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Are We Searching Google, Or Is Google Searching Us?

Posted by kdawson on from the eye-to-eye dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The folks at the Edge have published a short story by George Dyson, Engineer's Dreams. It's a piece that fiction magazines wouldn't publish because it's too technical and technical publications wouldn't print because it's too fictional. It's the story of Google's attempt to map the web turning into something else, something that should interest us. The story contains some interesting observations such as, 'This was the paradox of artificial intelligence: any system simple enough to be understandable will not be complicated enough to behave intelligently; and any system complicated enough to behave intelligently will not be simple enough to understand.' After you read it, you'll be asking the same question the author does — 'Are we searching Google, or is Google searching us?'"

6 of 346 comments (clear)

  1. depends... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    If you're in Russia, Google searches you :)

  2. This is slashdot by elguillelmo · · Score: 5, Funny

    After you read it, you'll be asking the same question the author does

    Do you mean we are supposed to read TFA? Seriously?

    --
    Dawkins Revisited: A person is shit's way of making more shit -- Steve Barnett, anthropologist.
    1. Re:This is slashdot by oodaloop · · Score: 5, Funny

      That's the slashdot paradox. Somehow linked websites' servers crash from 1 million+ geeks simultaneously failing to RTFA.

      --
      Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
  3. Re:::yawn:: by WwWonka · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wake me up when it starts teaching the monkeys how to use tools and kill each other. And no Republican jokes, either.

    Soooooooooo, this Republican walks into a bar with a monkey under his arm....

  4. Re:::yawn:: by peragrin · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wake me up when it starts teaching the monkeys how to use tools and kill each other. And no Republican jokes, either.

    Soooooooooo, this Republican walks into a bar with a monkey under his arm....
     
      Walks into the bathroom and taps his foot under the stall door.

    --
    i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
  5. Re:::yawn:: by 93,000 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Bartender says: what are you doing with that jackass?

    Republican says: It's not a jackass, it's a monkey.

    Bartender says: I wasn't talking to you.

    --
    Sweet informative mod.