Ah, Google Logic: The Internet Will Be Ruined If You Regulate Us!
January 16, 2023
I have to give Google credit for crazy logic and chutzpah if the information in “Google to SCOTUS: Liability for Promoting Terrorist Videos Will Ruin the Internet” is on the money. The write up presents as Truth this statement:
Google claimed that denying that Section 230 protections apply to YouTube’s recommendation engine would remove shields protecting all websites using algorithms to sort and surface relevant content—from search engines to online shopping websites. This, Google warned, would trigger “devastating spillover effects” that would devolve the Internet “into a disorganized mess and a litigation minefield”—which is exactly what Section 230 was designed to prevent. It seems that in Google’s view, a ruling against Google would transform the Internet into a dystopia where all websites and even individual users could potentially be sued for sharing links to content deemed offensive. In a statement, Google general counsel Halimah DeLaine Prado said that such liability would lead some bigger websites to overly censor content out of extreme caution, while websites with fewer resources would probably go the other direction and censor nothing.
I think this means the really super duper, magical Internet will be rendered even worse that some people think it is.
I must admit that Google has the money to hire people who will explain a potential revenue hit in catastrophic, life changing, universe disrupting lingo.
Let’s step back. Section 230 was a license to cut down the redwoods of publishing and cover the earth with synthetic grass. The effectiveness of the online ad model generated lots of dough, provided oodles of mouse pads and T shirts to certain people, and provided an easy way to destroy precision and recall in search.
Yep, a synthetic world. Why would Google see any type of legal or regulatory change as really bad … for Google. Interested in some potentially interesting content. Check out YouTube videos retrieved by entering the word “Nasheed.” Want some short cuts to commercial software. Run a query on YouTube for “sony vegas 19 crack.” Curious about the content that entertains some adults with weird tastes. Navigate to YouTube and run a query for “grade school swim parties.”
Alternatively one can navigate to Google.com and enter these queries for fun and excitement:
- ammonium and urea nitrate combustion
- afghan taliban recruitment requirements
- principal components of methamphetamine
Other interesting queries are supported by Google. Why? Because the company abandoned the crazy idea that an editorial policy, published guidelines for acceptable content, and a lack of informed regulation makes it easy for Google to do whatever it wants.
Now that sense of entitlement and the tech wizard myth is fading. Google has a reason to be frightened. Right now the company is thrashing internally in Code Red mode, banking on the fact that OpenAI will not match Google’s progress in synthetic data, and sticking its talons into the dike in order to control leaks.
What are these leaks? How about cost control, personnel issues, the European Union and its regulators, online advertising competitors, and the perception that Google Search is maybe less interesting that the ChatGPT thing that one of the super analysts explained this way in superlatives and over the top lingo:
There is so much more to write about AI’s potential impact, but this Article is already plenty long. OpenAI is obviously the most interesting from a new company perspective: it is possible that OpenAI becomes the platform on which all other AI companies are built, which would ultimately mean the economic value of AI outside of OpenAI may be fairly modest; this is also the bull case for Google, as they [sic] would be the most well-palace to be the Microsoft to OpenAI’s AWS.
I have put in bold face the superlatives and categorical words and phrases used by the author of “AI and the Big Five.”
Now let’s step in more closely. Google’s appeal is an indication that Google is getting just a tad desperate. Sure it has billions. It is a giant business. But it is a company based on ad technology which is believed to have been inspired by Yahoo, Overture, GoTo ideas. I seem to recall that prior to the IPO a legal matter was resolved with that wildly erratic Yahoo crowd.
We are in the here an now. My hunch is that Google’s legal teams (note the plural) will be busy in 2023. It is not clear how much the company will have to pay and change to deal with a world in which Googley is not as exciting as the cheerleaders who want so much for a new world order of smart software.
What was my point about synthetic data? Stay tuned.
Stephen E Arnold, January 16, 2023
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