Imagining the Google Future 197
Lester67 writes "Business 2 put a bunch of big brains together to give us a peek at Google from 2015 to 2105. "Will it succumb to hubris and flame out like so many of its predecessors? Or will it grow into an omnipresent, omnipotent force--not just on Wall Street or the Web, but in society? We put the question to scientists, consultants, former Google employees, and tech visionaries like Ray Kurzweil and Stephen Wolfram. They responded with well-argued, richly detailed, and sometimes scary visions of a Google future." "
Um (Score:5, Insightful)
Google will either drastically change (do you thnk you can grow as big as MSoft and keep your don't be evil thing?) or they will become less relevant.
The real key, is how will the internet change in 10 years, and how will google fit into that...
Re:sure ... google will be around in 2015, right (Score:5, Insightful)
Their stock did not drop 20% of its value. It dropped 20% of its price. Unless you truly believe that Google, its assets, revenue stream, et cetera, have no inherent value. The company is the same company that it was before the price drop. If you're buying shares because you believe in its ability to make money over the long term, this price drop was a Good Thing.
5000 Worthless PhDs? (Score:5, Insightful)
They've got 5000 PhDs. Such a group may not be able to turn on a dime and innovate themselves out of a rut at the slightest hint of competition (like Microsoft keeps doing) but they're not exactly a gaggle of worthless lackeys, either.
2105 (Score:5, Insightful)
I bet people sat around and wondered what the Carnegie Steel of 1995 would be like. I'm sure they had fun, but it probably wasn't worth the effort.
Predicting the future eh? Put some logic into it. (Score:5, Insightful)
My worry is not related to Google being evil, its more in the power of the individual. No man should have access to all information about another man. Personally I dont believe in Google being Evil as such, but experience and history shows that if you put man into a position where he has the choice of being all powerful ruling and controlling the other party or just sticking to morality and ethics he will chose control over ethics in the blink of an eye.
Its good to see the general public so concerned about what Google does, this means you are not willingly giving up your privacy just like that and wont let anyone get away with bullying your life around. Now this sounds awful paranoid and crusader-like... but its really not. The action we take today - will affect everyone tomorrow, so better be safe, take precautions now rather than say "oh...its probably all okay" and have a disaster unforseen in the future.
Every time Ive been paraniod Ive been right, that doesnt mean that Im right about everything - it simply means - if you can think it - its probably feasible and doable. So better safe than sorry.
Re:sure ... google will be around in 2015, right (Score:3, Insightful)
They have a lot of (paying) customers, that's also worth something.
They have some pretty bright people working for them.
I think it's a little bit more than a bunch of computers, some code and an algorithm.
Re:One Day Too Early (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:5000 Worthless PhDs? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've probably known that many PhDs in my life, and; oddly enough, that's exactly the phrase to describe them that usually comes to mind.
On the other hand one of the most worthwhile human beings I've had the pleasure to discourse with had no degree at all, having earned the dubious distinction of being thrown out of Harvard. .
Oh, and having a molecule named after him.
Credentials don't mean as much as you appear to think they do. Taken en masse 5000 PhDs just means that the bullshit gets piled even higher and deeper.
KFG
Re:sure ... google will be around in 2015, right (Score:3, Insightful)
How is that different from any other software company? And the comment about being put out of business by hundreds of other companies can be applied to almost any industry...
Yahoo! (Score:5, Insightful)
At least they didn't ask John C. Dvorak (Score:5, Insightful)
Just my 2 cents, but Google's dream of becoming the world's information provider doesn't look as if it will come off. People have seen the trap already - no corporation can be trusted, so it's insane to give one that kind of power - and Google's mistaken moves in China have blown off the remaining gloss on Do No Evil. From now on, it may be a much harder grind for them, and if the information issues get too hot they could easily end up being regulated into a corner. The last of the articles alludes to the huge trouble and loss of trust even one hacking scandal could cause them.
Re:5000 Worthless PhDs? (Score:3, Insightful)
But for right now, yeah, all that talent is great for Google. The article's talking about the future. A hundred years out.
Re:sure ... google will be around in 2015, right (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you're confusing "book value" with "market value". Those are two distinct items. So, yes, Google's stock value (eg, market value) did drop 20%, even if its book value (all those other things you mentioned) remained essentially unmoved.
Re:5000 Worthless PhDs? (Score:1, Insightful)
Second, doesn't it depend on what you find useful. And, perhaps it might be better to assess PhDs relative to another group doing the same job. Just out of curiousity, are the PhDs at the Stem Cell lab at a Wisconsin University (?) useless? How about those earning Nobel Prizes in Medicine, Chemistry, and Physics? What about the tens of thousands that go to work each day, earning not that much, just to incrementally improve our knowledge base?
I suspect Google employs PhDs from only a subset of the university research system (e.g., mathematicians, CS, and so on). They do so because they have a specific objective in mind, which makes the PhDs (sampled in large numbers) a wise investment. Further, by and large the hiring process is not blind.
Re:More like "Stolen From Arthur" (Score:3, Insightful)
You're implying (or that's my reading) that this story was plagiarised, but I'm sure that Kathy wrote the story as an homage to Arthur C. Clarke's story, and expected that her readers would recognise it as such (especially as it won a 'retrospective'(?!) Hugo [wikipedia.org] a couple of years ago).
I certainly read the story in that way, and enjoyed the story more for its resonances, and how it played with the original, than I would have done without that understanding. I think that SF is very often clearly "of its time" and responds better than other genres to re-interpretation.
On the topic of cartoonists writing philosophy, the least said the better!
Re:5000 Worthless PhDs? (Score:3, Insightful)
You will know when the future has reached us... (Score:4, Insightful)