John Naughton

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“Both Companies Have A Vital Interest In Speeding Up The Process Of Getting Those 5 Billion Souls Online”

April 20, 2014 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

From a Guardian article by John Naughton, a passage speculating on the recent gamesmanship of Google and Facebook, both of which aren’t merely interested in drones that deliver goods but ones that can deliver the Internet itself:

“The Google boys have decided that advanced robotics, machine-learning, distributed sensors and digital mapping are going to be the essential ingredients of a combinatorial future, and they are determined to be the dominant force in that.

As far as the high-altitude drones are concerned, Google and Facebook are on exactly the same wavelength. Since internet access in the industrialised world is now effectively a done deal, all of the future growth is going to come from the remaining 5 billion people on the planet who do not yet have a proper internet connection. Both companies have a vital interest in speeding up the process of getting those 5 billion souls online, for the simple reason that the more people who use the internet the greater their revenues will be. And they see high-altitude drones as the means to that profitable end.”

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“Mastery Of These Technologies Confers Enormous Power On Those Who Have It”

April 6, 2014 in Books, Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

From John Naughton’s Guardian article about Michael Lewis’ new book which reveals computerized Wall Street chicanery, a passage about how technology, that supposed equalizer, can in fact tip the balance of the digital scales:

“This is a good illustration of one of the central problems that society will have to address in the coming decades: the collision between analogue mindsets and digital realities.

Software is pure ‘thought-stuff.’ The only resource needed to produce it is human intelligence and expertise. This has two implications. The first is that attempting to regulate the things that it creates is like trying to catch quicksilver using a butterfly net.

The Edward Snowden disclosures about the US National Security Agency have revealed how difficult it is to bring this stuff under effective democratic control. Lewis’s account of how high-frequency trader geeks have run rings around the regulators suggests that much the same holds true in civilian life. This technology can easily run out of control.

The second implication is that what one might call the politics of expertise will become much more important. Mastery of these technologies confers enormous power on those who have it. Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes and all that. So in addition to wondering who will guard the guardians, we may have to start thinking about who is going to guard the geeks.”

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“You Are Not Only What You Eat, You Are What You Are Thinking About Eating”

October 27, 2013 in Books, Excerpts, Politics, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Google is chiefly interested in accurately answering your requests because your questions have monetary potential, with predictive powers labeling you someone who likely is (or likely to become) a vegan or a yoga enthusiast, or, perhaps, a criminal. And so much the better if Big Data can figure this out before your first salad or downward dog or burglary. You aren’t just what you do but what the algorithms say you are likely to do. So, now, questions are treated like answers. From Sue Halpern in the New York Review of Books:

“The social Web celebrated, rewarded, routinized, and normalized this kind of living out loud, all the while anesthetizing many of its participants. Although they likely knew that these disclosures were funding the new information economy, they didn’t especially care. As John Naughton points out in his sleek history From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg: What You Really Need to Know About the Internet:

Everything you do in cyberspace leaves a trail, including the ‘clickstream’ that represents the list of websites you have visited, and anyone who has access to that trail will get to know an awful lot about you. They’ll have a pretty good idea, for example, of who your friends are, what your interests are (including your political views if you express them through online activity), what you like doing online, what you download, read, buy and sell.

In other words, you are not only what you eat, you are what you are thinking about eating, and where you’ve eaten, and what you think about what you ate, and who you ate it with, and what you did after dinner and before dinner and if you’ll go back to that restaurant or use that recipe again and if you are dieting and considering buying a Wi-Fi bathroom scale or getting bariatric surgery—and you are all these things not only to yourself but to any number of other people, including neighbors, colleagues, friends, marketers, and National Security Agency contractors, to name just a few.”

 

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“The Number Of Commercial Companies That Are More Than A Century Old Is Vanishingly Small”

March 3, 2013 in Excerpts, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

The opening of John Naughton’s smart Guardian article which reminds us what should be obvious but gets obscured in the hoopla–that today’s blockbuster tech companies will be completely gone someday:

“Some years ago, when the Google Books project, which aims to digitise all of the world’s printed books, was getting under way, the two co-founders of Google were having a meeting with the librarian of one of the universities that had signed up for the plan. At one point in the conversation, the Google boys noticed that their collaborator had suddenly gone rather quiet. One of them asked him what was the matter. ‘Well,’ he replied, ‘I’m wondering what happens to all this stuff when Google no longer exists.’ Recounting the conversation to me later, he said: ‘I’ve never seen two young people looking so stunned: the idea that Google might not exist one day had never crossed their minds.’

And yet, of course, the librarian was right. He had to think about the next 400 years. But the number of commercial companies that are more than a century old is vanishingly small. Entrusting the world’s literary heritage to such transient organisations might not be entirely wise.”

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“Our Assumptions About What Machines Can And Cannot Do Are Urgently In Need Of Updating”

September 30, 2012 in Excerpts, Politics, Urban Studies | Permalink

Imagine fleets of driverless cars bringing groceries to your door or automatic taxicabs shuttling you to and fro. Human ownership and operation of vehicles won’t die quickly, but more and more services will be handled by people-less vehicles. John Naughton’s new Guardian piece addresses the job-killing advent of the driverless cars, though in the long run the invention will create a healthier, wealthier lifestyle:

“At the ceremony in Mountain View, Google’s co-founder, Sergey Brin,announced the company’s intention to bring autonomous vehicles to the market in five years. In a pre-emptive attack on critics, he pointed out that autonomous vehicles would be significantly safer than human-controlled ones. That seems plausible to me: 40,000 people are killed every year in road accidents in the US and many, if not most, of those are caused by human error. ‘This has the power to change lives,’ Brin said. ‘Too many people are underserved by the current transport system. They are blind, or too young to drive, or too old, or intoxicated.’ He also argued that manual operation of cars was inefficient: autonomous vehicles could make better use of the road and reduce the size of car parks by fitting into smaller areas than humans could get them into.

Ignore the evangelism for a moment and think about what Google has achieved. Its engineers have demonstrated that with smart software and an array of sensors, a machine can perform a task of sophistication and complexity most of us assumed would always require the capabilities of humans. And that means our assumptions about what machines can and cannot do are urgently in need of updating.”

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