A Palantir Founder Considers the Google
August 2, 2019
DarkCyber read “Good for Google, Bad for America.” Interesting essay. DarkCyber noted several items and circled each in our favorite marker color: Truthful Blue.
Let’s take a look at these:
First, Google’s smart software is not advancing:
DeepMind, having now gone on three times longer than the original Manhattan Project, is not clearly any closer to its core goal of creating an “artificial general intelligence” that rivals or replaces humanity.
Second, Google has a smart software research facility in China:
Google decided to open an A.I. lab in Beijing. According to Fei-Fei Li, the executive who opened it, the lab is “focused on basic A.I. research” because Google is “an A.I.-first company” in a world where “A.I. and its benefits have no borders.”
Third, Google has an attitude:
The Silicon Valley attitude sometimes called “cosmopolitanism” is probably better understood as an extreme strain of parochialism, that of fortunate enclaves isolated from the problems of other places — and incurious about them.
DarkCyber finds these points thought provoking. What’s clear is that Google has invested in smart software. Its principal value has been to enhance its online advertising revenues. The Loon balloon, while interesting, drifts intelligently. The comparison is apt.
Locating a facility in China makes it easy for information to diffuse from the facility into other sectors. Cooperation with government authorities for some in China is a standard operating procedure. Google may believe that its “basic A.I. research” is compartmentalized. But is that belief warranted?
Finally, the attitude. DarkCyber is not sure what the five dollar word cosmopolitanism means. DarkCyber is not sure about parochialism either. DarkCyber does understand the concept of incurious. Why think differently when certain thoughts are obviously correct.
To sum up, DarkCyber wants to know who benefits from the alleged “cooperation” with China?
Stephen E Arnold, August 2, 2019
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