Second-guessing google?
by Molly Webb
How much do we trust google? The headlines about its latest run-in with Chinese censorship call into question the social conscience of those in the techie driving seat. As John Lanchester in the Guardian notes, "google's founders know what they are doing technologically. Socially, though, they can't possibly know, and I don't think anyone else can either."
This reminds me of the 'dark side' of this week's business week article "Math will rock your world". Even as we use maths to 'model humanity,' how do we feel about allowing the beautiful logic of an algorithm to order our society? According to the article, google avoids this math-run-rampant pitfall by putting social scientists on teams with their mathematicians.
Lanchester notes that google's search engine is based on "one of the most widely mocked areas in academia", bibliometrics (note: I'm guilty of enjoying a bibliometric paper or two). I tend to get quite excited about the idea that a page is popular because people link to it, rather than because one expert said it was interesting.
But what does this ignore? Is knowledge shaped through the interlinkages of information decided by the math behind search software, rather than through some deliberative human interaction? Again from business week: "'We turn the world of content into math, and we turn you into math,' says Howard Kaushansky, CEO of Boulder (Colo.)-based Umbria Inc., a company that uses math to analyze marketing trends online." If you put it like that, it all sounds a bit sinister.
What would it take to move myself far out of reach of google's tentacles? Too late. I'm part of 'The coming revolution in interactions" (of the technically mediated type) whether I like it or not.