I will share with you my concerns of what Eric Schmidt has said at MediaGuardian Edinburgh International TV Festival, hopefully, without repeating many points others have expressed in their articles (see refs). Schmidt‘s words got me thinking about this faxlore/viral email,
“Heaven is where the police are British, the lovers French, the mechanics German, the chefs Italian, and it is all organized by the Swiss.
Hell is where the chefs are British, the mechanics French, the lovers Swiss, the police German, and it is all organized by the Italians.“
Eric Schmidt‘s words about identity service and real names (see below with emphasis added) at Edinburgh raised some serious red flags. To me, hell is where Google (with Google+) is our Police, Judge, & Jury, all rolled into one.
In particular these words by Eric Schmidt have given me most concern.
“In the area of social media, we knew upfront 10 years ago that the Internet lacked essentially an accurate identity service. I’m not here by the way talking about Facebook, the media gets confused when I talk about this. If you think about it, the Internet would be better if we had an accurate notion that you were a real person as opposed to a dog, or a fake person, or a spammer or what have you.
And the notion of strong identity was never invented in the Internet. Many people worked on it – I worked on it as a scientist 20 years ago, and it’s a hard problem. So if we knew that it was a real person, then we could sort of hold them accountable, we could check them, [Kempton: "accountable"? How? Is where Google wants to play Police and Judge?] we could give them things, we could you know bill them, you know we could have credit cards and so forth and so on, there are all sorts of reasons.
And the Internet did not develop this in many ways because the Internet came out of universities where the issue of authentication wasn’t such a big issue. Everybody trusted everybody, you didn’t have these kinds of things.
But my general rule is people have a lot of free time and people on the Internet, there are people who do really really evil and wrong things on the Internet, and it would be useful if we had strong identity so we could weed them out. [Kempton: "weed them out"? Is this where Google wants to play Judge & Jury?] I’m not suggesting eliminating them, what I’m suggesting is if we knew their identity was accurate, we could rank them. Think of them like an identity rank. [Kempton: Again, is this where Google wants to play Judge & Jury?] [...]“
“[...] Well, the first comment is that Google+ is completely optional. In fact, many many people want to get in, if you don’t want to use it, you don’t have to.
[Kempton: I cannot agree. The old legal and economic model of "property rights" need to be modified/redefined when the acquisition, selling (via ads), ranking, weeding, etc of our personal identity & information are involved. The new expected and accepted behaviours should be shaped and defined by concerned users including myself, and not just unilaterally by the corporations (be it Google, Facebook, etc).].
The path to hell is sometimes/often paved with good intentions, and often good scientific intentions by “smart people”. The fact that these high tech systems and sensitive information can be seriously misused now and/or in the future cannot be left to sort out by future generations when it may be impossible for them to turn back the tide of horror.
I don’t think Google share 100% of the details and algorithms of how it does it searches and ranks its results (except a few high-level academic pappers). And judging from what it has done so far, I don’t expect it will change its mind with Google+ and be completely open. In fact, Google looks awfully close to “evil” now.
Even in our human based and reviewable judicial system, we often made serious and irrevocable mistakes. How can we trust Google’s automated system to “weed out” people and to hold people “accountable” without it being open and transparent? To remind us of the implications, just read up how the lives of Guy Paul Morin, David Milgaard, Donald Marshall, and Maher Arar have been affected by a system that failed them.
Would you trust Google to be your Police, Judge, and Jury? My answer is an emphatic NO!
Few days ago, I had the pleasure of conducting a technical interview with Mohamed to talk about his various software work and a little bit about himself. Have a watch of the following video clips. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I was in conducting the interview.
- How did Mohamed get start working on Chromium (Google Chrome’s open source project)?
- Why did Mohamed choose to work on Chrome instead of Firefox?
- Mohamed talked about his experiences of putting in his first patch on the Chromium.
- At university, how did Mohamed switch from chemical engineering to electrical engineering, and finally settling on software engineering?
- Why did Mohamed decide to take the path of putting in so much time in open-source software work, instead of like other talented software engineers spending time to make the next new new product and make a ton of money?
“Technology alone doesn’t solve problems. Social media does not create revolutions. Its a tool. Nothing more or less. Real revolutions are born out of righteous anger and courage and vision. [...] The issue is not how accurate a bomb is. The issue is what to do the bombs you have. And more importantly, whether to use bombs at all. Technological problems are not the hardest part of the future. They are the easiest part. The hard part are the human problems that accompany the rise of technology.” - Malcolm Gladwell at University of Toronto: Malcolm Gladwell, Convocation 2011 Honorary Degree speech video (starts at about time code 6:38)
Note: As I see more and more power in G+ Hangout as a tool for reporting and researching news, I try to remind myself of Malcolm Gladwell’s cautionary tale of the Norden bombsight. Gladwell reminded us of Facebook’s and Twitter’s magical roles in the revolutions in the middle-east may be over-exaggerated by the creators of these tools.
I hope you will forgive me in not liking you when you were only 2 days old! Silly old me thought you were just like your time wasting siblings Google Wave and Buzz. But, at one month, you turned out cuter than I thought initially and I am willing to wait a little before declaring you “the best thing since slice bread”, “you suck” or “somewhere in betwen”! :)
(note: After my personal greetings, you will see some excerpts of Birthday Wishes and Birthday Minuses from around the web.)
You see, I have also started calling you my Lovemark which is much cooler than the boring old school brand. Being called a Lovemark comes with great responsibility. I know you are too young to remember the 1985 Coca-Cola‘s (an indisputable Lovemark) crazy New Coke debacle but it is one lesson in brand management that you have to learn in pre-school. We, the millions of users, are now in control and will be actively shaping your destiny. YOU better listen to our complains and our wishes very carefully.
Please tell your parents (i.e. Goolge), if they mess you up or worst “cancel” you, then their credibility in providing “tools” in general, will be damaged seriously, possibly beyond repair. Three strikes in rapid succession, why should anyone trust Google any more? I may be naive, but I am not that stupid!
My dear G+, you are only one month old, I am willing to give you time to grow, learn and to be helpful to people. I can’t help but want to use this particular Marshall McLuhanquote when I think of you today.
“We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.” - Marshall McLuhan
On June 30, 2011, only 2 days after the launch of Google+, my friend Garry and I were chatting about his 3D TV (I mentioned I would wait for glasses-free 3D TVs after chatting with Tom, NFB Chair). I answered yes when Garry asked me if I had heard of Google+. I told him I was wasn’t that excited about Google+ after wasting my time and was disappointed by Google Wave and Buzz. At the same time, I wasn’t totally dismissive and asked my friend to play with Google+ some more and tell me how he thinks about the tool.
Eight days later on July 8th, after reading some more positive press and my friend’s Eva’s positive experiences with it, I turned around and ask Garry and Eva for an Google+ invite. And I officially joined on July 9th cautiously. You see, Buzz gave me such a bad taste, that I told it to buzz off!
Current Google+ Impressions
I have now been using Google+ about over two weeks. I can now say I’ve been really impressed with what I see and what it can do for me as a **tool**. To me, Google+ is a powerful tool to learn and to use to achieve things. (more on the “things” in future postings)
Sure, there are still many different problems or enhancements to be made but it is a tool that I have confidently included in my toolbox.
As an aside, I never quite see Facebook as a “tool” to me, not like Google+ is a tool to me.
Predictions & Forecasts
There are people/technologists/journalists who can’t help themselves but give lots of Google+ predictions or forecasts. I can’t and won’t give you predictions or forecasts. If you can or are willing to predict & forecast how a one month old baby will grow up to be like a few years down the road, you are much “smarter” and “braver” than I am.
To end this article, let me use two of my favourite forecast-related quotes by Edgar R. Fiedler from myquotes I love collection,
“The herd instinct among forecasters makes sheep look like independent thinkers.” and;
RT @emmgryner: OMG just got off the phone w @Cmdr_Hadfield who signed off saying "see ya when I get back to Earth"...and I got chills 1 week ago
RT @WilliamShatner: I watch @Cmdr_Hadfield 's Space Oddity video last night and I have 2 words for him: "SHOW OFF!" I'd even look good floa… 1 week ago
RT @emmgryner: I am going to bed blown away by all the feedback and love re @Cmdr_Hadfield's Space Oddity. So proud to be a part of it. Wow… 1 week ago
Posted by kempton 
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