4.5 Nudging: When the State Takes Care of Our Decisions
71
companies.
29 It’s no wonder that there are currently a number of lawsuits,
30 which
challenge the manipulation of search results.
31 Is this manipulation just a business
model, or is it more?
4.6 Google as God?
We have seen that, powered by the giant masses of information, a crystal ball to
predict the future and a magic wand to shape it are already being built, used, and
further improved. It’s not anymore far-fetched to imagine that companies such as
Google or the USA’s National Security Agency (NSA) might try to take the role of
a “wise king” or “benevolent dictator”. Or do they have even bigger ambitions?
There is no doubt that many people in the Silicon Valley believe in their ability to
change and re-invent the world. Companies like Google aren’t just building powerful
search engines, smart software tools, and self-driving cars. It seems they are also
trying to create omnipresence (with the Google Loon project
32 ) and omniscience (by
collecting the world’s knowledge with a giant search engine). Given that “knowledge
is power”, Google may also be striving for omnipotence (by manipulating peoples’
choices—after all the company makes most of its money with personalized ads). It
is further known that Google wants to overcome death
33 (e.g. with Google Calico)
and that the company wants to create Artificial Intelligence (e.g. with their Google
Brain project).
34 In other words, one may get the impression that Google wants to
build or be a “digital God”. What kind of God would this be? A God that watches us,
a God that controls our destiny, or a God that gives us responsibility and freedom?
And how well would such a plan work?
For the time being, let’s make the naive assumption that a company or government
having all these digital powers would like to act in a benevolent way and not selfishly
at all (i.e. it would take care of us rather than trying to exploit us). Would such an
approach be able to optimize the state of the world? This is actually more tricky than
one might think.
29 EU Antitrust Probe Threatens To Hit Google With Heavy Fines, see http://www.techtimes.com/
articles/62230/20150622/eu-antitrust-probe-threatens-to-hit-google-with-heavy-fines.htm.
30 See http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-04-10/google-sued-by-streetmap-in-u-k-foranti-competitive-behavior.
31 In conclusion, in many cases manipulating our decisions might be illegal, dangerous or
counterproductive.
32 Google’s giant balloons set to connect remote parts of the world to the internet,
see http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3127331/Project-Loon-commercial-year-Goo
gle-s-giant-balloons-set-connect-remote-parts-world-internet.html.
33 How Google’s Calico aims to fight aging and ’solve death’, see http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/
03/tech/innovation/google-calico-aging-death/.
34 Inside the artificial brain that’s remaking the Google empire, see http://www.wired.com/2014/07/
google_brain/.
71
companies.
29 It’s no wonder that there are currently a number of lawsuits,
30 which
challenge the manipulation of search results.
31 Is this manipulation just a business
model, or is it more?
4.6 Google as God?
We have seen that, powered by the giant masses of information, a crystal ball to
predict the future and a magic wand to shape it are already being built, used, and
further improved. It’s not anymore far-fetched to imagine that companies such as
Google or the USA’s National Security Agency (NSA) might try to take the role of
a “wise king” or “benevolent dictator”. Or do they have even bigger ambitions?
There is no doubt that many people in the Silicon Valley believe in their ability to
change and re-invent the world. Companies like Google aren’t just building powerful
search engines, smart software tools, and self-driving cars. It seems they are also
trying to create omnipresence (with the Google Loon project
32 ) and omniscience (by
collecting the world’s knowledge with a giant search engine). Given that “knowledge
is power”, Google may also be striving for omnipotence (by manipulating peoples’
choices—after all the company makes most of its money with personalized ads). It
is further known that Google wants to overcome death
33 (e.g. with Google Calico)
and that the company wants to create Artificial Intelligence (e.g. with their Google
Brain project).
34 In other words, one may get the impression that Google wants to
build or be a “digital God”. What kind of God would this be? A God that watches us,
a God that controls our destiny, or a God that gives us responsibility and freedom?
And how well would such a plan work?
For the time being, let’s make the naive assumption that a company or government
having all these digital powers would like to act in a benevolent way and not selfishly
at all (i.e. it would take care of us rather than trying to exploit us). Would such an
approach be able to optimize the state of the world? This is actually more tricky than
one might think.
29 EU Antitrust Probe Threatens To Hit Google With Heavy Fines, see http://www.techtimes.com/
articles/62230/20150622/eu-antitrust-probe-threatens-to-hit-google-with-heavy-fines.htm.
30 See http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-04-10/google-sued-by-streetmap-in-u-k-foranti-competitive-behavior.
31 In conclusion, in many cases manipulating our decisions might be illegal, dangerous or
counterproductive.
32 Google’s giant balloons set to connect remote parts of the world to the internet,
see http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3127331/Project-Loon-commercial-year-Goo
gle-s-giant-balloons-set-connect-remote-parts-world-internet.html.
33 How Google’s Calico aims to fight aging and ’solve death’, see http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/
03/tech/innovation/google-calico-aging-death/.
34 Inside the artificial brain that’s remaking the Google empire, see http://www.wired.com/2014/07/
google_brain/.