Google’s Selfish Ledger Is An Unsettling Vision of Silicone Valley Social Engineering
Web Publication: The Verge, by Vlad Savov
Or – Google’s Total Solution
A video produced by Google a couple years ago called ‘The Selfish Ledger’ is now getting some air play.
The video, some excellent commentary, and some good comments can all be found at the linked article by Vlad Savov, May 17, 2018.
To pick up where Vlad and the commenters leave off, let’s talk about this Google for a moment. As my own subtitle suggests, this is Googles ‘total solution’. We can dispense with any notion that this is just a provocative internal thought piece, btw, an eerie similarity to objectionable projects circulated at Facebook, revealed and subsequently disavowed. Why this cannot be dismissed? It’s intellectual underpinnings don’t go away, are not disavowed, and are clearly embraced in the video.
If we deconstruct all the parts, the mechanics of epigenetics, the ‘Selfish Gene’ concept, et al, we might actually find a lot about this project that we like that is ‘good’. We could say that the total collective human organism already embodies vast epi-evolutionary progress. It’s called civilization. So why would we now object? What is different this time? Starting with Google (and others embarking in the same direction), this evolution is not just recorded and aided by a machine, (The machine in fact); the machine is the ultimate singular beneficiary, not just the assistant. This is the long game, trust me on this. To the extent that humans have a part, it is at the pleasure of the machine.
Vlad and the commenters seem to single out privacy as major concern. I am afraid that Google’s Ledger is so beyond any concern of privacy except to waive off the little shred of press that this revelation is getting. Google is already a deeply embedded factor of our identity if you have anything to do with the Internet at all. Opt out? Ha!, now I laugh! What can you opt out of aside from moving to a cabin in West Virginia with no electricity! There is no pretense of privacy or volition left when it comes to Google. Their AI already knows you better than you do yourself, tracking your online activity, your searches, absolutely listening on your smart phone, but even beyond that, analyzing the totality of those actions with far deeper meaning than you could ever care to do for yourself.
What the Ledger does, is connects the sum of you and scales it to an omniscient multi-person humanity level being. The Ledger becomes as a god to that humanity. It sees all, it knows all, it has far reaching wisdom to give back to its people in the form of solving problems like hunger and poverty. Hell, it’ll print you a bathroom scale and tell you to lose a few pounds buddy!
Two years later, we already see the thumb print of the ‘Ledger’ concepts in app features they have since rolled out. Google already wants to finish our sentences, suggests replies; this is how we know their vision is alive and well. We’re now a couple small steps closer. Google is still embracing the ‘Ledger’
So would we want to go back to the proverbial West Virginia cabin where we run out of food, the electric blinks on and off and the neighbors are all on meth? Of course not. I’ve just presented you with a false choice. Maintaining humanity in a totally machine dominated cyberocrocy is not going to be easy, but it’s still possible. Here is what you must do no matter what: You must leave you smart phone regularly, if even for short periods of time. You must commune with nature. You must read on paper, but more so, you must also write on paper. You must make music on an instrument or sing. You must touch and be touched. If and when able, you must make love to a person, not a doll. You must be able to construct thoughts and processes in your mind and be able to share them with another, but not always to or through a machine. You will eventually, I fear sooner rather than later, be presented with the option to augment your brain with a computer. You must not cross over that threshold because if you do, you are gone. Not to get too science fictiony here, but if a computer can put something in, it can also take out and change anything that it wants. You will have lost your soul. This is where we must draw the line.