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You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2013/jan/01/google-now-personal-assistant
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| What's the real problem with Google Now? | What's the real problem with Google Now? |
| (about 20 hours later) | |
| Evgeny Morozov is the most thoughtful contemporary commentator on the internet. So I hesitate to argue with him; nonetheless there is something very curious about the reasoning in his recent op-ed in the Financial Times about Google Now and it's worth picking up on at a time when people will be hoping that technology will help them be better at almost everything this year. | |
| Google Now is a feature of modern Android phones that supplies you with personalised information based on all the things you have already told Google through your mail accounts, your calendar, your address book, your present location, and all the other personal information that most of us trust the company with. | Google Now is a feature of modern Android phones that supplies you with personalised information based on all the things you have already told Google through your mail accounts, your calendar, your address book, your present location, and all the other personal information that most of us trust the company with. |
| If I am sitting in the office in London, but have an appointment some distance away, it will pop up a screen on my phone telling me to leave now if I want to make it there on public transport. Google knows the state of public transport, and for that matter, where traffic is jammed up, which it discovers by monitoring where large numbers of phones are moving slowly down a road. | If I am sitting in the office in London, but have an appointment some distance away, it will pop up a screen on my phone telling me to leave now if I want to make it there on public transport. Google knows the state of public transport, and for that matter, where traffic is jammed up, which it discovers by monitoring where large numbers of phones are moving slowly down a road. |
| This is spooky. But what makes it so? | This is spooky. But what makes it so? |
| Morozov suggests two reasons, but it seems to me they contradict each other. The first criticism is that "Such technologies endorse a rather impoverished view of their human masters. Humans, no longer seen as citizens capable of deliberation, are treated as cogs in a system preoccupied with self-optimisation, as if the very composition of that system was uncontroversial." | Morozov suggests two reasons, but it seems to me they contradict each other. The first criticism is that "Such technologies endorse a rather impoverished view of their human masters. Humans, no longer seen as citizens capable of deliberation, are treated as cogs in a system preoccupied with self-optimisation, as if the very composition of that system was uncontroversial." |
| That's fine, and in line with a lot of his criticism through the years. He made his name pointing out that the rhetoric of technologies as "liberating" us was absurd and dangerous when these same technologies are used by repressive regimes to imprison their subjects more thoroughly than the KGB could ever hope to do. All technology is used within social systems and serves their purposes rather more than it changes them. | That's fine, and in line with a lot of his criticism through the years. He made his name pointing out that the rhetoric of technologies as "liberating" us was absurd and dangerous when these same technologies are used by repressive regimes to imprison their subjects more thoroughly than the KGB could ever hope to do. All technology is used within social systems and serves their purposes rather more than it changes them. |
| But then he goes on to criticise the company from the other direction: if Google starts telling you how far you have walked or biked every month, as apparently the latest version of Google Now can do, this is obviously a spur to taking more exercise. Morozov attacks this because it "promotes the illusion that problems can be solved through individual action alone. It is an Oprah Winfrey-style model of social change – a Silicon Valley fantasy." | But then he goes on to criticise the company from the other direction: if Google starts telling you how far you have walked or biked every month, as apparently the latest version of Google Now can do, this is obviously a spur to taking more exercise. Morozov attacks this because it "promotes the illusion that problems can be solved through individual action alone. It is an Oprah Winfrey-style model of social change – a Silicon Valley fantasy." |
| And the question arises, which? Is Google bad because it relies on individual action to solve properly corporate problems, or is it bad because it renders individuals irrelevant in a great corporate clockwork? I don't want to be snarky, because this is an important question, and Morozov is one of the very few people to think about it seriously and consistently. But he does seem confused here. | And the question arises, which? Is Google bad because it relies on individual action to solve properly corporate problems, or is it bad because it renders individuals irrelevant in a great corporate clockwork? I don't want to be snarky, because this is an important question, and Morozov is one of the very few people to think about it seriously and consistently. But he does seem confused here. |
| I suppose you could reconcile these contradictions by saying that the Oprah Winfrey model of individual transformative change is embedded within a society where corporations hold all the power, and the only real change Oprah offers is a change in your shopping habits. | I suppose you could reconcile these contradictions by saying that the Oprah Winfrey model of individual transformative change is embedded within a society where corporations hold all the power, and the only real change Oprah offers is a change in your shopping habits. |
| Certainly, if you decide to change your life by taking more exercise, and go online for advice and support, everything you'll find there is paid for by companies advertising outdoor – even walking – equipment. This is true even of essentially spiritual activities like fishing. | Certainly, if you decide to change your life by taking more exercise, and go online for advice and support, everything you'll find there is paid for by companies advertising outdoor – even walking – equipment. This is true even of essentially spiritual activities like fishing. |
| But in that case, the problem with Google Now, and more generally with Google's vision of humanity, is not just that it assumes we're incapable of deliberation about our action or of self-control, but that this assumption makes it more difficult for us to exercise the limited amount of self-control we can in fact cultivate. | But in that case, the problem with Google Now, and more generally with Google's vision of humanity, is not just that it assumes we're incapable of deliberation about our action or of self-control, but that this assumption makes it more difficult for us to exercise the limited amount of self-control we can in fact cultivate. |
| This is not a technological problem. It is one of our impoverished ways of understanding what a human being is. Our natures are simultaneously and inextricably social and personal. Identity is relational. I can be who I am only in relation to other people. Even that part of me which is purely or authentically me is defined, perhaps optimistically, as the bit that other people can't get at or affect. | This is not a technological problem. It is one of our impoverished ways of understanding what a human being is. Our natures are simultaneously and inextricably social and personal. Identity is relational. I can be who I am only in relation to other people. Even that part of me which is purely or authentically me is defined, perhaps optimistically, as the bit that other people can't get at or affect. |
| Google can figure out how to give me what I want. But there is no possible technological fix to the underlying problem: how can I learn to want what I ought to want? How can I even find out what that should be? | Google can figure out how to give me what I want. But there is no possible technological fix to the underlying problem: how can I learn to want what I ought to want? How can I even find out what that should be? |
| • This article was amended on 1 January 2013. It originally misidentified Evgeny Morozov as being behind the Fake Jeff Jarvis Twitter account. This reference has now been removed. |