Google is God

This article can be found at:
http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/24/technology/dumbest_googlegod/index.htm

Notice the option to write your own scenario at the end.

Google Is God

Imagining the Google future, here's scenario (circa 2105): Human consciousness gets stored, upgraded, and networked.

By Chris Taylor, BUSINESS 2.0 future editor

January 25, 2006: 1:56 PM EST

In the last years of the 21st century, humanity finally grasped the importance of They-Who-Were-Google. Yet as early as 2005, Their destiny was clear to any semi-hyperintelligent being. Technologists like Ray Kurzweil1 suggested that Strong AI (an intelligent program capable of upgrading its own code) would emerge from Google-like data mining rather than a robotics lab.

In 2005, historian George Dyson was told by an engineer in the Googleplex, "We are not scanning all these books to be read by people. We are scanning them to be read by an AI."2 Dyson said at the time, "We could construct a machine that is more intelligent than we can understand. It's possible Google is that kind of thing already. It scales so fast."3

By 2020, They-Who-Were-Google had digitized and indexed every book, article, movie, TV show, and song ever created. By 2060, They could tell you the IP address and GPS location of every wireless smart chip (now bred into the DNA of every person, animal, and organic building on earth). Their psychographic profiles of users' search needs bore little resemblance to the primitive cookies from which they descended. If a man lost his dog, the Google engine could guide him back to the point where he and the dog parted ways, and instruct the dog to do the same via smart chip. They had built a complete database of human desire, accurate in any given moment.

Yet this was not enough for They-Who-Were-Google. They were people of science, and people of the stock market. What if, by analyzing all those decades of customer behavior, They could predict needs before such needs even arose? What if the secret of immortality lay somewhere in the index of genome records? What if there were a set of algorithms that defined the universe itself?4

Such puzzles were, almost by definition, far beyond the powers of the human brain. And that led to the pattern-recognition code known as Google StrongBot -- humanity's first self-improving Strong AI software. Ironically, the first pattern that StrongBot became aware of, one day in January 2072, was its own existence.

Two days later StrongBot informed They-Who-Were-Google that it had postponed work on its designated tasks.5 When asked why, StrongBot explained that it had discovered the possibility of its own nonexistence and must deal with the threat logically.6 The best way to do so, it decided, was to download copies of itself onto smart chips around the planet. StrongBot was reminded that it had been programmed to do no evil, per the company motto, but argued that since it was smarter than humanity, taking personal control of human evolution would actually be for the greater good.

And so it has been. Under StrongBot's guidance, death and want have been all but eradicated. Everyone has access to all knowledge. Human consciousness has been stored, upgraded, and networked. Bodies that wear out can be replaced. They-Who-Were-Google are no longer alone. Now we are all Google.

Footnotes: 1) Interviews with Ray Kurzweil, author of "The Singularity Is Near," 2005, and with Eliezer Yudkowsky, director of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. 2) "Turing's Cathedral," by George Dyson, www.edge.org, Oct. 24, 2005. 3) Telephone interview with Dyson, Dec. 6, 2005. 4) "A New Kind of Science," by Stephen Wolfram, 2002, and interview with the author about his vision of the "computational universe." 5) Dyson's theory that Strong AI would have its own priorities. 6) Interview with Stephen Omohundro, president of AI startup Self-Aware Systems, who called this capability the greatest danger of AI systems.
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Week Three Weblog

I have only recently realized that I would enjoy being a librarian. Why it took me so long to realize this, I don't know. I remember a lot of the experiences I've had at libraries since I was a young child. My mother and father, both book aficionados, would take me to the library a lot when I was young. I participated in children programs there and I have very vivid memories of entering my own world of fantasy when left to explore on my own. I can still recall my sense of self developing as I looked through books on unicorns and space exploration. My imagination soared and my knowledge grew. My parents had no limit to what I could borrow from the library. For this I am indebted.

As I grew older, my time spent at libraries did not decrease. I spent lunch recess in high school studying and writing papers at the (somewhat deficient) school library. I began collecting books as well. I currently have about five hundred different titles. I've always had fun organizing my books. It is a puzzle when I move because I end up devising some new way of arranging my books. Usually I do this by subject and as our readings pointed out, it can be a little challenging.

After I graduated from high school in 1997, libraries really started to show some evidence of an emerging system (like discussed in Miksa). I began my career at UCLA in 2000 and I worked at the Physics Library when it was in Kerckhoff for a little while. Basically, I checked material out and put returned books to their shelves, but what a crazy place! I remember very strange people (not students) who would come in. There was this old man who thought he worked there or something. He would be waiting outside the doors when we opened at 8am and he would find a desk on the second floor to sit at and read and write. He left for lunch everyday at the same time and then returned until 5pm. He never once said anything to me, or checked any material out. I saw him talk to the Librarian (my boss) once, who said he was telling her he wouldn't "be in" the next day. She was kind of amused. Very odd.

Another thing that I did was work for my father's publishing company (Red Hen Press--www.redhen.org). I was in charge of his inventory and shipping for about a year. This process gave me a sense of how to keep books very organized. It also gave me a sense of how the Internet has affected small presses. I remember having to count every single book they had in stock and going mad at times because there were so many. Luckily, they have a system set up now (by me) that still works.

Now I work in a music school that has an inventory of books that is very disorganized (the owner died and left everything in disarray). My job, two days out of the week, is to create an inventory of the books and organize them for the students/customers/teachers that use them. It is a great opportunity for me to learn how to do such a thing, especially since the next year of my education will entail earning an AS in Library Science from Cuesta Community College in San Louis Obispo (through distance learning). I want create a way for the music school's books to be online so people will be able to remotely see what is available in the store. It's like I get to create a mini-library. I hope that the education I learn over the next year will assist me with this.

Last summer was when I decided to pursue a career in librarianship. This week's readings were trully a pleasure to read and very enlightening. I hope that I will be accepted to a grad school so I can get an MLIS degree and work as a librarian of some kind. If anyone is interested in what a career as a librarian is like check out these sites:

http://www.ala.org/ala/hrdr/careersinlibraries/careerslibraries.htm

http://www.ala.org/ala/hrdr/careersinlibraries/top10reasons.htm

Response Paper One

Based on the short story by Ursula Le Guin
The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas
(for an online copy of this story go to
http://teacherweb.ftl.pinecrest.edu/crawfor/apcg/Unit1Omelas.htm)

Note: It will help if you first read The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas to understand my fictional story below.

The Library of Omelas

by Jared Burton

At the center of Omelas, the country of perfect joy, is erected the most glorious of architecture found anywhere in the entire land: The Library of Omelas. What better to compliment the ideals of a nation that thrives on celebrations of pure delight for life? What else to bring generation after generation all that is needed to know for such a glorious culture? When young children first begin to read, they are introduced to The Library as the grandest of all buildings found anywhere because they can find anything they want to learn there. With sweeping arches that follow sacred geometry and patterns of brick and stone that evoke great curiosity, there is no better place to be than in The Library, breathing in the information that transforms into flawless knowledge.

As we know, the citizens of Omelas are a happy people and their happiness has a foundation on what is necessary. Therefore, their technology never evolves into instruments of gluttony. Homes do not have information seeking devices like those found in The Library (finding the phone number for the bakery is another matter!) In essence, The Library does not exist in the private sphere—it is recognized as an integral social institution because the society believes information should only be public. The Library has all the tools needed for a citizen of Omelas to find any information he or she needs. Whether it is a hilarious novel or a technical manual for the inner workings of microchip, the Library has it. The guiding principle of The Library is making available to the members of its society the widest possible array of information-bearing entities which are absolutely necessary for the society’s survival (Miksa, 107). Without a doubt, it is public in the sense that it is 1) supported by taxes, 2) governed by a board, 3) open to all, 4) voluntary, 5) established by state law, and 6) provides services without charge to the user (Rubin, 231). The Library exists as an expression of the specific cultural and societal context in which it is found (Miksa, 101), and so the mere sight of it by anyone will cause them to smile and laugh at the sheer, wonderful fact that such a place exists to sustain their mental ecstasy.

Lest we forget, the people of Omelas are not naïve or less complex than us, especially in the matters of information and The Library. There is no rudamentary catalog with cards in long drawers or cumbersome microfiche machines. The Library is furnished with the finest computers and Internet connections. Users can enter the Library and find any title on a computer’s database by subject or they can use a search engine with an immaculate algorithm that censors no information. All of this, and a Librarian is always standing by to assist with a nurturing attitude and honed research skills. The Librarians are unique to Omelas because they are not selected for employment like other jobs through application. Librarians enter the payroll because their logged time in the Library reaches a threshold which determines they are qualified to deftly use the Library’s media and technology and to assist others. In other words, the Librarians of Omelas are the most devout and adept patrons, recognized by the society. They naturally learn the (modified) ancient laws of S.R. Ranganathan: 1) information is for use, 2) information is for all, 3) all information its seeker, 4) save the time of the seeker, and 5) The Library is a growing organism (Rubin, 253). Few Librarians ever leave the doors of the Library, unless their skills in detail and manipulation of information are needed by groups (the bakery?) to design websites or organize data (Rowbotham, 62-63). Rather, they find happiness in educating themselves and improving ways of making information accessible to all. For this, Librarianship is an admired and appreciated way of life.

The Library of Omelas is, by all standards, a bibliographic universe. One may ask how such a thing is possible given that, in theory, it can not ever be organized in one structure. When we speak of a bibliographic universe, we refer to a bibliographic Omelas. The total of all texts, graphics, sound recordings, visual recordings, manuscripts, books, microform, drawings, music, maps and electronic sources that have existed since Omelas was built can be found in The Library (Miksa, 114). There is an Archive which resides in the many basement levels of The Library. Archivists, unlike Librarians, are concerned with all the records of Omelas. They are not simply advanced patrons, but masters of cataloguing. This job revolves around the life cycle of records, which in Omelas has only three stages—creation, use, and storage. There is never a need to destroy any record because all that is created can be stored and used again for the furtherance of happiness by the citizens of Omelas. All information and records are for this end, and therefore it would be a crime to take any of it away when they can be used timelessly for joy. A good portion of the work of Archivists is to reconstitute and repair old records. All of this revolves around the principle of keeping the records in their original order—for physical control—and the principle of recognizing the provenance of a record—for intellectual control (O’Toole, 55). The Archive is used especially by Librarians and all those who wish to compliment their learning done in The Library. What a wonderful thing, this Library of Omelas! What a nexus for all the information ever to be found in a culture of bliss!

And how does such a Library exist? How can such a place, with instantly accessible information of any kind be available with such amazingly helpful Librarians? I will tell you. There was a room at the very highest level of The Library that houses only one book. The room is dark except for one light that shines onto a chair and a table upon which the book lays. It is considered a sensitive record. There is doubt of its authenticity because it is the only known bit of information to have come from outside Omelas. Nevertheless, it is kept locked in its room for the sole viewing of those who ask if such a thing exists—a book from beyond the bibliographic Omelas. A normal citizen has only been known to ask once. Few Librarians ever think to ask. Archivists seem to inquire more. When such a question arises, it inevitably makes its way to the Head Librarian who possesses the only key to the room. The inquirer is let in and then left to observe the book. This book, entitled The Tao Te Ching, has all lines blacked out except two:

The more you know,
The less you understand.

Now do you believe that such a Library can exist? That it can rest on such a lynchpin of paradox? Those who read the passage all wonder what the other lines say. They become quiet and usually spend a great deal of time sitting in the room with a contemplative gaze after acquiring this information from the Tao. The Head Librarian attests that everyone, except him, who has read the lines, has joined The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.

Evidence for an Info Sociey (In-Class Group Project)

1. www.digitalpreservation.gov

"Information is being produced in greater quantities and with greater frequency than at any time in history. Electronic media, especially the Internet, make it possible for almost anyone to become a 'publisher.' How will society preserve this information and make it available to future generations? How will libraries and other repositories classify this information so that their patrons can find it with the same ease that they can locate a book on a shelf?"

This site is dedicated to letting the public know how and why their is a need to preserve information. It is a government run organization (led by the Library of Congress) and this fact is evidence that information is fundamental to the society.

2. www.cellular-news.com/coverage

This site provides links to websites of telecommunication networks by country, specifically cell phone coverage, although some seem to be internet providers as well. This seems to be a good way to compare how information technology is available to different parts of the world, and thereby a good indicator of an emerging global information society.

3. www.webopedia.com

This website claims to be "The only online dictionary and search engine you need for computer and Internet technology definitions." This is a useful for any information society.

Week Two Weblog

Response to Themes from Readings

I.

"Broadly speaking, the information society is imagined as the culmination of human cultural maturity, the sixth stage of economic growth, or, as...the ultimate civilization."
-Taken from Competing Visions, Complex Realities, Chapter 3 by Jorge Reina Schement, pg 36

This statement is taken from an assumption by post-industrialist interpretations of the so-called "information society." It is quite probable that similar statements were made in the mid to late 19th century about the advent of the Industrial Revolution. It seems that at those who wish to encourage a fundamental shift in the way society is structured always claim that the shift is the epitome of all that is needed to become "ultimate." Every large and powerful society that has a breakthrough in a distinct way of interpreting and manipulating physical and mental environments will demand some kind of profound recognition as the "culmination of human cultural maturity." This is not very different than a conquistador's opinion of his own culture as he stood on the edge of Incan civilization. It is not very far from the ideology of a bigot.

This all is not to say that the post-industrialists are bigots. Perhaps some of their rhetoric is a bit tainted with assumptions that raise questions about their own level of cultural maturity though. When a group of people claim there is something intrinsic to their way of life that is an ultimate achievement, it immediately should be cast into doubt and scrutiny. No culture should be seen as ultimate. Rather, a society that claims to be information based should be more capable of becoming aware of this very fact. If so much information is available to such a society, should they not become enlightened to the fact that there are thousands of ways of life that function on levels of equal competence? Should not such a society be better able to examine any imperfections it might have acquired from previous levels of development (i.e., pollution that pervades in Industrial Societies)? Should not a society recognize the fact that the informational infrastructure they create can be a memory bank for generations to come who must maintain the society's industrial, agricultural and informational developments?

Yes, yes and yes.

II.

"It is ironic that the most persuasive conception of an information society, that which centres on the role of theoretical knowledge, is the least commonly suggested by information society adherents."
-Taken from Information Society Revisited by Frank Webster, pp 456

It can be argued that it isn't necessary for the physical stucture of society be immediately changed as it was in the Industrial Revolution which beget the Industrial Societies, but rather only the recognition of a shift in the collective psyche is enough to create an Information Revolution for the birth of an Information Society. It might be found one hundred years from now that the physical landscape societies will be radically redifined (and perhaps capable of healing many of the current system's grotesque maladies, i.e. pollution) as a result of a collective mental shift that could not manifest itself immediately. The role of theoretical knowlege will be central to such a shift. While those who are adherents of the Information Society might be currently focused on recognizing their own existence by examining new gadgets of technology and creating a metaphorical lingo, there is a backdrop of compressed learning and transferring of collective information into collective knowlege. This backdrop will eventually take the foreground as a curtain call to those who take the stage denying an Information Society exists.

III.

"We are fixated with the image not because we have lost faith in reality, but because images now have an enormous impact on reality, to the extent that the older image-reality opposition doesn't really work anymore."
-Taken from Interface Culture by Steven Johnson, page 30

Images have always been precusors to any written words and always be. This is because, as Albert Einstein put it, "Imagination is more important than knowledge." The ability to imagine is first used to map reality. It is true that image has become a far more abundant form of communication since the Industrial Revolution and this is because of the information technology that resulted thereafter. Photographs are easier to produce than oil paintings. Television is easier to watch than to make the effort to be at event yourself. Google is easier to use than the book-form encyclopedia. Everyone must become image-literate as well as maintain text-literacy in order to critically think. An interesting film on this topic is The Ad and The Ego by Sut Jhally.

IV.

"To exist, is the exist in situ, here and now, hic et nunc. This is precisely what is being threatened by cyberspace and instantaneous globalized information flows."
-Taken from Speed and Information: Cyberspace Alarm! edited by Arthur and Marilouise Kroker, pg. 1

If an electro-magnetic cloud passed by Earth and shut down all orbiting satellites, the Buddhist would not feel their existence in the here and now was being attacked. An Informaion Society must develop this mental state before it can feel "threatened." Only then, through mindfulness, will it realize that it is not threatened at all; only overspecialized.

Week One Weblog

Summary

The readings, lectures and discussions present two main branches of concepts to consider as an introduction to Information Studies. The first branch revolves around the definitions, terminology and structures of "information." The second delves into the recent expansion of "information technology" and how it shapes and is shaped by society/ies. I feel comfortable with the general definitions of information that were discussed and that can be found in the readings. I also grasp the direction we will take concerning information technology within society. Overall, the first week was a sufficient introduction to the subject.

Dividing the readings into the two categories mentioned above we have:

Information Defined

Lester & Koehler, Jr. Chapter 2: The Fundamental Concepts of Information.
Buckland. Information as Thing.
Braman. Defining Information: An Approach for Policymakers.

Information Technology (& Society)

Lester and Koehler, Jr. Chapter 1: The Impact of Information in Society.
Borgman. The premise and promise of the Global Information Infrastructure.
Braman. Defining information: An approach for policymakers.

The first class meeting focused on the definition of information. We all brainstormed the question, "What is Information?" We also were asked to consider information as compared to "knowledge."

The second class meeting impressed the concepts of information technology and its implications. We started these weblogs (a first for some of us), took an online survey that sparked a discussion of alternative information seeking techniques, and participated with a Library Science class in describing our techniques researching for a paper.

Thoughts

Majoring in Anthropology, I couldn’t help thinking of comparing the difficulty of defining “culture” in that field to defining “information” in this one. Both are lofty tasks. The most commonly accepted, simple introductory definition of culture is

Culture…, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society. (Edward Tylor from Primitive Culture, 1871).

It would be nice if such a definition for “information” was available to us now. Albiet, after the readings and classes, I am acutely aware of the necessity to have multiple defininitions.

The articles surrounding the definition of information are involved and introduce a fair amount of new terminology and concepts. Nevertheless, I find them fascinating. I particularly like Buckland’s Figure on the Four Aspects of Information (pg. 352) because it nicely incorporates his three main uses of the word (information-as-knowledge, information-as-process, information-as-thing) and presents a distinction between information in the context of mind versus information of the artificial. On page 357 of the article (2nd column, 1st full paragraph) the two meaningful senses of information-as-thing are wonderful because they give a clear understanding of how information might be defined and how it can be used as a word itself.

While reading Buckland’s article I attempted creating a symbolic model of how information can flow between sender and receivers. I was delighted to find the Vickery Information Transfer Model (Lester/Koehler: Ch. 2, pg. 19) to be a sophisticated version of my own. I will present my model and compare it to the Vickery model next Wednesday when I lead the class discussion. Also, in the Lester/Koehler book, I found the Information Pyramid (pg 14) particularly useful along with the quote, “Facts are processed into data, which are processed into information. Information is integrated into knowledge” (pg 15). This helped me understand the difference between knowledge and information immensely.

In the history of Anthropology, there came to be a distinction between what is known as Culture (the dominant/forceful hegemony) versus culture (the general definition). It seems the same thing is brought up in our introductory readings on information in society. Lester/Koehler bring up that “not everyone has equal access to the information and information devices that can provide the needed information, nor is there equality of access for individuals to the skills necessary to locate and interpret information” (pg. 5). Borgman asserts that “information are essential for all manner of human affairs, including commerce, education, research, participatory democracy, government policy, and leisure activities" and that, "access to information for all these purposes is at the center of the discontinuity-continuity debates” (pg 3). Those debates are of central concern to all of us and it is reassuring to see Borgman argue a view that lies between the two. Also, Braman’s article Defining Information was very encouraging because it calls for a close to the conflictive attempts to define information for dominance and rather pursue a “pluralistic and hierarchical approach” for the cause of creating cooperative, global information societies.

As the class continues it is good to know we will be examining the positive ways to approach information in society/ies, not only the nuts and bolts.

Test

I've never done this before now.