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"St Lawrence of Google" 392

Posted by CmdrTaco from the genius-at-work dept.
mcho writes "The Economist has a story about Google's co-founder, Larry Page, who " always wanted to change the world". The article attempts to make an arguement about the company's true intentions, amid all the rumors about potential Google products. "Google is already working on a massive and global computing grid. Eventually, says Mr Saffo, 'they're trying to build the machine that will pass the Turing test' -- in other words, an artificial intelligence that can pass as a human in written conversations. Wisely or not, Google wants to be a new sort of deus ex machina.""
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"St Lawrence of Google" More

"St Lawrence of Google"

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  • The Turing Test will always fail... (Score:5, Funny)

    by dada21 ( 163177 ) * <adam.dada@gmail.com> on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:32PM (#14457662) Homepage Journal
    We regulars at slashdot have found seven questions that will cause every computer taking the Turing test to fail:

    1. Will it run Linux?
    2. Why isn't there a law protecting us from [insert gripe here]?
    3. When will Duke Nukem Forever be released and will it support Copland?
    4. How can I enhance my sex organ's size?
    5. How can I write a DRM scheme that can't be broken?
    6. How can I protect my PIN number when I send it over AIM messenger to use at the ATM machine?

    and the hardest question asked on slashdot:

    7. ??? (usually followed by "Profit!")

    Poor Larry is just spinning his wheels...

  • T1,2,3 (Score:3, Funny)

    by DNAspark99 ( 218197 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:32PM (#14457672)
    GoogleNet == SkyNet!

    • Re:T1,2,3 (Score:5, Funny)

      by coolGuyZak ( 844482 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:50PM (#14457872)
      And the suit/labcoat that Larry Page is wearing in the picture makes him look suspiciously like the leader of a cult.

      Larry Page: Father of the Cult of Skynet. It has a certain ring to it, neh? ;)

      Seriously, though... I'd hit that koolaid.

      • FTA (emphasis added):

        One visitor to the company's Googleplex in Silicon Valley felt as if I were in the company of missionaries. [...] Paul Saffo at Silicon Valley's Institute for the Future says that Google is a religion posing as a company. [...] If Google is a religion, what is its God? It would have to be The Algorithm. Faith in the possibility of an omniscient and omnipotent algorithm appears to be what Messrs Page and Brin have in common.

    • Re:T1,2,3 (Score:4, Funny)

      by Captain Splendid ( 673276 ) <`capsplendid' `at' `gmail.com'> on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:59PM (#14457963) Homepage Journal
      Memo to self: Send re-programmed Terminator unit back in time from 2047 to 1999 to kill Larry page.
    • It's in your nature to destroy yourselves.

  • Leaked memo from S. Ballmer (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dystopian Rebel ( 714995 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:35PM (#14457694) Journal
    "There's no way we'll let Google own the Deus ex machina market space! I'll f***ing kill those guys!" {sound of chair striking Bateman print}

  • Clutter (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Douglas Simmons ( 628988 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:36PM (#14457711) Homepage
    A clean and uncluttered interface was the key to Google's search success as well as being the key supplement to their ad brokering business. I just hope "cluttering" up their business model won't have the opposite effect.

    • Re:Clutter (Score:5, Insightful)

      by raygundan ( 16760 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @04:04PM (#14458018) Homepage
      If their business model is still selling ads, then I don't see much clutter in their model. Everything they've done so far is either to create things people want to look at so they'll see ads, to gather information to to better target ads, and to increase the number of people with access to their ads.

      The brilliantly simple and useful software they crank out is just to get us in the door.

  • Don't mess with the missionary man (Score:5, Interesting)

    by chriss ( 26574 ) * <chriss@memomo.net> on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:36PM (#14457715) Homepage

    Forget about the AI rumor. It's just a rumor, the last sentence of TFA, unrelated to the rest.

    More interesting is the following quote:

    One visitor to the company's "Googleplex" in Silicon Valley "felt as if I were in the company of missionaries". A consequence of the theory that Google is aiming to run the world could be that "Google may be less liked in the industry than Microsoft inside 12 months," says Pip Coburn, a technology analyst. Bloggers have started accusing Google of hubris and arrogance.

    This somehow reminds me of Apple in the 90s. They were on a crusade. They had found the holy grail. They could not fail. They would bring their vision to the world.

    They could fail. And they failed. It didn't destroy them, but put their feet back to the ground. Where they belong. Today they make great products while listening to their users needs. They have learned that even though they may be on a mission, missionaries usually do not change the world. Hard workers and creative people do, as long as they stay connected to reality.

    Bill Gates from Triumph of the nerds [imdb.com]:

    Success is a menace -- it fools smart people into thinking they can't lose.

    Chriss

    --
    memomo.net [memomo.net] - brush up your German, French, Spanish or Italian - online and free

    • Re:Don't mess with the missionary man (Score:5, Interesting)

      by JWW ( 79176 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:43PM (#14457795)
      Dang, I just have to respond to this, and lose my mod points in this discussion...

      Bill Gates from Triumph of the nerds:

              Success is a menace -- it fools smart people into thinking they can't lose.


      That is absolutely the perfect quote to describe why Microsoft is the unbelivably paranoid company that it is. Bill always thinks Microsoft might lose and does any and everything (legal or not) to make sure that they don't.
    • This somehow reminds me of Apple in the 90s.

      No, more like in the 80s. In the 90s Apple tried to become another boring PC manufacturer to save their market share, only to see it erode it even more. That is, till the reverse takeover by the prophet.

      Chriss

      --
      memomo.net [memomo.net] - brush up your German, French, Spanish or Italian - online and free

    • Bill Gates from Triumph of the nerds:

      Success is a menace -- it fools smart people into thinking they can't lose.

      Not only did I name the wrong decade, I fucked up the quote too. This is not from Triumph of the nerds, but from Pirates of Silicon Valley [imdb.com].

      Chriss

      --
      memomo.net [memomo.net] - brush up your German, French, Spanish or Italian - online and free

  • Pass as a human in written conversations (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Too late. Ann Coulter has already achieved that.
  • "Eventually, says Mr Saffo, 'they're trying to build the machine that will pass the Turing test' -- in other words, an artificial intelligence that can pass as a human in written conversations. Wisely or not, Google wants to be a new sort of deus ex machina."

    OK, guys, I'm off with some mates for a long round trip of the Sol System in deep hibernation until this all blows over. I've got three spare seats, if anyone's interested.

  • megalomania (Score:4, Funny)

    by circletimessquare ( 444983 ) <circletimessquar ... m ['gma' in gap]> on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:42PM (#14457782) Homepage Journal
    the minds at google have entered the same phase tesla's mind did post-ac power defeating edison's dc power

    that is, trying to transmit electricity in the atmosphere and building a death ray

    your basic mad scientist megalomania

    google to announce the sharks with frickin' laser beams project in 3... 2... 1...

  • This is what concerns me (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TallMatthew ( 919136 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:43PM (#14457796)
    Paul Saffo at Silicon Valley's Institute for the Future says that "Google is a religion posing as a company."

    I'm not exactly sure where a guy from a place called the "Institute for the Future" gets the nuts to call any organization pious, but he raises a point.

    It's impossible to create a cathedral from a bazaar and still have it be a bazarr. You cannot suck all the resources out of the community and then declare yourself the community, which may or may not be Google's intent, but it certainly is starting to feel that way. They are chasing after every talented person around and positioning themselves in every market. Doing it better in some cases, not so much in others.

    It's arguable, but innovation and competition seem to go hand in hand. We seem to produce better results when talent is spread around and several companies are chasing results, rather than one company gobbling everything up and amassing a vast fortune. I don't think Google is evil, but they may be too powerful for their own good. These massive projects they're taking on could have long-lasting effects in our community; I'd rather they were created in a consortium than in a star chamber.

    • when talent is spread around and several companies are chasing results

      You have nothing to worry about. There are 3 (or 4) companies running around chasing results. And competition in the free market is good. Its just that in the case of Google , it appears they are gearing up for a very large confilct.

      And in that case it would help to have Skynet on your side ;-)

  • Turing Test is dumb (Score:2, Interesting)

    by lawpoop ( 604919 )
    I'm no computer scientist or whatever, but I think the Turing test is dumb.

    My sig line says it all. Quoting Pablo Picasso: "Computers are useless. They can only give you answers" (Translated from Portugese, I guess).

    So what if a computer can hold up it end of a conversation? What would be useful is if we could get a computer that wonders. Why is the sky blue? Why does it get dark at night? Where did I come from? How can I prove to someone else that I am conscious? How I do know that I'm conscious?

    We h
    • Ask the computer "what do you wonder about?", "what keeps you up at night?". Then ask it to try to answer the questions that "keep it up at night".

      And, frankly, to live up to the Turing Test, the computer would have to spontaneously talk to you sometimes - it's not very believable that there's a real person on the other end if they never have an unsolicited opinion.

      Furthermore, what the hell did Pablo Picasso know about computers? Often a computer can suggest new questions to ask, and in a time when compu
      • "Ask the computer "what do you wonder about?", "what keeps you up at night?". Then ask it to try to answer the questions that "keep it up at night"."

        No, no, no! You're missing the point.

        "Furthermore, what the hell did Pablo Picasso know about computers?"

        If you understand what he said, you would immediately know that he knew quite a bit. I know it's a popular stereotype to think that artists are new-age impractical kooks, but some are actually geniuses. If you read some of the things Picasso said, it
        • You could make the argument that the human brain is nothing but a very complex calculator.
          • Yes, a calculator that can DRINK!

          • Re:Turing test answers that one (Score:4, Insightful)

            by lawpoop ( 604919 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @05:17PM (#14458669) Homepage Journal
            "You could make the argument that the human brain is nothing but a very complex calculator."

            People have made that argument, but I don't think it holds up. I think it is a very myopic view of the human mind.

            I think for a long time, western science and philosophy were hung up wrestling with what exactly logic and reational thought were, mainly because your everyday person is so bad at it. Their goal was to have a totally rational, logical human being. Well, now we have that, sort of, in the computer. Except, we come to find out that a lot of human behavior has escaped the computer -- things such as face recognition, balancing, emotions. Now we have a rain man -- a powerful, totally logical mind, which can calculate the birth of stars, but one who can't even accomplish the simplest everyday things like guessing someones mood or walking to the mailbox to get the mail. Or even read handwriting.

            So in the field of AI, we are able to do complex things that people are very bad it, but we don't even have a theoretical model for a lot of simple, every day things that people excel at without even trying. For example, face recognition. We do have a few techniques that computers use, but we have absolutely no idea whether or not those are the techniques that the human mind uses. We know where in the brain the actibity is taking place, but we have absolutely no idea what method or technique it is using.

            I'm not exagerating, we're in total ignorance here. We can't yet peer inside the black box. We know what the eyes do when they scan a face, and we know where the optic nerve sends the data, and we know where the result gets sent to, but we don't know at all how that bundle of nerves is manipulating those electrical signals to recognize a face.

            We don't even have a good defintion of basic emotions like anger within the brain. We know what it does to the body and the peripheral nervous system, we know how other parts of the brain respond to anger, but we don't have any idea or definition of what is actually going on in that little anger part of the brain.

            So the problem in the western tradition is that these basic brain functions, such as emotion, have been totally ignored for the past several thousand years, in trying to find out what a totally rational, logical mind would act like. Turns out we are missing essential components of a useful everyday mind.
    • Oh for christ's sake, a computer that couldn't be asked questions about what it's interests were and expound on those wouldn't pass the Turing test anyway.

      You really didn't think too hard about that, did you?

    • Re:Turing Test is dumb (Score:5, Informative)

      by abes ( 82351 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @04:09PM (#14458078) Homepage
      The Turing test is more than holding up a conversation. It is causing difficulty for the testor to decide if room A has the human or room B. It is easy to imagine if the testor is unimaginitive, how this test might seem dull. Questions like: Do you like the Red Sox, how big is the earth, or where is the nearest Starbucks, can all easily be answered by a computer. These rely on standard data mining techniques.

      Suppose, on the other hand, the testor asks questions such as: "What's the meaning of Life?", "Please compare Emily Dickenson to Thoreau", or "What do you dream about?". While specific responses might be able to used, provided the programmer has guessed in advanced what might be asked, to actually have a *conversation* about these, is not likely to happen any time soon with a computer near you.

      More importantly, to answer your question, being able to converse about these questions, I will submit, *requires* a thinking entity. Why? Because it's dependent on creation of new material -- somehow taking your old data, and coming to new conclusions.

      • Suppose, on the other hand, the testor asks questions such as: "What's the meaning of Life?", "Please compare Emily Dickenson to Thoreau", or "What do you dream about?". While specific responses might be able to used, provided the programmer has guessed in advanced what might be asked, to actually have a *conversation* about these, is not likely to happen any time soon with a computer near you.

        There are many humans who would provide what might seem canned answers to those questions. "huh?" "who?!?" "s

    • You don't understand the Turing test then. It is not a pre-determined set of questions for which we are hoping that a computer can find the answers, it is more along the lines of "ask it questions till you are convinced you are talking to a consious beeing" (originally Turing had added that the questions should be in written form, but I think that this seems unnececary). In your case you want to ask it what it wonders about. In my case I still want it to do my taxes for me.
    • (Translated from Portugese, I guess).

      Picasso was Spanish.

    • " I'm no computer scientist or whatever, but I think the Turing test is dumb. "
      You might have just said:
      "I don't understand this, but I don't believe this thing that test what I don't know much about is stupid."

      Where you ever give a shirt that says "I am with stupid" with an arrow that pointed up?
    • "I'm no computer scientist or whatever, but I think the Turing test is dumb. My sig line says it all. Quoting Pablo Picasso..."

      Disclaimers:
      I am a Computer Scientist.
      Turing is the God of Computer Science.
      Picasso is the God of abstract.

      First up you may think you understand the Turing test but you don't, this does not mean you are "dumb", simply uniformed. To pass the Turing test an AI machine must be able to convince people it is human (so convinced that they incorrectly pick the computer as the real

  • Fluff Piece (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nomad_monad ( 442915 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:44PM (#14457808)
    This has to be one of the worst articles I've read on Google in a while. Summary:

    - Larry and Sergey are passionate about tech (duh)
    - People working at Google verge on the fanatical (duh)
    - People erroneously predicted that Google would launch a product massively different from it's core search business (the $200 computer)
    - Hey, now we're going to make a prediction that is even MORE far-fetched: Google will develop AI

    This strikes me as a publicity-driven piece designed to continue the popular enthusiasm in Google and the perception that they can do no wrong. Maybe it wasn't intentional, but there is very little here other than the continuation of "Google as Media Darling" phenonemon.

  • They are not creating cold fusion, nor feeding the hungry. They index lots of stuff and release free cool software. That's all! I'm not saying there aren't big plans in the future, but for now it's just cool stuff. If you look at Microsoft and the Gates Foundation, they have done more to help the world by investing billions into 3rd world nations and convincing others to do the same. They are making the world a better place for many.

    This Google bandwagon is just getting out of control!

    http://religiousfr [religiousfreaks.com]

    • Please don't call Google a search engine. That's not what they are. They are an advertising placement company. At some point, they may also become more of an information broker.

      The search engine is just their primary means of delivering ad content.
    • Yeah, but it sounds like they're on the road to building Deep Thought [wikipedia.org].
    • [QUOTE]They are not creating cold fusion, nor feeding the hungry. They index lots of stuff and release free cool software. That's all![/QUOTE]

      They actually are probably a huge contributor to the rate of research since they have enable researchers to more quickly find information. We are talking many millions of research ours saved.

      Better search tools are extremely important to nearly every research project.

      LetterRip

  • The ridiculous thing... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Skreems ( 598317 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:45PM (#14457813) Homepage
    is that to build a truly self-aware computing grid, the LAST thing you want is for it to be distributed over the entire globe. The amount of data a system has to integrate to reach self-awareness is massive, and the further apart the nodes are the more latency you'll have. Once the system is up and running, then maybe you'd want to spread it apart to protect against natural disasters, but in the development stage you'd only be handicapping yourself needlessly. The writer's conclusion is based on an understanding of science that doesn't seem to reach past the Terminator 3 level.
    • is that to build a truly self-aware computing grid, the LAST thing you want is for it to be distributed over the entire globe.

      Unless you're the inscruitable Chinese menace, waiting for the day they are capable of global domination... Muahahahaha!!!! [cue 20's radio serial evil music]

    • Dude, the amount of data you need for a program to reach self-awareness is like, ... 10 bytes. Whatever.

      Just something to make sure the instruction pointer is still cranking.

      I'm severely underwhelmed whenever someone talks as if they know how much data is required to reach self-awareness, much more even just claiming to know what self-awareness is.

      If we actually define it, it is (A) easy to implement, or understand how someone could implement, and (B) not profound.

      The crucial problem of self-awareness isn't
    • Whats even more ridiculous is the assumption that more computing power MUST lead to some sort of magic AI. Err no. Thats like plugging your computer in a 220 outlet and expecting it to run twice as fast. This kind of AI is a software/theory/psychologica/semantic/epistemologi cal/neurologic/behavior problem. Yeah, good luck with that.
    • It only makes in slower. Most of which isn't even noticible by a human.
      Think of it as talking to someone who pauses for 2 seconds before responding to questions.

      Also, they need to have something that works in praticality so they can make money off their research while using their researching.

  • Deus ex machina? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by saforrest ( 184929 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:47PM (#14457842) Journal
    Wisely or not, Google wants to be a new sort of deus ex machina.

    And they would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!

    Seriously, does the author of the submission even know what deus ex machina means (not the literal Latin meaning, I mean how it's used)?
    • Even the literal meaning doesn't work - he's claiming they'd make something approaching humanity, let alone devinity.

      But yeah, it's a literary term, the authour is a tool.
    • Larry Paige in a white robe being lowered onto the stage on wires? Sure.

    • Re:Deus ex machina? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Vreejack ( 68778 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @04:46PM (#14458408)
      Don't know why the parent was modded down. Perhaps the moderator was as clueless as the author. Pedantic tirade, anyone?

      For those who do not understand the term Deus ex machina---and are therefore smart enough not to use it in public---a good example of the term would be the eagles from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. They were invoked to resolve a plot problem and seem to require a bit too much suspension of disbelief, since a reader is left wondering why the heck they didn't just use the eagles to fly to Mordor instead of engaging on that perilous quest. Also, see any of the works by Stephen King.

      The Greek tragedian Euripides was infamous for resolving difficulties in his plays by lowering a god from a crane (the machina, in Latin) who would then resolve all the outstanding issues.

      For the pedants who think the literal meaning might be good to describe artificial intelligence, think again. The term in Latin is a calque, which is a literal translation from the Greek, not perhaps a phrase the Romans would have coined.

      • ...a reader is left wondering why the heck they didn't just use the eagles to fly to Mordor instead of engaging on that perilous quest.

        Because the Nazgul would've killed them? Because Sauron would've spotted that immediately?

        Offtopic, I know...

  • obvious (Score:3, Informative)

    by drDugan ( 219551 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:47PM (#14457843) Homepage
    this is an obvious conclusion. the next obvious step after point to the information is having it and understanding it.

    note though - the popular definition of the Turing test (computers passing as humans) is not the initial or the only test Turing proposed. He proposed one in which an outside observer could guess the *gender* of a hidden respondant through bi-directional text communication.

    there is a very important difference here. gender is an obvious splitting of context for what someone knows. males have an experience in the world as a male human and females as a female human. there are then very subtle differences in the context (scope and location of knowledge) for each type. there are no set rules for what any particular man or woman can or can't know - but on the whole, their context is different.

    this is actually a much easier test than for one in which computers generally pass for humans. This test was about locating and identifying the context of a knowledge source, not about testing the complexity or processing ability of a system.

    for people really interested in this -- go read the 1950 paper "Computing Machineryand Intelligence." by Turing.

    what makes my SOOO frustrated is that 1.5 years ago I applied several times to Google to work on exactly this question and was never able to get an interview - and I have a PhD in Informatics
    • the experience of men and women were very different in turings day then they are today. It might not be possible to tell the difference any more.

  • Buy long term puts (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Budenny ( 888916 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:48PM (#14457851)
    Whenever you see stories like this, and among other things if they start building new buildings, buy executive jets, if in Europe, CEOs get enobled, which is a particularly horrifying portent for shareholders, but if in the US start being treated as visionaries, then, buy long term puts. Especially when the brokerage community is telling you to buy buy buy.

    Now, the great mistake in these matters is buying your puts too early, and I admit to thinking the time had come at 400. However, how anyone can lose in long term puts at this point defies belief. Is 500 possible? Probably. But I confidently expect to see 50 before we see 1,000. Friends, what we are seeing now is not part of the history of Internet or computing. It is a chapter in the history of hysteria.

    Caution: this is not investment advice, and I am completely unqualified to give any. These are opinions offered to stimulate thought and discussion and of educational value only. If that!
    • You sir are, indeed, enlightened!

      One of the easiest and quickest way to compare companies is to compare their market cap. That is, take the # of shares outstanding and multiply it by the share price. The share price already takes into account debt, cash crunch, etc and ultimately, the share price is the judge, jury, and final decision when it comes to a company's value.

      Sooo, just to provide a little backup:
      Microsoft is valued at $288 billion. [yahoo.com] And has $40B in cash and marketable securities. Last y

  • Google to solve problems in an improbable way? (Score:5, Funny)

    by no reason to be here ( 218628 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @03:57PM (#14457939) Homepage
    deus ex machina - n
    1. In Greek and Roman drama, a god lowered by stage machinery to resolve a plot or extricate the protagonist from a difficult situation.
    2. An unexpected, artificial, or improbable character, device, or event introduced suddenly in a work of fiction or drama to resolve a situation or untangle a plot.
    3. A person or event that provides a sudden and unexpected solution to a difficulty.


    Of the three definitions, I would say only 2 or 3 would make sense in the context that the phrase is used. So, the ultimate goal of the company is to have Google pop up unexpectedly and resolve conflicts in an artificial and contrived manner.

    Sorta like Clippy. *ducks*
  • Even the lowliest of machines can run a spelling checker that spells 'arguement' correctly. Then again, maybe you're bluffing.
  • What? Google wants to be a plot line?

    For christ sake, the article writer needs to learn what the term means.
  • Google is an advertising company marketing themselves through cool free software. They've found a niche, and it's a good one. The idea that they're going to start producing operating systems or desktops is asinine...although I'm sure they will continue to donate to innovative initiatives like MIT's $200 computer, as doing so is also an excellent form of advertising and allows them actively to "not be evil."

  • To the naysayers... it's inevitable (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Kevin143 ( 672873 ) <slashdotNO@SPAMkfischer.com> on Thursday January 12, 2006 @04:07PM (#14458051) Homepage

    So Google's big project is scanning every single book and indexing them online. It's a great idea. Why just search the internet when you can also be searching every work of literature? It's an obvious advance for Google, improving the search engine in a small but obvious way that makes a big difference as far as real usability.

    Here's the thing: indexing books online is an incidental benefit. Google's real goal is to create a working, statistical AI. They've been hiring top-of-their-field AI researchers for a while. Last summer, Google won a competition for machine translation. They translated from Arabic to English and vice-versa better than all of their competitors. They did this using a statistical approach -- just feed the computer thousands and thousands of already translated documents, and eventually the machine can start making inferences based on probability. Given enough data, it works.

    The same idea can be applied in the generic case. Wouldn't being able to ask an AI any question and receive a correct answer revolutionize society? And, the sum total of world literature is probably enough data to do so. They could call it AskG. He would know everything. And, the way they could roll it out, is by launching, and simultaneously updating wikipedia. It's well known that Wikipedia is riddled with small errors. Hell, the other day I inserted a gibberish statistic in an article about a city, and it's still there. Imagine if Google AI launches, and then announces that it has fixed Wikipedia. If Google AI made 50,000 edits it would overwhelm Wikipedia's normal editors, but whichever edits were checked by humans would certainly be confirmed as correct.

    And, a new age of humanity would be ushered in. It would we a new Library of Alexandria. We would end the Age of Information and enter the Age of Knowledge. The singularity has already begun, but no one has realized it -- the singularity began the day Google went live.

    Would AskG immediately fix quantum theory? Given all the data about science published by researchers, could G form new conclusions that humanity's best and brightest haven't? Could G solve the logistical challenge of solving world poverty?

    There'd be one question left unanswered, of course, the classic "Can entropy be reversed?." What would be really scary would be if G had an immediate answer.

    See the best sci-fi short story ever written, Asimov's The Last Question [mit.edu], or a simple find and replace hack of that story, The Last Query [interconnected.org].

    • Re:To the naysayers... it's inevitable (Score:5, Insightful)

      by just_another_sean ( 919159 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @04:25PM (#14458230) Journal
      Yes, yes, very Interesting. But...

      Hell, the other day I inserted a gibberish statistic in an article about a city

      Why would you do that?
    • Ingesting and indexing information makes it available, but it doesn't enable value judgments about it. There's plenty of inaccurate information on the Internet and in books (for instance--every fiction Web site or book), and I don't see how a cataloging system will be trained to make value judgments about it, or to synthesize it into new forms (as opposed to just present it).

      Human children don't even tackle this process formally until they are about 4 or 5 and start school. And most aren't very good at it u
    • You've read The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect, haven't you? If not, you should.
    • This is a tempting vision, but the problem is that while Google has certainly built a nice big database and a lot of useful algorithms for interpreting search queries, they still need a lot more components to build something like what you suggest. And building these components is, to say the least, not trivial. I'm pretty sure they are thinking about at least some of these, probably all of them. That doesn't mean they're on the verge of making it happen.

      A few of the components are, in no particular orde

    • Re:To the naysayers... it's inevitable (Score:4, Interesting)

      by vinlud ( 230623 ) * on Thursday January 12, 2006 @06:56PM (#14459516)
      I don't think Googles future lies in AI. They make money by building a huge worldwide database of online user profiles which can be used for selling advertisements. How to gather all this necessary information? By providing free useful tools everybody wants, like searching the web or books, maps, email, etcetera. By the way I heard Google will launch a free web statistics tool quite soon, which would be a logical step in their goal to aquire as much information for profiles as possible.
  • You mean, there is a Hi-Tech company, and apparently NONE of the people in charge, or that work there, have EVER read or SEEN ANY science-fiction??? NOBODY?? Cripes. We are doomed.
  • Just let me know when they start launching satellites...

    ::Colz Grigor

  • I am of the strong opinion that AI will not develop as a result of concerted human effort. Instead, I believe that it will emerge, on it's own, from the vast Internet. If you think about the human brain, and how it has trillions of neurons, each interconnected in many ways to other neurons, you might see where I am going with it. As our computers and networks grow more interconnected and connected at higher speeds along with self-learning software (network defense, AJAX and google based software) that ha

    • Re:AI - Where will it come from? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ltbarcly ( 398259 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @05:03PM (#14458558)
      This is just platitudes and idiocy.

      The natural state of matter is not consciousness. If it were virtually everything would be intelligent. As it is only a few animals seem to possess intelligence on one planet.

      We know that consciousness in Man is the result of billions of years of competition among trillions upon trillions of organisms which are our ancestors.

      The idea that a single entity, designed, but not designed to be conscious will eventually become intelligent is the result of too much bad science fiction. Trillions of organisms evolving for billions of years to produce even slightly intelligent animals vs. a single network with much less than a billion nodes and no evolutionary forces at work whatsoever.

      AI will be developed when we unravel the secrets to intelligence or when we produce enormously fast computer simulated evolution, but it will not come about as a side effect of people surfing porn.

  • How's this [relet.net] for Google intelligence, HUH?! :)

    It once gave me these words of wisdom:
    "Humor frequently satirizes snobs and snails, slugs, squids, and cuttlefish fillet."

    If you get bored by bad sentences, check out the top lists. :)
  • Google will be changing its name to Forbin.
  • Deus ex machina ?

    The Deux ex machina comes from theathers. It was stories with people getting stuck, and some god would come from above to solve the problem, and the god would be dropped on scene using rude and visible wires and mecanisms : this is why it is called deus ex machina (the god coming from the machine).

    This so called journalist is obviously trying to use latin to make people think he's clever or educated.

    He is not, obviously. And on Internet, it is better to be stupid and silent than to talk and
  • Spread Your Wings and Fly, Google.

    Spread Your Wings and Fly.

    God be with you.
  • Passing the Turing test is one thing ...
    Would we recognize a self aware computing grid? (insert - Skylab for the kids and Collosus for the ex-kids - ref here)
    Does RNA 'think' it's (we are) still living in RNA world? And, if it does, is it wrong?
    One last ref:

    I have no stock and I must code.
  • from loved by everyone(mostly) to the large corporate enemy.
    Not that there diong anything differently, just watch the opinions on slashdot over the next year.
  • Wisely or not, Google wants to be a new sort of deus ex machina.

    How exactly is Google's desire to build an AI that passes the turing test in any way a a deus ex machina?

    Deus ex machina describes an event that an author artificially inserts into a story in order to move the plot in the desired direction. When the otherwise brilliant good guy does something out of character and incredibly boneheaded because he has to be down and out in the next chapter, that's a deus ex machina.

    The term comes from Greek and R

  • The Adventures of Google in Meatspace (Score:4, Insightful)

    by shimmin ( 469139 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @07:07PM (#14459589) Journal
    Google is in the home. Many people would trust Google with their personal information. The trillion-dollar question is, would enough people trust Google to know what they purchase, on a person-by-person, item-by-item basis. Because if the answer is yes, the entire future of the retail sector depends on it.

    Retailing is based on an information crisis: consumers don't know what exactly they want until they see it displayed nice and pretty on the self. What people have purchased is a good predictor of what they will purchase, and so retail managers do know what consumers want, but only it aggregate. But if any single concern can know a what a sufficient fraction of which consumers will want which goods, before the consumers themselves do, it is self-evidently more efficient to deliver the goods from citywide sorting centers to the consumers' door on neighborhood distribution routes (think postal service or trash pickup here), than for each household to send a representative to retail outlets to ponder the goods on the shelf, taking up parking space, aisle space, and their own precious time all the while.

    The trillion-dollar question is not, can Google take on Microsoft, but, can Google take on WalMart?

  • Joking aside (Score:3, Informative)

    by FishandChips ( 695645 ) on Thursday January 12, 2006 @07:49PM (#14459856) Journal
    The original St Lawrence angered the Prefect of Rome who ordered him to be roasted to death on a grid-iron. Although, according to the sources, St Lawrence faced his death with fortitude and even managed a joke with the executioner - quite a feat, as Roman executioners were probably not known their sense of humour.

    I hope that if Google ever do manage to construct a machine that passes the Turing test it will manage a joke instead of a sad sqwark as someone reaches for the Off switch.

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