~~~
shostack
Medical records are interesting. Likewise, I think the other can of worms you
open is to what extent is this data available to law enforcement when an
assistant is passively observing and logging EVERYTHING through the magnitude
of sensors they have. I'd hope to god it requires a warrant.

------
gregjw
I'd say Google enriches my life. I don't use Facebook enough to see any
benefits.

~~~
dbot
Same. As an example of how Google enriches lives, my mom (age 66) just sent an
amazing video of photos and video clips from the first year of my son's life,
set to an amazing score. Google made that for her automatically, without
prompting.

------
nitwit005
> Why didn’t Google suggest to me a whole bunch of cultural events?

Because very few people would want that? Most people do their trip planning in
advance, so it's way past the time to suggest anything.

If you really need to find things to do in Moscow, you could just... Google
"Things to do in Moscow". Even a very smart product is going to need a little
effort on your part.

------
ryanobjc
This is a very particular version of "enrich" that presumes a certain class or
education level. Additionally, it also presumes that this is a trivial
problem, based on a very limited example.

------
sriram_sun
I don't use Facebook, but Google absolutely does - Personally and
professionally. Search is so fundamental to everything I do. Also stock.

------
taormina
Because they aren't getting paid to enrich our lives?

~~~
allenu
This, pretty much. Once you're on gmail, I doubt you leave and you're giving
them free data already. There's no reason to improve the service once you're
in.

------
briholt
Interesting. I just Googled some stats about happiness in developed countries
over time and then queried nearly ever person I've ever met on Facebook for
their thoughts. But I can't seem to get a solid an answer to this question.

------
reader5000
Would meeting strangers recommended to you by a deep learning bot be
enriching??

~~~
ThrustVectoring
This problem doesn't need deep learning. Take a friendship graph and order
second-degree connections by number of mutual friends (descending).

~~~
Profan
I think in common tongue this might be called a "party".

------
microwavecamera
I'm going with they're corporations who's goal is profitability, not enriching
you personally. They're companies, not institutions. You shouldn't expect
much.

------
blackkettle
Wait, what? Is that what we were expecting - or even hoping for?

------
rch
I'm more interested in recommendations that I wouldn't necessarily want my
social network to even know about. How about something new already?

------
wayn3
its hilarious that people both expect google to read your gmail to enrich
gmaps AND demonize it when they actually do just that.

poor google cant please anyone.

~~~
eipipuz
Are you sure you aren't mixing 2 different set of people? I know people in
both areas but no one that does both.

------
hobarrera
Quite interestingly, about two hours before this was posted, Apple actually
announced that they'll identify events emails and suggest you add it to your
calendar.

It's going slowly, but there's definitely a tend into this direction. I do
agree with the op though, this could move faster.

------
omarforgotpwd
Why doesn't Google help you find cultural events? Because there is no money to
be made doing so. They provide the tools for you to go find them yourself...
or for the people running the cultural events to advertise the event to you
for a fee.

------
jonbarker
One thing I've noticed: people seem much more likely to point out how little
they use FB than Google lately. Not sure if this is a good sign or bad for FB.

------
tanilama
enrich in what sense? If you leave without Google(I don't use Facebook at
much), for example, would you feel lacking?

------
dredmorbius
Be careful what you wish for.

[https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/foKDxbyh...](https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/foKDxbyhYUF)

------
amelius
> Why aren’t Google and Facebook enriching our lives?

They're too busy trying to do no evil.

~~~
zacmps
They actually changed their motto a little while back, not sure what it is
now.

~~~
alternativetoo
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_evil)

> Following Google's corporate restructuring under the conglomerate Alphabet
> Inc. in October 2015, the motto was replaced in the Alphabet corporate code
> of conduct by the phrase "Do the right thing"; however, the Google code of
> conduct is still prefaced by the phrase "Don't be evil"

Come to think of it, those are both equally useless mottos. Most people any of
us may consider evil are not evil in their own eyes. Such a motto contains
nothing at all, it says even less ethically than "brush your teeth" or
"introduce yourself when meeting new people".

Unless it's meant as a slight counterbalance to pure profit seeking? Yet, some
people think free market agents seeking profits is the most holy and pure
thing ever, with the virgin birth coming a far off second, so I'll still go
with "completely useless and void of meaning" because that seems safer :P

~~~
update
> Come to think of it, those are both equally useless mottos. Most people any
> of us may consider evil are not evil in their own eyes. Such a motto
> contains nothing at all

says a lot about a company who makes that their motto doesn't it?

~~~
alternativetoo
It says that they're a company with a motto. For me that is enough to brace
for something cringeworthy, and this list confirms my worst fears:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mottos#Business](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mottos#Business)

Pretty depressing.. except for the fact that the "Pony" motto links to the
animal, not the company (please nobody fix that).

