When life presents challenges or opportunities, we ask questions (and hope for factual and detailed answers).
- How do I become a fine art painter?
- How do I fix up our house?
- How do I find companionship that leads to love?
Big questions all, but there’s no test and nothing to worry about—not when you can Just Ask Google.
I’m getting the sense that Google Search is a transformational product. Who knew that you could Just Ask Google and go? In this pixelated dreamworld, there’s no need for school or teachers, for books or libraries, for apprenticeships or years of hard-earned preparation.
How’s this for a brand promise? With a phone and Google in your pocket, you can skip the line, and the more lines you skip, the more likely it is you’ll be able to enjoy a leisurely and meaningful existence.
Ted’s Tall Tale
Even with a scripted happy ending, there’s something dystopian about a person ruled by his search queries.
Frank Landymore of Futurism, for one, is not impressed.
In a particularly bonkers entry, the premise appears to be that, if you give over decision-making in your personal life to the hands of a large language model owned by a multi-trillion dollar company — there’s now a disparaging term for such folks: “sloppers” — even a loser such as thee can find true love.
We wish we were kidding…
The oversimplification in this campaign is over the top. Is Google delulu? Answers returned by search engines are not omniscient. They’re bits of mostly useful information that we pay for with our privacy.
Be that as it may, there are scores of good reasons to query the machines, and just as many reasons to question the data returned.
Here’s a question that no machine wants to answer: Can we continue to rely on our innate and uniquely human problem-solving abilities (and each other) to guide the way?
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