Is Google God?
Is Google God?
That is the question asked in The Times (UK) last week.
When we need answers to the great questions in life, we turn in prayer to God. Or, at least, that used to be the usual pattern. Now, it is argued, people turn to Google to find the answers to those great questions…. As the article notes, “Google is the modern Oracle, the all-knowing mechanical sage we consult to find, if not the answers to life’s questions, then at least a comfortable, reasonably priced hotel in Torquay.”
This is not a new question, of course. The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman was asking the same question a couple of years ago (read it here). In 2003, the answer was “No”. Why? Because although Google is able to give all the answers, many of them are wrong answers posted by ignorant people with nothing better to do than share the limited extent of their woeful ‘knowledge’.
Now, however, all that has changed. Last week, Google patented a new algorithm that will enable the ranking of news search results not just by date and relevance, but by veracity and quality. Patent WO 2005/029368 introduces a system of credibility into search results and ranks those results accordingly. The formula involves systematising a number of variables: length of story, number of bylines, how long the source has been in business, volume of internet traffic to the site, variety of countries accessing the site, size of staff and so on. These are reduced to a single value that should prove credibility.
Google will now tell us what is true.
“If I can operate Google I can find anything. Google is like God. God is wireless, God is everywhere,â€? declared Alan Cohen, vice-president of a wireless technology company.
Mmm…
Presumably similar Patents will follow from other Search Engines and we will find ourselves in a multi-faith cyberGod environment!
So, if Google is God – what can we learn about our Omnipotent Creator? The Times sums Him up beautifully:
“Some have even wondered whether Google is a window into the mind of God, since it monitors, reflects and records the preoccupations and questions of mankind, God’s finest creation. This peculiar notion means that last week God was thinking, in order of priority, about Mother’s Day, the Kentucky Derby, Orlando Bloom, Paula Abdul and the new Xbox 360. He also thinks about Himself a great deal, but mostly He thinks about sex.”
Interesting…
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On the subject only, having not read the Blog yet……
YES!
Perhaps God could learn a thing or two from Google? And certainly Google could learn a couple of things from God in at least these two ways…
1) Google can respond to my request for knowledge in less than 1 second. God can take a long time.
2) Google gives me 6 million answers to choose from, even with Patent WO 2005.029368. God aparently brings just one.
I wonder how far this could be taken…..? I don’t have the energy or time.
Is Google God?
LOL:…
In fact Google would be more like Hinduism with its millions of Gods because instead of being one omnipotent entity, it consistest of a few server farms – that’s a LOT of computers – each with a part of the whole entity. Each search query is executed by one or more interlinking machines…
I guess the question is – how much does the Google God know about you? Barrie wrote an article a while back called “If you’re not on google you can’t possible be alive.”
Most of the google references to Barrie, by the way, are all on either this site or on TomorrowToday.biz. If I take down these sites – effectively removing him from the mind of God – I wonder if he’d cease to exist?! We’ll have to discuss this next time we meet, Barrie.