Google Envisions Total Data Collection - Selfish Ledger is an Unsettling Vision of How Google could Reshape Society
GOOGLE’S SELFISH LEDGER IS AN UNSETTLING VISION OF SILICON
VALLEY SOCIAL ENGINEERING
This
internal video from 2016 shows a Google concept for how total data collection
could reshape society
By
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.”
Titled The Selfish Ledger, the
9-minute film starts off with a history of Lamarckian epigenetics, which are
broadly concerned with the passing on of traits acquired during an organism’s
lifetime. Narrating the video, Foster acknowledges that the theory may have
been discredited when it comes to genetics but says it provides a useful metaphor
for user data. (The title is an homage to Richard Dawkins’ 1976 book The
Selfish Gene.) The way we use our phones creates “a constantly
evolving representation of who we are,” which Foster terms a “ledger,” positing
that these data profiles could be built up, used to modify behaviors, and
transferred from one user to another:
“User-centered design principles have dominated the world of
computing for many decades, but what if we looked at things a little
differently? What if the ledger could be given a volition or purpose rather
than simply acting as a historical reference? What if we focused on creating a
richer ledger by introducing more sources of information? What if we thought of
ourselves not as the owners of this information, but as custodians, transient
carriers, or caretakers?”
The so-called ledger of our device use — the data on our
“actions, decisions, preferences, movement, and relationships” — is something
that could conceivably be passed on to other users much as genetic information
is passed on through the generations, Foster says.
Building on the ledger idea, the
middle section of the video presents a conceptual Resolutions by Google system,
in which Google prompts users to select a life goal and then guides them toward
it in every interaction they have with their phone. The examples, which would
“reflect Google’s values as an organization,” include urging you to try a more
environmentally friendly option when hailing an Uber or directing you to buy
locally grown produce from Safeway. An example of a Google Resolution
superimposing itself atop a grocery store’s shopping app, suggesting a choice
that aligns with the user’s expressed goal.
Of course, the concept is premised on Google having access to a
huge amount of user data and decisions. Privacy concerns or potential negative
externalities are never mentioned in the video. The ledger’s demand for ever
more data might be the most unnerving aspect of the presentation.
Foster envisions a future where “the notion of a goal-driven
ledger becomes more palatable” and “suggestions may be converted not by the
user but by the ledger itself.” This is where the Black Mirror undertones
come to the fore, with the ledger actively seeking to fill gaps in its
knowledge and even selecting data-harvesting products to buy that it thinks may
appeal to the user. The example given in the video is a bathroom scale because
the ledger doesn’t yet know how much its user weighs. The video then takes a
further turn toward anxiety-inducing sci-fi, imagining that the ledger may
become so astute as to propose and 3D-print its own designs. Welcome
home, Dave, I built you a scale. A conceptual cloud
processing node that is analyzing user information and determining the absence
of a relevant data point; in this case, user weight.
Foster’s vision of the ledger goes beyond a tool for
self-improvement. The system would be able to “plug gaps in its knowledge and
refine its model of human behavior” — not just your particular behavior or
mine, but that of the entire human species. “By thinking of user data as
multigenerational,” explains Foster, “it becomes possible for emerging users to
benefit from the preceding generation’s behaviors and decisions.” Foster imagines
mining the database of human behavior for patterns, “sequencing” it like the
human genome, and making “increasingly accurate predictions about decisions and
future behaviours.”
“As cycles of collection and comparison extend,” concludes
Foster, “it may be possible to develop a species-level understanding of complex
issues such as depression, health, and poverty.” A central
tenet of the ledger is the accumulation of as much data as possible, with the
hope that at some point, it will yield insights about major global problems.
Granted, Foster’s job is to lead
design at X, Google’s “moonshot factory” with inherently futuristic goals, and
the ledger concept borders on science fiction — but it aligns almost perfectly
with attitudes expressed in Google’s existing products. Google Photos already
presumes to know what you’ll consider life highlights, proposing entire albums
on the basis of its AI interpretations. Google Maps and the Google Assistant
both make suggestions based on information they have about your usual location
and habits. The trend with all of these services has been toward greater inquisitiveness and
assertiveness on Google’s part. Even email compositions are
being automated in Gmail.
At a time when the ethics of new technology and AI are entering
the broader public discourse, Google continues to be caught unawares by the
potential ethical implications and downsides of its products, as seen most
recently with its demonstration of the Duplex voice-calling AI at
I/O. The outcry over Duplex’s potential to deceive prompted Google
to add the promise that its AI will always
self-identify as such when calling unsuspecting service
workers.
The Selfish Ledger positions
Google as the solver of the world’s most intractable problems, fueled by a
distressingly intimate degree of personal information from every user and an
ease with guiding the behavior of entire populations.
There’s nothing to suggest that this is anything more than a
thought exercise inside Google, initiated by an influential executive. But it
does provide an illuminating insight into the types of conversations going on
within the company that is already the world’s most prolific personal data
collector.
Update: Nick Foster’s title has been updated to include the Near
Future Laboratory and X’s response has been moved.
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