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300 Years to Index the World's Information
Kasracer writes "At the Association of National Advertisers annual conference, Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt suggested that it would take 300 years for them to index all of the world's information. From the article: 'We did a math exercise and the answer was 300 years,' Schmidt said in response to an audience question asking for a projection of how long the company's mission will take. 'The answer is it's going to be a very long time.'"
"We did a math exercise and the answer was 300 years," Schmidt said in response to an audience question asking for a projection of how long the company's mission will take. "The answer is it's going to be a very long time."
Since this was in response to an audience member's question, does anyone else think he was joking? Because it is such an outlandish question from an information theory and modeling point of view, perhaps he was mocking it? "Ah yes, we just came up with an equation and it should take 294.59 years." I think this also makes sense in light of his next comment, which was made on a more serious note. I interpret it, "We really didn't use an equation, it will obviously take a long time though." This is how I understod his comments, and I may be wrong, but it wouldn't surprise me if some reporter picked up on this "joke" and put it up as "news".
Like Anne Frank's?
Fact is, it's incredibly hard to determine today what will have value tomorrow. Most of those thirteen year old girls (or 20-something geek guys) blogs will have no historical value. But some of those people will grow up to have a profound impact on the world (or they may not grow up, but still have a profound impact, as was the case with Anne Frank). It may be ten years from now. Or 50.
Who knows what the writing they do now might tell us about what brought them wherever they end up? When people write diaries on paper chances are reasonable they'll survive and show up in an attic somewhere. But as more and more content get online, we also risk facing the loss of entire generations worth of many types of information to bit rot and simple lack of foresight.