#29: Does A.I. Dream of Electric People?
One of my vivid memories of life before smartphones was Googling lyrics to identify music I'd just heard but couldn't recognize. Now that I can simply hold out my arm and gain that same knowledge, as a wizard would, I like to imagine that my phone itself is Googling the lyrics, which has made me suspect that actually typing out Google searches will soon become obsolete, tomorrow's version of printing out directions from MapQuest: With all the devices constantly watching me and listening to me, and all the software that promises to predict what I want before I even know, won't a computer soon be doing all this Googling for me?
The strange suggestions that unfurl from Google's search bar as we type feel like subconscious hallucinations or dream phrases, not words we're really seeing on the screen. Our awareness of those autocompleted terms is so liminal that we could almost get by without even seeing them, but because we do, it feels like Google is learning how to read our minds, which it is, and letting us watch the awkward early phase of that education. If it's possible for me to imagine a future in which Google search doesn't require my involvement, what about other parts of the internet that seem explicitly created for human users, like Facebook and Instagram?
Productivity guru Cal Newport has speculated that corporations' transition to digital communication is a major step toward automating much of that low-to-mid-level knowledge work, particularly the "moving information around" component. An artificial intelligence might study employees' email, calendars, Slack chats, spreadsheets, and PowerPoints and learn how to do many of their jobs. At least our conversations by the water cooler are safe, although such an intelligence could surely learn to discuss fantasy football at a passable level. Facebook, too, seems surprisingly fertile for such automation: If it makes us less happy and primarily exists to advertise to us, couldn't computers use it more effectively by figuring out what we want and just buying it? They are certainly learning about us quickly and deeply enough to try. A recent study found that dogs often dream of their owners when they sleep. Computers stay awake, but they do dream about us.
Reads:
Amazon as the second coming of the Sears & Roebuck mail-order catalog business that flourished a century ago.
Matt Stoller on the excessive fragility of global supply chains (see also this thread for the Puerto Rico connection).
Until next time,
Drew