Failed Screenwriter

Nicholas Carr's latest book, The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google is very insightful, however near the end he extends into fear mongering a bit. Some of that fear mongering springs from an interesting point, Larry Page and SergeyBrin's motivation for Google had more roots in AI (artificial intelligence) than being just a search engine.

They weren't just interested in perfecting their search engine, they said. What they really looked forward to was melding their technology with the human brain itself. "You want access to as much [information] as possible so you can discern what is most relevant and correct," explained Brin. "The solution isn't to limit the information you receive. Ultimately you want to have the entire world's knowledge connected directly to your mind."

Larry and Sergey are still pursuing their vision of AI.

"Every time I talk about Google's future with Larry Page," reports Steve Jurvetson, a prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist, "he argues that it will become an artificial intelligence."

It is difficult to see exactly what scares Nicholas with this, other than general fear of omnipresent technology.

"Why not improve the brain?" Brin muses at one point. "Perhaps in the future, we can attach a little version of Google that you just plug into your brain."

Plugging AI resources into my brain doesn't scare me, if anything I'd be giddy about it as Larry and Sergey are. But what I'd like to see is the AI used not just to assist us, but to power our entertainment as well. And I don't mean in some pie in the sky, where AI constructs interesting stories for us on the fly. No I mean in a more practical way, say as to power language processing for virtual characters, enabling them to process slang and be topical with current events. That could be immersive drama's beach head as the search engine is for Larry and Sergey's AI ambitions, who knows where it could lead.

But alas I doubt Larry and Sergey's ambitions align much with entertainment. Entertainment is soft compared to their math and science backgrounds. Where as I see incredibly interesting data from immersive drama they may see too much ambiguity, but isn't Google's attempt to interpret queries fraught with as much ambiguity? Immersive drama represents a way to technically examine entertainment like never before. Just as we gather click trails for web sites, we'll be able to get the same for immersive dramas. We'll get metrics on engagement, time spent with a certain character, type of responses, etc. - practically everything needed to construct AI as Google has done by taping into people's mind through search. But if still Larry and Sergey can't wrap their heads around the entertainment aspect, maybe games will be the carrot they need. Games today has a little science built up around it, maybe that will capture their interest and eventually lead them to immersive drama.

One area I can see them moving quickly into is the metaverse, but not the one many of us think of when we hear the word. I see them expanding Google Earth, adding avatars, and integrating their AI. Think of this as an intermediate step to tapping directly into your brain with their AI - a digital interface to the AI before it goes direct.