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Google Says We Aren’t Ready for The Technology Revolution

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Eric Schmidt had lots of things to say yesterday at the Techonomy conference. One thing he commented upon was the future of the technology revolution and some of his comments can be filed in the “too big to wrap my brain around” section.

According to Schmidt, from the dawn of civilization until the year 2003 humans created 5 exabytes of information. But we now create that much every two days and the pace is increasing, he added. Schmidt went on to say that “People aren’t ready for the technology revolution that’s going to happen to them.”

He tossed off some examples such as:

If I look at enough of your messaging and your location, and use Artificial Intelligence,” Schmidt said, “we can predict where you are going to go.

Show us 14 photos of yourself and we can identify who you are. You think you don’t have 14 photos of yourself on the internet? You’ve got Facebook photos! People will find it’s very useful to have devices that remember what you want to do, because you forgot…But society isn’t ready for questions that will be raised as result of user-generated content.

He also touched on the possible abuses of having this kind of data out there, saying that to combat it we need true transparency and no anonymity, which I think is probably where the “people aren’t ready” part comes from.

It is mind boggling when (and if) you choose to think about the ramifications of it. Thoughts?

Via ReadWriteWeb

7 Comments

7 Comments

  1. Sumocat

    08/05/2010 at 5:59 am

    Seen it on Numb3rs.

  2. tal

    08/05/2010 at 8:55 am

    I think dangerous more than mind boggling.
    What we miss is provisioning. The US is now learning from Canada (yah) how to have monetary governance. Maybe in the future they will also learn that they need to enforce data neutrality. Believing that Google like companies are not misusing the personal information is negligence. People are people and much like bank exec – people will abuse their power if not governed by law and agencies.

    Once this is provisioned properly and people PAY for it and can get millions for abuses, then the future will come.
    I for one think we are ALL ready for that. Its just that the enveloping instruments are not in place. Technology is not everything.

  3. MP

    08/05/2010 at 9:02 am

    And of course Google has *no* vested interest in our giving up any hope of anonymity in favor of total transparency on the net…

  4. Ben

    08/05/2010 at 10:31 am

    I’d rather have google tell me where I SHOULD go (for profits, fun, women) instead of where I WILL go (for normal boring existence).

  5. Paul Harrigan

    08/06/2010 at 12:54 am

    This is just Schmidt trying to justify Google’s desire to sell information about every aspect of our lives.

    “Do no evil” has become the cover for a company that is all about evil.

  6. GTaylor

    08/07/2010 at 8:54 am

    Cool! But if he can do that with 14 pictures then can he tell what kind of person I am by analyzing 14 responses? It can’t be that hard, poker players do it all the time, to some extent.
    Certainly understanding how I think and react is more pertinent to Ruling the World! than recognizing my face.

  7. GTaylor

    08/07/2010 at 8:57 am

    “You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time…” and that is quite sufficient for most purposes. It looks like Eric Schmidt wants to stack the deck.

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