
Built By Google - stakent
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2010-01-10-n57.html
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bjelkeman-again
A quite dystopian vision, with the main character is essentially powered by a
future Google, which in its turn is powered by the main character. A very
tightly coupled future which doesn't seem to point to much individual freedom.
I think the future is quite different. 1 hour of work and 7 hours of play?
Nah. Then you can easily compete by just working a bit more and soon only
those that work more are competitive. Humans are very creative and find
different uses for their tools than this.

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ewjordan
_1 hour of work and 7 hours of play? Nah. Then you can easily compete by just
working a bit more and soon only those that work more are competitive._

Your assumption is that we will need to compete to meet our needs, and I don't
think that's necessarily the case: competition within a population only
matters when resources are scarce and our efforts have a significant effect on
the value of those resources relative to the background level that exists
regardless of our presence.

Given that to any sufficiently advanced AI we will be less intelligent than
our housepets are to us, I think it's a stretch to imagine that we'll be
economically relevant at all. When you have two dogs, they don't _need_ to
compete with each other to do very well - you feed them based on what they
need, regardless of what their relative levels of effort would merit in an
environment that didn't include you, the owner.

In other words: if we have a peaceful coexistence long enough for computers to
truly surpass us (which should not take very long once they reach our level),
the table scraps that they hopefully toss down to us will probably render
irrelevant anything that we could produce ourselves. And if they don't offer
table scraps, we're pretty well screwed, because they're the de facto owners
of all the resources since we have no significant power to wield against them
and we don't have anything valuable enough to offer in trade.

"Friendly housepet" is probably the status we should be shooting for when we
achieve AGI, honestly. Cooperative scenarios fail quickly because after a
short time we would have precious little to offer an advanced AGI, and the
antagonistic scenarios only end one way, with humans losing a disastrously
one-sided battle.

Edit: grammar (need to drink coffee _before_ posting on HN from now on)

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milkshakes
Have you read The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect?

<http://www.kuro5hin.org/prime-intellect/mopiall.html>
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Metamorphosis_of_Prime_Inte...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Metamorphosis_of_Prime_Intellect)

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ynniv
Wow, that was really boring. Replace everything with "Microsoft", and this
could have been written 15 years ago. Use "IBM", and it would have been 25
years ago. There are many great techno-dystopian stories, but this is a rank
amateur attempt. The print version would have red pen in the margins:
character development? story arc? unnecessary detail!

If you liked this story, you are required to have read Snow Crash.

~~~
swombat
Not really... the focus on advertising is much more Google-specific.

The real clunker in this story is that with such advanced technology (mostly
AI-complete, as others have pointed out), humans are largely irrelevant, and
therefore so is advertising as well as any work we might wish to do.

The only way to "fix" this would, I suppose, be to posit a truly symbiotic AI
relationship, where these strong AIs can only exist with constant interaction
with human thought processes. However, if that was the case, the author should
really make this clearer.

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generalk
If you enjoyed that you'll probably enjoy Doctorow's Scroogled:
<http://craphound.com/?p=1902>

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cgs1019
Brings this to mind (albeit indirectly) <http://xkcd.com/603/>

Variation is probably the most resilient feature of humanity, which I think is
commonly overlooked in these sorts of dystopisms. Well written, though, and a
fun short read.

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dennisgorelik
That was a little bit creepy read. Google is and will be quite influential for
next 10-20 years, but it would definitely have strong competitors and
computers wouldn't be called "Google".

~~~
piotrSikora
Are you sure? People already use "google" instead of "search", they might
start using it also instead of "computer" in next few years... You never know!
Especially when Chrome OS is just around the corner...

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dkokelley
How will Google dominate in the post-scarcity society? Google makes its money
on the fact that market players need to find each other. It's just an
interesting thought-experiment, but if Google has made everyone's lives so
easy (assuming that scarcity has essentially become all but extinct because
Google gives everything else away), why would anybody need to advertise their
goods?

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alttab
One thing that Google, in their current or projected business model, will
never overcome is: the scarcity of natural resources.

Food, water, building materials, and energy. Commodities by technology, but
still essential for life.

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dan_sim
For the first time in my life, I read something about the future that sounds
realistic... but still scary...

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jmonegro
I completely disagree, the author is definitely taking it too far. Not in
terms of technology, but in terms of Google dominance.

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dan_sim
Google will dominate _because we don't care_. It's written in the text and I
see it everyday with people moving to Chrome and all that.

I think that the author makes a mistake when he talks about Google as being
one thing. It's much more likely that it will brand itself with different
names just like Pepsi having hundreds of brand without us knowing it.

~~~
byrneseyeview
_Google will dominate because we don't care. It's written in the text and I
see it everyday with people moving to Chrome and all that._

That only works if _we don't care_ and they're better than the alternative. If
we don't care who handles our email, Google and Yahoo have to fight based on
something other than brand name.

 _I think that the author makes a mistake when he talks about Google as being
one thing. It's much more likely that it will brand itself with different
names just like Pepsi having hundreds of brand without us knowing it._

Have they ever done that? What Google service do I use without knowing it's
run by Google?

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stakent
Blogger? Youtube? Doubleclick? ...

You know. HN readers know.

The rest knows?

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byrneseyeview
You sign in to Blogger and Youtube with your Google account.

Doubleclick is a good point, though. Of course, you know if you place ads on
the site (there's a "Google" in the URL) and you know if you buy the ads. So I
guess consumers don't know. Would they care, if they did?

~~~
dan_sim
I sign in to HN with my google account...

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swolchok
Most of the things described in this article are AI-complete.

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rmorlok
The best part of that page was the ad for the Google Nexus One at the bottom
that Google chose to show me. But I don't care, because Google does a pretty
good job.

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mushroomblue
man. future google is only a marginally-better cattle farmer than the current
ones. it seems we're more efficiently used, and for less time, but we're still
animals on a farm. when's that going to change?

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mattmaroon
And also, by the year 1985 we will all have flying cars.

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fjabre
Excellent Asimov-like short story..

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exit
the world described would have singularity-ed "long ago".

