Dangers of Our Google Addiction
There are always going to be problems when one company, person, or group controls something that society relies upon. It's a simple question of leverage. And the possibility of a monopoly on information is terrifying. The only way the events in short stories like "Scroogled" could come about, is if one web service were to become the only web service; we must have nowhere to run. But, if Google continues to grow, it may well become a monopoly. And Google is no longer only about organizing information. They have mail, blogs and satellite images. That means that if Google were a monopoly, it would be a monopoly of web use. We're so used to seeing so much farther than we can with our eyes, thanks to the web; so it would be a monopoly of vision. And we're only going to become more dependent upon the web as new technologies develop, meaning Google would have a monopoly on much of our daily lives. They will decide what e-mails is and what you can use it for; they will decide how an online calendar is organized; they will decide who advertises, where they advertise, how often they advertise, and at what price the post their ads. There are indications that this is possible. Google tends to attract very intelligent programmers, meaning much of society's talent could coalesce inside Google, making it difficult to scrape together a resistance. They are, after all, sponsoring a school to train bright students in technology. They've always been a step ahead of the game. It makes sense to train students for the singularity; so of course, Google has already thought of it. And if Google develops AI, it will be even more useful, and therefore it would be even easier to slip into complete dependence upon it. We may willingly give Google a monopoly over the web if it continues to do such useful things. If that happens, as we saw in "Scroogled," it's no leap of logic to imagine an alliance between the internet (Google) and the government-military complex. In fact, due to monopoly laws, if Google does become a monopoly it is probably because they have made concessions to the government. Google may mean to adhere to its motto of, "Don't be evil," but there are a lot of forces surrounding it that seem to be working in favor of evil.