Ahh, Google. Has there ever been a company that has done me such terrific good, while asking for so little except the ability to do me terrific harm?
Between my web searches, emails, appointments, places I have visited and online videos I have watched, Google basically knows me better than I do. Even Big Brother had to make do with just the two-way telescreens.
I’m used to Google reading my email and creating customized messages for me about cheap airfares and advanced degree programs. However, I never realized that Google reads this blog and then produces news articles in the national media for my enjoyment.
No sooner did I write about the terrific potential of driverless cars (here and here) than an article, apparently generated by Google for my benefit, appeared in the Times. It announced that Google has been conducting a top-secret driverless vehicle program.
Right under our noses, Google has been operating a fleet of robocars – equipped with video cameras, radar and lasers – which have been driving themselves on city streets virtually without incident. See the article here.
A blog post from Google engineer Sebastian Thrun (the man in charge of the project) notes that “Our automated cars, manned by trained operators, just drove from our Mountain View campus [in Northern California] to our Santa Monica office [in the LA area] and on to Hollywood Boulevard. They’ve driven down Lombard Street, crossed the Golden Gate bridge, navigated the Pacific Coast Highway, and even made it all the way around Lake Tahoe. All in all, our self-driving cars have logged over 140,000 miles.” All with practically nobody noticing.
The brains behind the project are many of the engineers responsible for successful entries in past DARPA Challenges.
I find it amusing that the cars can be programmed to assume different driving styles with different levels of aggression. Hopefully they won’t offer “trucker high on cheap speed” or “Al Cowlings” settings.
The company doesn’t quite know how it’s going to monetize the technology. And if and when it does figure that out, it will take years for any money to start rolling in. Apparently, Larry Page and Sergey Brin simply see the power of driverless car technology to reshape our society for the better, and are willing to put up their money to hasten its arrival – even with a very uncertain prospect of reward. Guys, you can snoop on my stock portfolio and peruse my trash talk with my fantasy basketball competitors any day.
And no, it won’t dismay me if you somehow figure out a way to keep a record of my travel in exchange for giving me the ability to do email on the drive to work. At this point, I guess it’s in for the penny, in for the pound.
There’s just one thing that troubles me about all of this. Okay, Google generated the driverless cars idea from scanning my posts, but how did it retroactively create an elaborate program which has already been in existence for several years? Has Google secretly developed time travel, so that it can read our emails (and this column) before they are written? From the minds of Page and Brin, nothing would surprise me.
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I don’t believe Google is invading anybody’s property or personal life for that matter. However, I do suppose that Google as a company are always looking for what the general public wants. Not only that, but google always tries to be one step above the rest.
Needless to say, I’m sure that Google hasn’t developed a time traveling machine or anything along those lines. As far the driverless cars go, the only reason why it hasn’t been put out in the market yet, is because google is waiting for a moment were their marginal benefit for releasing the driverless cars is greater than their marginal cost. After all, as kind as google may be, they are always looking forward to make profit.
If the driverless car at some point is made available for the public to buy, it would most likely be a superior good. The car would be expensive to make, therefore the price would be high and as a result making the demand low. In addition, the driverless car would essentially be a elastic good, meaning that if the price of the car were to increase, people would simply find another substitute.
Where’s my roll of Alcan?
As my 16-year-old daughter has noted, driving the highly standardized freeway system is a snap compared to capricious local roads with their short-timed traffic lights, pedestrians, bicyclists, cross-over traffic and telephone poles inches from edge lines. Little wonder that interstates are safe, fast and fuel-efficient. Automating freeway driving should be a relative snap, simultaneously freeing us from the Galactic Overlords (I mean “Highway Patrol”), speed limitations and fatigue, while improving long-distance fuel economy and hauling capacity. It’ll be a while before the capability extends other roads, but I enjoy the prospect of Legislators and the Highway Patrol having to focus on the other, accident-prone roads that account for 90% of traffic deaths. And explain their misdirected focus for the past half-century.
If you wanted Google (or Facebook, for that matter) not to know anything about you, it would be absurdly easy.
Just delete your accounts. Or never log in. That’s it; you’re done.
The fact that few people are WILLING to do that–even people who are fully aware of how much personal data is truly collected, and often including those who criticize Google’s and Facebook’s data collection practices–speaks to how much we value we place on the services they provide.
In summary, there is no conundrum here. Either a) stop using Google and Facebook, or b) shut up.
Am I the only one who is terrified of these Shoe Making Catholics? I was going to write about how I am scared of Google but these people freak me out even more. Is this some kind of carpet cleaning cult?
@4- Ian Kemmish:
I don’t think driverless trucks will be cheaper than human-driven trucks for some time…given that the roads are made for human beings.
If the road were made for driverless vehicles, then I’m with you.
It is always a mistake to think that automating a human activity will result in a cost savings. Humans are very versatile and flexible.
The driverless car might make monetary sense if they could create an algorithm that would look at where you are driving and when you are driving to help deliver ads tailored to your driving habits (“Tired of burgers try Blah Blah Chicken”) or instances (“Get into an accident?..might you be hurt?..call The Man in the Hat”).
The problem I have with the burgeoning plethora of electronic surveillance is, class distinction. Yeah, the average citizen is an open book. But who’s snooping on the power brokers? The rich, powerful, connected enforcers will, no doubt, have the ability to remain opaque while the rest of us swim like sea monkeys in a fish bowl. If you want me to feel warm and fuzzy about living my life as an open book then apply the axiom of, “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander” and maybe I will.