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Google's Selfish Ledger is an Unsettling Vision of Silicon Valley Social Engineering (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Google has built a multibillion-dollar business out of knowing everything about its users. Now, a video produced within Google and obtained by The Verge offers a stunningly ambitious and unsettling look at how some at the company envision using that information in the future. The video was made in late 2016 by Nick Foster, the head of design at X (formerly Google X), and shared internally within Google. It imagines a future of total data collection, where Google helps nudge users into alignment with their goals, custom-prints personalized devices to collect more data, and even guides the behavior of entire populations to solve global problems like poverty and disease.
I believe we've found the answer.
...why they do not use it to drive Google's development itself ?!?
George Orwell was a visionary.
Google and Youtube already "nudge users into alignment with their goals" by manipulating search results, pushing sites/producers with opinions they prefer and hiding those they disagree with.
I suppose 2018 is the future they were thinking about in 2016.
Start with "don't be evil"
ends up with a terrifying Big Brother-y quasi police state* 'managing' everyone's behavior "for the public good, of course Mr Smith"
*you might say that Google is merely gathering data and at most 'nudging' behavior. I'd say that when Google can concatenate & save forever EVERYTHING YOU DO to a degree that would make FB and Cambridge Analytica (you know, the guys being publicly lynched for doing exactly this?) blush, and use that data against you in ways ranging from subtle to blatant including simply handing your data over to authorities, then yeah, I'm going to call that a quasi-police state whose 'public/private' partnership borders on Fascism.
-Styopa
1.) Run your own little server behind your DSL Modem. Starts at $30, called Raspberry PI.
2.) Store your data on your private server. Control access/encipher via SSH/SCP.
3.) Run your own discussion forums.
4.) Run Linux on your PC instead of the Snoop-Ware of MSFT.
5.) Run your own Jabber server instead of Corporate-Controlled Whatsapp and the like.
What is the maximizing stockholder wealth justification for "solving global problems like poverty and disease"?
As much as tech companies may want to be a new religion, they aren't. The incentive models of capitalism support a limited scope of activity effectively.
At least Bill Gates is honest in this regard--charitable focus requires an organizational structure supporting that. Corporate virtue signaling and technological handwaving aren't it.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
1.) Run your own little server behind your DSL Modem. An RPI server is $30. Leccy cost is minimal (2Watts)
2.) Run your own file server on the RPI
3.) Run your own Discussion Booard on the RPI
4.) Run your own Jabber Server.
5.) Show the middle finger to these evil Cultural Marxist Corporations !
There was nothing subtle in the firing of James Damore. Neither is the Censorship on Facebook "subtle".
FREEDOM TECHNOLOGIES:
+Jabber
+YacY
+ssh
+scp
+phpbb
+irc
So they finally switched to "Be evil?"
There's an old saying about democracy being "two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch".
The point being, the republic was set up to aspire to higher goals than can be achieved by pure democracy alone. We have people in power who are not bound by the will of the people, they can vote their conscience based on what they think is right. We take guidance from a bunch of enlightened people 250 years ago who set up basic guidelines to do this.
The idea of a bunch of like-minded people getting together and trying to "nudge users into alignment with their goals" is the same thing, it's "two wolves and a sheep" writ large.
We're seeing this today with the changes in user policy. YouTube used to be a bastion of free speech, everything that wasn't explicitly illegal was allowed... until that changed, and you can no longer talk about guns, or have conservative views, or cast aspersions on certain races or religions. (But it's OK when those races or religions cast aspersions back.)
Their goals are well-meaning today so that people will get behind the efforts and help, tomorrow their goals may be different.
Even when you agree with their goals, not everyone agrees with their proposed solutions - and yet they still try to influence public debate. Climate change is one of these issues, where a lot of people would agree that it's a problem and something should be done, if only the solutions weren't politically motivated.
What they are proposing is control over social thought. Unlike PACs or advertising, it's done without oversight or transparency. We complain about PACs not having enough transparency, and not knowing who pays for political ads - are we going to allow Google to be similarly opaque?
Next election it won't be "Russians hacked the election", it'll be "Google hacked the election".
Nudging behaviour like this is insidious and evil.
It looks to me like the only decent people in SF are the homeless people. They are far more in touch with human decency than anyone else who lives there. :-(
Is Hari Seldon running Google now?
Life is too short and too important to { take seriously | use windows }.
Nick Foster would seem to be aspiring technocrat. Read about Technocracy if you want to know more about this mind set. You should also look into Progressivism and Communitarianism. These three ideologies are being blended together and slowly woven into the governing of the world's member states. These ideologies invariably necessitate the existence of a strong over-arching state and the removal of the idea of personal liberty and natural rights to accomplish their ends.
Super rich people like Brin, Zuckerberg, Gates like to venture into politics as soon as they realize they have all you can buy for money. Top Googlers were cozying up with Obama and tried to run their own diplomatic show.
Little wonder they now engage in Censorship For A Progressive Future. In other words, they are communist powermongers. Leave these folks unchecked and they will remove your freedom quickly and thoroughly.
They will first censor speech and then proceed to erect some sort of soviet tyranny, because "populace cannot be trusted with the difficult political business".
Some of us have been saying this for years!
Back in the 1920s they said that the Soviet Union would combine electricity and communism to create a paradise.
In fact they built a brutish hellhole.
I want all of you to remember this the next time somebody suggest a Crypto currency is a good thing. because there is no reason to use a block chain unless you want to control and read the ledger that is part of the block chain.
Funny that they went from Google X to just X. Is this a ploy to make it harder to find information on them?
Please use ISIL or Deasch the Egyptian Goddess does not deserve to have her searches polluted by the Islamic Idiots.
how 'bout first managing to guide themselves to a product roadmap that isn't a random walk
Google and Youtube already "nudge users into alignment with their goals"
In that context, *their goals* = Google's goals.
You know the "feelgood" piece at the end about solving poverty, disease and world peace.
So Google can justify what they're doing by deluding themselves it will lead to "greater good".
by manipulating search results, pushing sites/producers with opinions they prefer and hiding those they disagree with.
in your context *they prefer* and *they disagree* are the users :
- algorithms are optimized for one single target : bring more clicks in (because that's what makes more money going in by providing more eyeballs to sell to advertisers)
- and the machine "learning/AI/NN/whatever is powering google now" automatically learns that the best way to achieve that is to keep the users in their bubble, preferably with even more extreme and emotion-appealing content.
end result:
- if you're a tiny bit left leaning you'd get endless stream of video about social injustice.
- if you're a tiny bit on the right you'd get a huge barrage of video about all the ultra-violent rapist-thieving-thugs immigrant that are about to invade the country
and it all ends up spiraling toward conspiracy theory revealing to you that the government is lying by making you think the earth is round and hiding the fact that it's actually flat... (because ?...)
TL;DR: the current think that might look like censorship is just a incidental side-effect of the algorithm trying to give you whatever make you stay for more content, and makes you a better recipient for ads.
There's no conscious censorship going on.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I'm sure the plebs will be able to do it no probs.
Back in the 1970s they said that the United States of America would combine information and capitalism to create a paradise.
In fact they built a brutish hellhole.
Is that you?
I'm actually concerned that people's data will be used against them to derive more than just a social score like China. Imagine if the Nazis had access to what religion, ethnicity, and political leanings of all within its borders who were tracked in real time - the damage that could be wrought would be far, far greater.
No need to imagine. Neo-nazis and racists are running the US government today, from the president on down (with some holdouts in the bureaucracy and state department, but how long that will last with the floodgates open and career government workers heading to the exits in droves, is anyone's guess). I'd give it a year, two at the outside, and we'll all get see exactly what it's like to have Nazis in power with access to what religion, ethnicity, and political leanings of all within it's borders who are tracked in real time. No imagination required (in fact, that might be an unauthorized thought process).
Why not? All it would take is some legislation.
1.) Run your own little server behind your DSL Modem. Starts at $30, called Raspberry PI.
A littlebit under powered, but still good for many non intensive use.
(Been there, still doing that sometimes).
2.) Store your data on your private server. Control access/encipher via SSH/SCP.
Oh, common. It's 2018. at least use rsync.
(Also, if you want good resilience against damage/corruption, you'd want a base with a tad bit more sata ports, and running RAID5.
Just saying)
3.) Run your own discussion forums.
...but be prepared to not have the richness of interactions currently found on the Social Networking Site du jour/whatever Zuck has bought the most recently.
You'll basically have your mom' writing you a message, every now and then, to remind you to call her.
4.) Run Linux on your PC instead of the Snoop-Ware of MSFT.
But be prepared to spend time on stack exchange just to learn how to make your touch pad work* ~~~
5.) Run your own Jabber server instead of Corporate-Controlled Whatsapp and the like.
And you'll have exactly 1 single user registered on it :
you.
Because most of the people you know won't bother installing yet another client (but it's opensource) just to send messages to you, when all their friends are on Skype/FBMessenger/WhatsApp/Snapchat/whatever is popular next (hint: look at what Zuck is trying to buy next).
---
* - Disclaimer: Proudly written from a Linux running laptop
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
There's an old saying about democracy being "two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch".
That what representative democracy is. (And is huge chunk of the reasons why your system is so screwed in the US).
Meanwhile, direct democracy works. You should try this sometimes.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
The underlying philosophy of the unreconstructed, hard-core Left is Totalitarianism. Projects like this expose that impulse for what it is: an attack on freedom of conscience masquerading as a project for "social good."
Eventually, they'll figure out that the role is already filled.
One can imagine the scene in which Gandalf, say, was placed in such a position. It would be a delicate balance. On one side the true allegiance of the Ring to Sauron; on the other superior strength because Sauron was not actually in possession, and perhaps also because he was weakened by long corruption and expenditure of will in dominating inferiors. If Gandalf proved the victor, the result would have been for Sauron the same as the destruction of the Ring; for him it would have been destroyed, taken from him for ever. But the Ring and all its works would have endured. It would have been the master in the end.
Gandalf as Ring-Lord would have been far worse than Sauron. He would have remained 'righteous', but self-righteous. He would have continued to rule and order things for 'good', and the benefit of his subjects according to his wisdom (which was and would have remained great).
-Tolkien, Letter #246
Google - an intolerant monoculture of sheltered, white, suburban, arrogant jackasses who think they know what's best for everyone else.
Bit deeper then that. I don't know what group of people are driving it but I can describe it. The more I look at especially some of the "synergies" between laws in countries that would otherwise be completely opposite, the more it becomes obvious there has been a serious push for globalization. It's to the point we don't have one, but MANY draconian laws straight out of batshit crazy countries, being passed with little to no discussion. It's like we're being prepped for habitation by the "royal families".
I've been thinking about that, and have a possible answer.
For context, I started thinking about this when I heard that London is now 42% foreign born. (Here's info from 2011.) England used to be predominately white and very conservative, but it's now peppered with no-go zones and full of foreign workers. Germany and Sweden are even worse, and are *still* importing refugees.
Why is this happening in Europe?
My best guess has to do with WWII, and the genocide of various peoples: Jews, but also Gypsies, Poles, Afro-Germans, homosexuals, Jehovas Witnesses, and others. Hitler made WWII essentially a war on other races.
That incident (WWII) has become so abhorrent in the collective psyche that people will do anything to escape the barest hint of being associated with it. The people of Europe are killing themselves trying to prove that they aren't racist.
We now have British police choosing not to prosecute Muslim rapists, while threatening prosecution for the fathers (of the raped girls) for Islamophobia for speaking out. We see the police suppressing reports of Muslim crime, but going after "hate speech" crimes from regular citizens.
We're seeing a little bit of that here in the US, where putting our own citizens first is called out as racist.
Thanks for uttering your Talking Points. Now eat your ration of fatty burgers and Sugar Water.
It seems kinda scary that a big brother org could shape the environment of information so as to influence people's behaviour.
But then I remember that humans are not so simple. To us the world is not a mere stream of information, rather, it is a world of meanings which we create and organise, where meaning is within a context which is within a context and so on. Just think of a famous piece of art, and all its parodies. Consider fashion and how it changes. The way that people's aspirations and goals, their likes and dislikes, their moods and opinions, all flow in an ever-changing, re-created anew, stream of reactions and counter-reactions. Life is change. And the "facts", the "data" which tech people are so enamoured of, is only one half of reality. The other half is inter-subjective re-creative re-authored re-organising meaning-making. Today you love X and feel it is the best person or thing in the world, tomorrow you're bored with X. Show me an AI that can cope with that, and then I'll say you've passed some kind of fancy test. An AI that understands new ironies. What a joke.
and even guides the behavior of entire populations to solve global problems like poverty and disease.
Every time somebody promises these things, a Master Chief is captured in a ball.
These technocrats want total control over civilization. These companies are the seeds of dystopian sci-fi. Anyone who actually cares about human civilization should ditch them. Find products that respect human dignity.
It's not 1:1 but some aspects like exploiting groupthink to "do good", "nudging" people to conformity etc. are common.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
It imagines a future of total data collection, where Google helps nudge users into alignment with their goals, custom-prints personalized devices to collect more data, and even guides the behavior of entire populations to solve global problems like poverty and disease.
Fuck you sideways with a rusty chainsaw, Google, I neither need, want, or will allow you to 'guide my behavior', so how about you go fuck yourselves, you fucking fucks?
Mad? Yes. If shit like this doesn't make you mad, then there's something wrong with you.
You want to win this game, people? DON'T PLAY AT ALL. Dump Google, dump so-called 'social media', and take your lives back. You don't need anyone to 'guide your behavior'. Google and others need to stay out of our lives.
The problem here is that when people form preferences and learn about the world, this gets encoded in their own memories and informs their decisions. Over time the proposed model here would replace this with information encoded only externally (and subject to external changes) but where new people would not first have acquired the internal models enabling them to independently judge their actions or choices. It more or less requires that people be trained to act sheep-like in following the choices and so on that the Google "ledger" would select and prescribe.
That the whole discussion ignores the internal encoding (in peoples' memories and own experiences) is to my mind a major conceptual flaw in the argument and a reason to reject the whole thing. An external knowledge base won't do; the basis for decisions needs to be available, and people need to have at least some training to encourage them to use that basis. It is a choice about what kind of world you want, and whether you want it peopled by folks who are recognizably human, or not.
If an individual (say, your neighbor) took it upon himself to follow you around tracking your every movement, record every interaction you make with other people, record every text or phone call you make, every purchase you make, and how much time you spend in various places, he would be be thrown in jail before you could even say "stalker". But in the US, money changes everything, even the line between legal and illegal.
They get away with it because of money.
Don't use their search engine any more, don't use any of their services, don't use any of their products, and block their trackers while web browsing.
I fail to see how they'll do anything with me.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
one search engine to find them
One search engine to bring them all
and in the darkness bind them
This is coming. The only question is whether it's coming through benevolence that aims to improve the world and make a profit for shareholders along the way, or through top-secret government programs in AI that you would have to be an idiot to assume did not exist. Google doing this is probably preferable to the national security community or the military industrial complex doing it.
If you find this unsettling, you will find the next century terrifying.
As compared to non capitalist countries? Some who've killed millions of their own people, subjugate them, removed their rights, and kept them in extreme poverty. North Koreans starve, Venezuelans die in hospitals because they're out of medicine. Saudi Arabia is finally allowing women to drive. Turkey's locked up tens of thousands after the fail coup. Zimbabwe has hundred trillion bank notes. Russia assassinates their opposition.
Move to a real hellhole or shithole.
They already censor and manipulate rankings heavily. All for the good of bankers, arms companies and the mainstream media lyers who keep the crap running.
Distributed Freedom Search engines like YaCy will soon be a better source for information. Because they cannot easily be pressured to censor in favor of fellow Google elitists.
Funny that the video calls the ledger "selfish" but then shows the ledger-curating technology as a servant to the individual's goals. A gene is selfish because the individual is one of its carriers, nothing more, and may be sacrificed if that would help the gene survive to multiply through someone else. So why not show the ledger doing that? Then again, the ledger pool is not limited the way natural gene pools are because it has a designer and a telos. Ledgers could be selfless if the pool decided it would be better off without them. So what happens to THEIR carriers? What's it like to be the damage that the network tries to route around?
Imagine the Resolution tool commiserating: "I know, Dave, life can feel pointless sometimes. How about an extra cigarette today? You're stressed and you've earned it." Or maybe it's watching as a user hesitates over a potential online dating match. The match is a solid citizen whose ledger has good replication potential, while the user is kind of a dead end and would only drag him down. A sidebar ad appealing to her insecurities (perhaps for the gym she hasn't been to in a month) might be all the nudge she needs to swipe him away. Good girl - now don't forget to pick up your birth control....
The best part is, there's no question of justice with a system like that. The nudges can be imperceptibly small but perfectly aimed at the marginal cases for which they're effective. All their power comes from the nudgee's own "free" choice to comply. So you may never get a chance to know or appeal the system's verdict, you may not like the corner of the ledger pool that you are ever so slowly being pushed into, but once there you can't deny that that's where you deserve to be.
Y'all are pretty paranoid. I would pay for this feature. Analyze my life, let me set some goals, and help me get there by using your massive AI combined with my data to make recommendations.
I can always put the phone down if I don't like it.
Apparently the greatest desire of the average American voter is to die poor, stupidly, but free.
He has a point in that America has turned Iraq and Syris into a hellhole, because Israel asked nicely.
Now they also want to turn Iran into a hellhole.
Knowledge is power. As Google knows you better and better, they have more and more power over you. This video shows they're already considering how to exercise this power. This is the obvious next step for them (and, FWIW, I had already called it: https://slashdot.org/comments....).
Google, Facebook and the other data vampires really need to be stopped. The EU GDPR is a step in the right direction (though I, personally, would prefer both companies, and other privacy infringers, like Equifax, to be dismantled, or broken up). Unfortunately, the US government is already in Google and Facebook's pockets (it's not for nothing that Google is the largest corporate lobbyist in the USA), so I don't expect any useful legislative action.
I don't need or want GOOGLE, or ANY private company trying to influence my behavior in order to try to make life easier, more fair, or more pleasant, and I DON'T trust them when they claim to have lofty, ambitious, altruistic goals like ending poverty or homelessness! THOSE are things the GOVERNMENT is supposed to do, and we must all trust, rather than an unelected cartel in charge of a private corporation like Google, rather our unelected leaders, chosen in sham elections because they've demonstrated to super-rich people like the founders and other executives at companies like Google that they're the most corrupt, most willing to sell us out for cash, most ready to do whatever their OWNERS tell them, to strive to make it really look like they're trying to solve problems (while not actually solving anything but the issue of themselves not having enough money to live like kings and laughing at the rest of us for being stupid enough to vote for their kind over and over and over again,) like poverty and homelessness, and OH GOD, I just realized what I'm saying...
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
and mass media, not the Government. George Orwell was a socialist.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
the constitution and replace our crap system designed by and for wealthy landowners with actual democracy, meaning a parliamentary system. That still won't save us from a total collapse of the country's economic systems (e.g. what's going on in Venezuela right now) but it'll put a stop to the systems we built that are designed intentionally to limit democracy, to wit: The Senate & The Electoral College (there are others, it's a complex topic).
The problem is if we call a convention to fix the Constitution the likes of the Koch Bros are waiting in the wings to hijack it. So it's not a good idea. I think out best bet is to figure out a way to get voters to demand politicians don't accept corporate & PAC money. Maybe put a law in that triggers an Automatic recall election if they're found doing it. Then give politicians good sized pensions for life and forbid them from having jobs or investing in companies after they get out of office. If you want to serve your country, serve your country. You can't serve two masters.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
that people aren't wolves and sheep. The majority of folks aren't looking to devour each other. A small group of us are and they use a simple set of tricks (mostly Bigotry to divide the working class into manageable groups). The way out is for folks to realize this and work together. The way out is reason and science. E.g. the things that make us human.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
How can I be reading Robert Sapolsky from 2017 (Behave) who is talking like Lamarckian epigenetics is still a thing, while a narrator from 2016 is saying it's not a thing?
Because Lamarckian epigenetics is still a thing in nematodes. It just hasn't been much demonstrated in mammals yet.
Whew! For half a second I was afraid that the hairiest Out of Africa monkey guru on planet earth had just emitted a submission yelp to some indoor-office sebaceous crooner.
[*] Sapolsky and his perfidious ilk actually trick various primate troops into staring at the untrustworthy bushes for an extra long time—"did you just hear Muggsy Bogues stuff Manute Bol? because that's what I though I just heard"; but it's all done with smoke and mirrors and secret tape recorders. Then the befuddled apes huddle and scratch and nibble twice as hard on whatever leaf is likely responsible for the Most Excellent Mass Hallucination, which is all that they can reasonably do, seeing as they don't have religion yet.
People don't ad block ?
Yep, such people exist out of our /. crowd.
WARNING!!! If you are tempted to try to see how they see the world and are tempted to turn of the ad-blocking in your browser off, be prepared : have a bottle of your favorite eye-bleach within reach, and have the number of a psychological support ready on fast dial on your phone.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
When you take a model of reality, and then start fetishizing it as a template.
As compared to non capitalist countries? Some who've killed millions of their own people, subjugate them, removed their rights, and kept them in extreme poverty.
Ah, just like America! Millions kept in prison, a history of segregation and disenfranchisement, and abject poverty and welfare. And let's not forget all the deaths from tobacco, leaded gasoline, and more.
North Koreans starve, Venezuelans die in hospitals because they're out of medicine.
President Trump just announced they would preserve the North Korean regime, and has cut off aid shipments to Venezuela.
Saudi Arabia is finally allowing women to drive.
Praised as an ally of America for decades, given arms and outright support.
Turkey's locked up tens of thousands after the fail coup.
Praised as an ally of America, given arms and outright support. Of course, the coup was either Muslim fundamentalists, or those opposing Muslim Fundamentalists, so...
Zimbabwe has hundred trillion bank notes.
Impoverished by American and European corporations extracting resources.
Russia assassinates their opposition.
Putin is praised as a great guy by the Capitalist American President.
Move to a real hellhole or shithole.
Like Mississippi, Alabama, or Florida?
Doesn't China already have a 'social score' or some such? Smoke in public, you lose points. Do something good you get points. If your point total falls too low, you are barred from transportation, etc.
How is Google's solution different? Is it just that they figured out how to monetize it (sorry, I mean 'disrupt' it)?
wiki shows a short story https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fermi_Paradox_Is_Our_Business_Model
Yay. I love the idea. Many people need help getting motivated or staying motivated to achieve their goals, so why not get help from the technology available? Please hurry and don't forget to put in some rewards, such as with Lympo system that I read about recently.
It doesn't have to be. After all humans are totally crap at collective long range planning, and individuals make very poor choices for themselves all the time.
I'd actually rather have a benevolent machine in charge than a power hungry politician.