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Google X's "The Selfish Ledger" Video Leaked to The Verge

posted by Fnord666 on Saturday May 19 2018, @04:03AM   Printer-friendly
from the totally-just-a-thought-experiment dept.

takyon writes:

Google's Selfish Ledger is an unsettling vision of Silicon Valley social engineering

Google has built a multibillion-dollar business out of knowing everything about its users. Now, a video produced within Google and obtained by The Verge offers a stunningly ambitious and unsettling look at how some at the company envision using that information in the future.

The video was made in late 2016 by Nick Foster, the head of design at X (formerly Google X) and a co-founder of the Near Future Laboratory. The video, shared internally within Google, imagines a future of total data collection, where Google helps nudge users into alignment with their goals, custom-prints personalized devices to collect more data, and even guides the behavior of entire populations to solve global problems like poverty and disease.

When reached for comment on the video, an X spokesperson provided the following statement to The Verge:

"We understand if this is disturbing -- it is designed to be. This is a thought-experiment by the Design team from years ago that uses a technique known as 'speculative design' to explore uncomfortable ideas and concepts in order to provoke discussion and debate. It's not related to any current or future products."

7m53s explainer video. The Selfish Ledger is embedded on The Verge or can be found elsewhere. Also at Business Insider.

See also: Philip Bloom is Angry at Google for Using His Work in an Internal Video

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 19 2018, @12:40PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 19 2018, @12:40PM (#681573)

    If you can get past the creepy, this is a great idea! IRL I stink at achieving any of my goals because the world tends to dictate my days.

    Me: I'm going to work on the time machine today.
    World: Nah, wife got a flat tire.
    Me: Ok, fix tire today, work on time machine tomorrow.

    My selfish ledger would get me back to work on the time machine.

    Profit?

  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 19 2018, @08:25PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 19 2018, @08:25PM (#681653)

    Profit, yes... for Google and its advertisers. But no time machine for you because they will have manipulated you into thinking your main goal in life is to buy a new set of tires for your wife instead of fixing the flat. New tire shopping is good. You love tire shopping.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 20 2018, @01:03AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 20 2018, @01:03AM (#681722)
      Bingo. It does not really have your goals in mind, but rather those of the man behind the curtain: Google and its advertisers. It is in their best interest to manipulate your goals to their ends, and you are extremely naïve if you believe that they are working for you. If you want something that will work for you, software and services you pay for in currency are (somewhat) better, software whose source code you can share and change better still.