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"St Lawrence of Google"
mcho writes "The Economist has a story about Google's co-founder, Larry Page, who " always wanted to change the world". The article attempts to make an arguement about the company's true intentions, amid all the rumors about potential Google products. "Google is already working on a massive and global computing grid. Eventually, says Mr Saffo, 'they're trying to build the machine that will pass the Turing test' -- in other words, an artificial intelligence that can pass as a human in written conversations. Wisely or not, Google wants to be a new sort of deus ex machina.""
This has to be one of the worst articles I've read on Google in a while. Summary:
- Larry and Sergey are passionate about tech (duh)
- People working at Google verge on the fanatical (duh)
- People erroneously predicted that Google would launch a product massively different from it's core search business (the $200 computer)
- Hey, now we're going to make a prediction that is even MORE far-fetched: Google will develop AI
This strikes me as a publicity-driven piece designed to continue the popular enthusiasm in Google and the perception that they can do no wrong. Maybe it wasn't intentional, but there is very little here other than the continuation of "Google as Media Darling" phenonemon.
Wisely or not, Google wants to be a new sort of deus ex machina.
And they would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!
Seriously, does the author of the submission even know what deus ex machina means (not the literal Latin meaning, I mean how it's used)?
If their business model is still selling ads, then I don't see much clutter in their model. Everything they've done so far is either to create things people want to look at so they'll see ads, to gather information to to better target ads, and to increase the number of people with access to their ads.
The brilliantly simple and useful software they crank out is just to get us in the door.
Yes, yes, very Interesting. But...
Hell, the other day I inserted a gibberish statistic in an article about a city
Why would you do that?
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