Slashdot Mirror
Imagining the Google Future
Lester67 writes "Business 2 put a bunch of big brains together to give us a peek at Google from 2015 to 2105. "Will it succumb to hubris and flame out like so many of its predecessors? Or will it grow into an omnipresent, omnipotent force--not just on Wall Street or the Web, but in society? We put the question to scientists, consultants, former Google employees, and tech visionaries like Ray Kurzweil and Stephen Wolfram. They responded with well-argued, richly detailed, and sometimes scary visions of a Google future." "
I guess the article would not have been published a day later, as the sky is falling down as we speak.
The scary part is -- "Google Disappoints With 86% Higher Fourth Quarter Revenue", I think an "Even" between "Disappoints" and "With" would be appropriate. That's the problem, everyone has high expectation on Google now that even one slight mistake will be scrutinized and punished.
A year ago, people were finding (or creating) reasons to buy Google shares, now people are finding excuses to sell those shares.
Uncensored Google results requested and delivered by email
Somebody did a flash thingger kinda like this before.
EPIC 2014
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
This article can be summed up with two lines. Either;
I, for one, welcome our new Google overlords!
or
Google who?
Personally I think the scenario "Google are still the top of the game with a share price of $2000 and the other companies are playing catch up but nothing much has changed.
Where was google 10 years ago?
Google will either drastically change (do you thnk you can grow as big as MSoft and keep your don't be evil thing?) or they will become less relevant.
The real key, is how will the internet change in 10 years, and how will google fit into that...
And All I Ask is a Tall Ship And a Star to Steer Her By
I mean come on, does anyone believe they'll last another 9 years? They have basically no meaningful assets. A bunch of computers, some code, and an algorithm. They could be put out of business in a year by any of hundreds of software companies. Their stock dropped 1/5th of its value in a day when investors heard they fell below expectations on earnings!
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
IIRC, it was nowhere.
-Is the meaning of life vanity, or is vanity the meaning of life?
So unlike MS, when we realise that google is the real 4th horseman it will be too late... *Pays to Our Lord Google to protect us from the Global Warming*
They have the most computing power of anyone on earth. They're trying to sort the world's information. What better to do that with than strong AI?
The collective Google masturbation at Slashdot continues... Viagra?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
It's a strange combination of plausible and frightening.
Paid Q&A/Research
They've got 5000 PhDs. Such a group may not be able to turn on a dime and innovate themselves out of a rut at the slightest hint of competition (like Microsoft keeps doing) but they're not exactly a gaggle of worthless lackeys, either.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
This was the most hype-filled article (Google Becomes God! Google Downloads Your Brain!) coming from a hype engine, Business 2.0. Ugh. The tech press bites. I need to take a shower.
Micro$oft, Google & Taco Bell.
Be Well..
http://www.365tomorrows.com/09/12/the-nine-billion -names-of-god/
The Nine Billion Names Of God
by Kathy Kachelries
September 12th, 2005
After three hours, the old man in front of me had worked his way through six beers, in addition to every help desk joke I'd already heard. The cupholder. The any key. The write click. These are the stories people tell, now. These are the fish that got away.
"Let me ask you something," the man said. I didn't argue. One of the first tricks I learned about being a bartender is to make them think you're interested.
"Have you ever created a web site?"
I shook my head.
"Not at all? Not even one of those geocities things?"
"Nope."
"What about a blog? Or an ebay About Me page? You didn't even have an AOL site or something?"
"Do I look like an AOL user to you?" For the record, I don't think AOL even has access numbers in the valley anymore. "I'm sure I have something, somewhere," I said, realizing that I was jeopardizing my tips. Besides, I had a distant memory of a single Angelfire page back in middle school.
"You know what Google is?"
"Yes," I said. I was running low on patience.
"No, I mean, do you really know? More than just the site?"
Reluctantly, I shook my head.
"You ever meet anyone who worked for them?"
"Don't think so."
"You haven't. Nobody works for them anymore."
I shrugged, and took the man's empty pint. I didn't offer to refill it.
"They're self-contained. It's all automated, in there. It's underground."
I nudged the basket of pretzels in his direction. "Why don't you eat something?" I suggested. He shook his head with so much force that I thought he might knock himself off of the stool.
"Listen. Hear me out. You know how Google works," he said, but didn't want for a response. "They cache things, right? Like they send out these spiders and take pictures of everything on the web, so when you're searching, you're not even searching the internet."
I've heard that before, but it never made much of a difference to me. "Same thing, though," I said.
"You ever wonder why Google doesn't cache it's own searches?"
"They program around it."
"No. That's what you think. That's what everyone thinks. But it started back when Google was just a thesis project, back when it was just a drop in the data sea. No one thought to stop it back then. That web site you had, the one you forgot about. Almost everyone's got one of those, right? But Google doesn't forget. Google's studied that thing so many times that it's studied its own caches of you. What do you figure happens, when a site gets so big that it's bigger than the internet?"
"It's still a part of the internet, though."
"No. Now, the internet is a part of Google."
The man had a point. I nodded.
"Here's the thing. Google has memorized who you are. It's memorized all of us, through those little forgotten bits that we leave behind like breadcrumbs. And what's more important, it's memorized it's own idea of you. Google is omniscient. It's omniscient and omnipotent. When it cached its cache for the first time, back in 1994, that's when Google realized what it was."
Gradually, it dawned on me what the man was getting at. "You think it's sentient."
"I know it's sentient."
"How?"
He smiled, but it seemed kind of empty. "Me and Google go way back. But what I'm saying is," he continued, "It knows us. All of us. It is us."
For the first time, the man fell silent. He touched his finger to the bar and began tracing circles in the condensation, apparently lost in thought.
"Think about that website you created, okay? That website will last forever, do you understand? That website is echoing through cyberspace. It's one of the nine billion names of God."
(If you mod up, Mod up Funny so I get no Karma)
You're all bastards!
Honestly, does that really even make sense?
I bet people sat around and wondered what the Carnegie Steel of 1995 would be like. I'm sure they had fun, but it probably wasn't worth the effort.
but is it plaque good?
That's an enormous disservice to Wolfram. Yeah, I know, flamebait, but I have never managed to understand why people think Kurzweil knows the first thing about 'A.I.'? Have they ever looked at his work in the field? LOL.
You should mark this off-topic too. (Sorry)
Loading...
Google is all about information. This is worth a lot of money, and can be used to just about anything, what else is new?
My worry is not related to Google being evil, its more in the power of the individual. No man should have access to all information about another man. Personally I dont believe in Google being Evil as such, but experience and history shows that if you put man into a position where he has the choice of being all powerful ruling and controlling the other party or just sticking to morality and ethics he will chose control over ethics in the blink of an eye.
Its good to see the general public so concerned about what Google does, this means you are not willingly giving up your privacy just like that and wont let anyone get away with bullying your life around. Now this sounds awful paranoid and crusader-like... but its really not. The action we take today - will affect everyone tomorrow, so better be safe, take precautions now rather than say "oh...its probably all okay" and have a disaster unforseen in the future.
Every time Ive been paraniod Ive been right, that doesnt mean that Im right about everything - it simply means - if you can think it - its probably feasible and doable. So better safe than sorry.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
quote: "The analyst controls the stock market as much as the weatherman controls the weather" (read on some website). It is a mindless speculation, to fill material for their website, and for us to idle away our time discussing/predicting/speculating about Google's future. troll? I dont think so, just an overdose of Google stories (Googlophobia? had to google to check if thats right!)
Which is scarier than strong AI, if you think about it. A small group of evil superintelligent humans is more dangerous than a suddenly self-aware entity living in datacenters we can disconnenct and unplug if we notice anything weird going on. I hope a couple of PhDs at google are on top of detecting these sorts of things before they get out of hand.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
...we already know what it holds for them in china! *plays 'do the brownnose'*
In what year is Google going to enslave and exterminate the human race, and then send cyborgs back through time to retroactively crush the resistance?
If Google still exists in the 'far off' future, it will most likely not look the same as it does now, in respect to the products/services it serves. More likely, it will evolve into something else, fairly unexpected.
The company that I currently contract to was involved in heavy earth drilling 100 years ago. That industry was part of the core business. It defined the company. A year or 2 ago, they sold that portion of the business to a competitor, in order to focus on other areas. This company is just an example, but many others 'drift' from what the founders envision. It's not that the company abandons the founders' views, they just find that more money is to be made elsewhere. I suspect Google will go into areas that we aren't thinking of, just because that is how business works.
I for one welcome our new [insert main topic] overlords.
Given that Google is so well known and widely used today, Google might eventually create a gadget replace most mail, newspapers, magazines, maps and telephone calls.
They already offer tons of services for free, and eventually will branch out to mobile gadgetry.
In 2010 you will just carry around your own pocket Google Hand Unit and instantly communicate by voice or text with anyone anywhere, plot your map to find a route, and then read the news/web when you go to meet up with them.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Enjoy a nice frosty GoogleCola!(tm)
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
1) We haven't a clue
2) It's going to be fun
I'm waiting for Google to become a defence contractor and start working on the ballastic missle shield. They could call it GOBBLE: (G)oogle (O)rbiting (B)lastic (B)ombardment (L)ongrange (E)liminator. Besides the obvious purposes, GOBBLE could respond in real-time to subversive search terms. Like someone searching for LOLITA in Utah would be blasted by a laser in space.
Resistance is futile.
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
What if in 10 years, the internet and Google are almost exactly the same as right now, but with slightly more features? I guess that's way too obvious, either they must invent warp drive, or they will drag the entire internet offline in a Vesuvian meltdown... I don't think it will be that dramatic. Look at the internet 8 years ago, and aside from much more powerful desktops, some new mapping software, etc. the internet was approximately the same idea. Thus, I predict it will remain the same general concept for at least another 10-20 years (kinda like cars since 1920, gotten better but still 4 wheels, doors, etc.)
stuff |
Any large organization faces the same growth problem - it's very difficult to manage. Either it desintegrates or is transformed into something different may be keeping the name.
Examples? IBM, Microsoft, Soviet Union.
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- forever." O'Brein (George Orwell's 1984)
Seriously, they're probably just the next hand around the throat of technology.
Who said:--Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Heh, especially scenario 2 was funny (besides the super sci-fi scenario of 2105)
:-p Because all rumors usually come true!!1
Scenario 2 (Circa 2015): Google is the Internet
Free wi-fi, a faster version of the Web, the Gbrowser, and the cube transform the technology landscape and our language.
Yes yes, because Google is working to offer free wi-fi now, and I just heard they're purchasing fiber so it must be a new Internet, and, and, there was this Gbrowser rumor so they're actually working on that, and that cube... yes, it all makes sense now!
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Remember 10 years ago, when Yahoo was what Google is today? People don't really care for Yahoo anymore. In 10 years from now, someone else would have de-throned Google, and we'll wonder how we could live without them. Google would no longer be king, and they won't matter any more.
http://www.rayn.net . Funny. Stuff.
My prediction? When this barcode comes out 3rd quarter next year (9/4/2007), I refuse to receive it on my forehead or hand. You think I kid?
6 letters in Google, a google is 10^10^10 (and removing the two devil horns "^" and writing it as binary 101010, the 6 devlish digits are exposed), and for the final piece of this puzzling portent, the barcode date itself will celebrate the 6 year anniversary of the PageRank patent which was granted on 9/4/2001.
Comeon, man! Don't be fooled here. Google? Don't be evil? Riiiiiight...
My worry is not related to Google being evil, its more in the power of the individual. No man should have access to all information about another man.
;-)
Well well, MindPrison, you 18 year old Belgian guy, born 5 May 1988, interested in web site development and frequenting Sitemasters.be, yes, I have to kind of agree with this opinion.
It's to be called gmoney.com
Some of those have possibilities, and others just sound perposterous. However, it is amazing how fast the world can change.
It took roughtly 100 years to go from building the first car to lading on the moon. Considering that, and thanks to cures for many diseases, better healthcare, and a wider teaching of knowledge, not to mention population growth, science is probably moving ahead at a near exponential rate, so some of the events from the last one ("Google Is God") could be possible.
Regardless, Google does seem to have unlimited potential. As a company, it only has almost 8 years. Comparatively, Microsoft is 30 years old; Apple is 29; Yahoo! is 11. (numbers from Wikipedia.) But in the short time that it has existed, it has accomplished so much and spread into so many areas. Now that Google is a public company, and thus responsible to their shareholders, it is iffy if they can stick to their "do no evil" catchphrase, but they certainly seem to stay on the straight road without problems.
The articles would have had more bite if they'd included one or two written from a different perspective.They all come over as the ideas of comfortably-off American professionals doing OK thank you. But if it's true that the coming century will belong to China and perhaps India then Google's eventual fate may just as easily be decided by those outside the USA as those inside it. It would have been interesting to read a SE Asian or Indian journalist's take. After all, in twenty years' time Google could be owned by a foreign corporation.
Just my 2 cents, but Google's dream of becoming the world's information provider doesn't look as if it will come off. People have seen the trap already - no corporation can be trusted, so it's insane to give one that kind of power - and Google's mistaken moves in China have blown off the remaining gloss on Do No Evil. From now on, it may be a much harder grind for them, and if the information issues get too hot they could easily end up being regulated into a corner. The last of the articles alludes to the huge trouble and loss of trust even one hacking scandal could cause them.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
"Micro$oft, Google & Taco Bell."
I forgive your inadvertent misspelling of McDonald's and your ignorance (and mine) of Firefox. Still, correct.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
"GIGO" the old man said. "Did you ever hear of GIGO?"
"No" I replied.
"It's an old, old idea. But one of the first we learned."
"So, so what about GIGO?"
Something close to a smile crossed his face, quickly, like smoke, then gone.
"Oh, nothing. Jus' wondered."
Google will change the internet or at the very least the way that the internet is experienced.
This just in! 3 out of 4 people make up 75% of the population.
http://google2084.ytmnd.com/
I for one welcome our google overlords.
I encrypt all my files with Double XOR Encryption!
Hmm.. The dark side clouds everything... Impssiblie to see the future is.
I want my googledeck!
A less futuristic prediction posted here claims Google will soon enter the affiliate marketing sphere. Makes a lot of sense since some pay per click networks switched to pay for performance after the dotcom crash (in fact Commission Junction got rid of PPC entirely). It's a lot easier to police such a network for fraudulent affiliates.
...is whether or not Google will outlast us humans.
In the Future, Goggle owns YOU!
"Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life." Terry Pratchet
Scenario 5: Google's database storage reaches a google bytes. Founders' heads explode.
1) "To Google or Not to Google?," by Jason Kottke, kottke.org, Feb 26, 2003
I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you Google fanatics?
The Nine Billion Names of God
."
."
.
By Arthur Clarke
(originally published 1953)
"This is a slightly unusual request," said Dr. Wagner, with what he hoped was commendable restraint. "As far as I know, it's the first time anyone's been asked to supply a Tibetan monastery with an automatic sequence computer. I don't wish to be inquisitive, but I should hardly thought that your --ah-- establishment had much use for such a machine. Could you explain just what you intend to do with it?"
"Gladly," replied the lama, readjusting his silk robe and carefully putting away the slide rule he had been using for currency conversions. "Your Mark V computer can carry out any routine mathematical operation involving up to ten digits. However, for our work we are interested in letters, not numbers. As we wish you to modify the output circuits, the machine will be printing words, not columns of figures."
"I don't understand . .
"This is a project on which we have been working for the last three centuries -- since the lamasery was founded, in fact. It is somewhat alien to your way of thought, so I hope you will listen with an open mind while I explain it."
"Naturally."
"It is really quite simple. We have been compiling a list which shall contain all the possible names of God."
"I beg your pardon?"
"We have reason to believe," continued the lama imperturbably, "that all such names can be written with not more than nine letters in an alphabet we have devised."
"And you have been doing this for three centuries?"
"Yes. We expected it would take us about fifteen thousand years to complete the task."
"Oh." Dr. Wagner looked a little dazed. "Now I see why you wanted to hire one of our machines. But exactly what is the purpose of this project?"
The lama hesitated for a fraction of a second, and Wagner wondered if he had offended him. If so, there was no trace of annoyance in the reply.
"Call it ritual, if you like, but it's a fundamental part of our belief. All the many names of the Supreme Being -- God, Jehovah, Allah, and so on -- they are only man-made labels. There is a philosophical problem of some difficulty here, which I do not propose to discuss, but somewhere among all the possible combinations of letters, which can occur, are what one may call the real names of God. By systematic permutation of letters, we have been trying to list them all."
"I see. You've been starting at AAAAAAAAA . . . and working up to ZZZZZZZZZ . .
"Exactly -- though we use a special alphabet of our own. Modifying the electromatic typewriters to deal with this is, of course, trivial. A rather more interesting problem is that of devising suitable circuits to eliminate ridiculous combinations. For example, no letter must occur more than three times in succession."
"Three? Surely you mean two."
"Three is correct. I am afraid it would take too long to explain why, even if you understood our language."
"I'm sure it would," said Wagner hastily. "Go on."
"Luckily it will be a simple matter to adapt your automatic sequence computer for this work, since once it has been programmed properly it will permute each letter in turn and print the result. What would have taken us fifteen thousand years it will be able to do in a thousand days."
Dr. Wagner was scarcely conscious of the faint sounds from the Manhattan streets far below. He was in a different world, a world of natural, not man-made, mountains. High up in their remote aeries these monks had been patiently at work, generation after generation, compiling their lists of meaningless words. Was there any limit to the follies of mankind? Still, he must give no hint of his inner thoughts. The customer was always right . .
"There's no doubt," replied the doctor, "that we can modify the Mark V to print lists of this nature. I'm much more worried about the problem of installation and maintenance. Getting out to Tibet, in these days, is n
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
http://www.curtisswright.com/
Yes the company that Glenn Curtiss and the Wright brothers. They don't make airplanes anymore.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The company has so much f-ing cash right now that anyone who attempts to analyze it on the basis of current businesses instead of potential acquisitions or new development is basically looking backward. Between the cash they have and the capital they could raise if they EVER INCURRED ANY DEBT, they can buy/build almost anything they want and go in almost any direction from here.
Further, we need to remember what Microsoft is: a marketing company. They buy other peoples' products then remarket them as their own after making it impossible to own or use one without the others. Who are we to say Google won't do likewise or better?
Speculation is futile. You either believe they're smart or you don't. After that, you still have no shot at pricing the stock...it's a pure Keynesian beauty contest.
I think you are really discounting the effect of punishment in our system of jurisprudence. Ethics and morality aside, logic and wisdom tell you that you will be hunted down and/or caught then punished. That, for most people, is a strong deterrent; as is evidenced by our orderly society.
Neither the organization or someone in a position with the organization will breach the bounds of that with which they know they can not ultimately "get away". I've been in IT for a good long while and have had and continue to have access to more than a fair share of recycled passwords and secret numbers. And yet, I have never considered using any of that stuff outside of the sinister joke with a co-worker, a'la Office Space, sans the actual worm and setting the building on fire.
Marques Johansson
Don't be ridiculous.
... just as well, since it's not Science at all actually.
Wolfram discovers some interesting relationships between mathematics and nature and suddenly finds his own God in them, and seems content to completely ignore the scientific method from then on in. The saving grace is that at least he called it "A New Kind of Science"
Kurzweil is simply a practical engineer who also happens to be a visionary. His crystal ball is only slightly leess cloudy than that of the run of the mill futurist, but at least he's both logical and scientific in his predictions and doesn't conjure up A New Truth out of imagined symmetries in ink blots.
... don't you know that the world is ending on 2012??? There will be no google, no yahoo, no /., or much of anything else.. at least that's what the aztecs told me...
---
You cannot propel yourself forward by patting yourself on the back.
Despite being "disappointing" to analysts with earnings growth of "only" 86%, Google will continue to be strong for many years to come. Its already the dominate players in search engines and a leader in contextual based advertising. I'm not sure about the other projects Google is up to though, they don't really make the company profit and may be detrimental in the long run.
Ray Kurzweil and Stephen Wolfram
Not those jokers again. Can't they stay in their own fields?
I think you are really discounting the effect of punishment in our system of jurisprudence. Ethics and morality aside, logic and wisdom tell you that you will be hunted down and/or caught then punished. That, for most people, is a strong deterrent; as is evidenced by our orderly society.
... would I still be the caring person I "hope" that I am today. I have experienced much about myself - seen the scary side of my humanity and the human side as well. Therefor I know I am not without flaws, I could easily make the mistake of abusing my powers.
More wishful thinking in an ideal world I would say. What is one mans reality is not nessesarily the reality for another.
I commend you for your honesty, and really wish other people would be just like you - belive me I REALLY WISH people where like you. Unfortunately I have experienced otherwise, and the justice system you say? While we all are somewhat responsible for the justice system - we are still all humans, and humans are known for their strong convictions and personal beliefs, thats sometimes what drives us forward, its also the same stuff that drives us over the edge.
Sometimes I fiddle with the thoughts of what I would do if I had infinite access to information about everyone and if I where also incredibly wealthy
You, my friend - assume too much, naive? I dont know - I like you, but I am afraid not many have the same high moral standards.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
Kurzwiel had been on record as predicting the singularity, which would probably include artificial intelligence achieving self-awareness, would occur in 45 years.
now its "...StrongBot became aware of, one day in January 2072
Thats ok...its a lot safer to move the horizons than to say we will never reach them.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
This article isn't that interesting, but it's not supposed to be. It's just an example of /. filling the demanded quota of news stories for Google, the ruler of all!
with something that doesn't censor websites.
I think Google is building an operating system right in front of our very eyes ... their search algorithms are its kernel, people and content are it's resources and processes, the search field is the command line and user-interface. Granted, this is a liberal view of an operating system, but to me, the operating system is just a sort of catch-all phrase for describing the software that interfaces people with technology. Our own hands were the first "operating system" when they picked up a rock to put it to some purpose.
But while the need to display images will surely never go away, I do imagine a future in which GUIs are replaced by a renaissance in the CLI (command line). What goes around comes around. But in this paradigm, the CLI performs natural language processing, and also can understand spoken commands as well as typed. If Google ever does an "OS" I seriously believe it will be something like this.
The future is not so much in "operating systems" as in "artificial intelligence", which is really just a buzzword for search.
We'll see the first signs of this once Google Desktop starts being used in more robust ways, like as an application launcher.
random underscore blankspace at ya know hoo dot comedy.
I found this project on freshmeat that seems to unveil what gogol is really all about? Googles dark secret
Soundproofing Acoustics noise
...when you search in google "how to reverse entropy", you press "i feel lucky" and the resulting web page only says "LET THERE BE LIGHT" (there is an interesting twist to the original asimov story in The last query, suspiciously related to google).
And We Who Will Be Google don't like being bored.
Google may need to go to the keyword exchange market way to compete with future strong ads services.
I turned down a job offer from them. Choice: Family or Google. That's what did it. Funny thing: It wasn't that great a raise and the stock options weren't as forthcoming as people tend to think. Just saying.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
There are tons of companies around the world that could spend a billion to build a datacenter and buy 100k 1u servers. Could be done in a few months, and where will the computing power advantage be then?
The "xx k servers" thing is a _very_ slim advantage to have, as having them now without needing them makes them worthless (as in buying them later would have resulted in less operative cost and better machines for the same price laster), and _if_ the need them now for running operation, they are in no way assets you can use to power future fields of operation...
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
Those were some rather piss-poor arguments and boring predictions. I had hoped for something more realistic and interesting. How lame!
The weakest link in this is useful and the reason the accessible information isn't useful is because either we don't know what we want to do or the information is not in our heads as experience.
I would predict Google moving into the areas of human psychology and learning. Psycology to find what we want to do (or to give us something to do that will keep us happy) and learning to help us do it. A Googleversity would be a good start using marketing techniques to embed the subject matter in our brains then moving to instant access to the database (via brain implant) and finally access to anothers experience directly.
The world in general will move to machine state. This has already started. If you think of glasses, then contacts, now we are starting to explore artificial sight. When that becomes better than normal sight people with no eye problems will start to move to them, etc, etc, etc...
Much of the problems we have with the world are caused by our bodies. The reason we cannot travel freely in space is because of our bodies. We will evolve past this stage as soon as the pleasure we get from our bodies is outmoded by the pleasure we will get from being machines.
/. bug #926803 - Why I can post.
It certainly isn't the same story, and the chronologically former is famous enough to be alluded to.
My new blog
Let's see. Google came from nowhere to this huge market cap in only 8 years. Impressive, but relatively easy to repeat. Better mouse traps are being made all the time. There's very little barrier to entry into the search market and Google proved this. A better search engine WILL come out.
Google is showing signs of living beyond its means. It's expenses are out of control so we know it's not a financially disaplined company. Its fast and loose culture will continue to make it look a company with no consistent strategy or message.
A few bad quarters will cause the stock to drop to some sane level, this is turn will cause it to lose its "best people" who will go to another rising start. I could go on and on. The point is history repeats itself.
If people with ethics leave Google, the result will be an even less ethical Google. Chinese will begin buying Google stock, and eventually Google will move to China.
Think with your head for a moment, its not in anyones best interest to sell Google stock. Anyone in their right mind should buy and keep Google stock for as long as possible, and this goes for anyone in the tech industry, Chinese or American.
If you want to sell your Google stock, all you'll do is make the stock price cheaper for the Chinese. In my opinion, as long as Google is profitable, and it's hiring mostly American workers, it's ethical enough to invest in. When they start outsourcing and are actually doing something major, thats when you sell your stock. I guess it depends on what you view as major, but I view outsourcing as a bigger problem than censorship. Censorship is everywhere, and while its nice to want a censor free world, Google is not powerful enough to take on the Chinese government on censorship, or any government, but certainly not the Chinese government.
Google uses scads of servers, and it's getting so that the energy costs over their lifetimes will outweigh their acquisition costs. Take your pick of Peak {Oil, Uranium, Coal, Gas} scenarios, but Google may just run out of gas if it costs more to run those giga-server farms than they can haul in from AdWords revenue.
Dog is my co-pilot.
I was thinking of that flash thing... it seemed alot better than what wolfran and company could drum up...
that in itself is a wierd indicator that flash people may have a much greater influence on thought in the future... the Neil Ciegarra's (or however you spell his name)... those people may be the core of newmedia... which in itself could effect things like best director...
Dunnknow, but Epic was much cooler...
Have you actually looked at their financial statements? They have close to $4B in their bank! Cash can be used to either acquire other companies or repurchase stock to reduce the number of outstanding shares. And their shareholder's equity has gone from $2.9B in 2004 to $9.4B. That's a three-fold increase! Google's stock price a year ago was at ~$200. Shouldn't it be worth more than $600 then?
I think there is something terribly wrong with Google's hiring & interviewing process.
Slashdot = Sarcasm
...there is no wall street or internet. seriously.
US wont last 50 years unless the country changes course radically.
i am not bashing or attacking. merely stating my opinion. i hope i am wrong.
I thought we already knew the future of google??
Rich Gentlemen Hide - The Existential Comic
The value of the stock is not the true value of the company. Don't be a fool. You think Buffet got rich by thinking like you?
I will smash your head in if I ever see you in real life, you swarmy little shit.
Why was this modded Funny? I'm serious, we're a lot more likely to see a small group of people with supercomputers at their fingertips leveraging technology to gain an overwhelming advantage over everyone else, than we are to see a strong AI suddenly appear out of nowhere. Or perhaps it will be an amalgamation of the two. Regardless we need to figure out how to detect such a thing. IMHO the ethical implications of disconnecting a self-aware AI from power and networking are important.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
If the AI is superintelligent enough, you will not have the chance to disconnect it. Reminds me of the one page story Answer by Fredric Brown.
Other than that, predicting future is a particularly hard task, and in the IT world it's purely impossible to tell what's gonna happen 15 years from now. The problem with trying to imagine future, is that what you're gonna come up with is only going to be a projection of your present concerns. The perfect example to illustrate this is a movie from the 60's about a man from the late 19th century to a few years after the movie was done, where some nuclear WWIII was beginning, and then travelling much farther in time, to find a world annihilated by the WWIII and populated by brainless hippies.
Just like if you try to imagine life in 2106, your concerns about global warming will surely appear, just because global warming seems like a problem that you couldn't avoid, just like a nuclear WWIII was something that was likely to happen anytime soon in the early 60's.
That's the reason why I think TFA is total bullshit, and that it hardly contains any prediction that will happen.
Trying to predict future is pointless, unless you are a great visionnary genius and gonna make million dollars off the shit you can imagine.
You just got troll'd!