Another load of Schmidt

People are not ready for the Technology Revolution says Eric Schmidt - RWW:

Eric Schmidt spoke at the Techonomy conference in Lake Tahoe today and dropped some serious rhetorical bombs. "There was 5 exabytes of information created between the dawn of civilization through 2003," Schmidt said, "but that much information is now created every 2 days, and the pace is increasing...People aren't ready for the technology revolution that's going to happen to them."

This does't really bear up under scrutiny - what he means is that (i) more of the information is created digitally today (people have been creating information since the dawn of time, its just that until Twitter your inane witterings about your cats and lunch were lost on the wind - probably a good thing really), (ii) there are more people on the planet than ever (talking about lunch and cats etc) and (iii) more of it is stored online - and searchable by Google - than ever (I have had photos in my computer for at least 15 years, its only more recently that Flickr, Facebook etc arrived).

As one wag remarked in the comments, most of the new information exabytes are arising because the web porn industry is converting all its pictures to HD. (It also begs the question about whether a lot of this newly capturable information is worth having).

But that is just standard corporate stuff, and serves more to illustrate how dim many of the pundits are when they don't pick up on the obvious logical fallacies in the argument. Far more serious is his latest broadside in his War on Privacy:

"If I look at enough of your messaging and your location, and use Artificial Intelligence," Schmidt said, "we can predict where you are going to go."

"Show us 14 photos of yourself and we can identify who you are. You think you don't have 14 photos of yourself on the internet? You've got Facebook photos! People will find it's very useful to have devices that remember what you want to do, because you forgot...But society isn't ready for questions that will be raised as result of user-generated content."

In addition to predicting personal behavior, diseases and other crises will become predictable as well, Schmidt said.

On the misuse of information for criminal or anti-social purposes:

"The only way to manage this is true transparency and no anonymity. In a world of asynchronous threats, it is too dangerous for there not to be some way to identify you. We need a [verified] name service for people. Governments will demand it."

Lets just unpick that line of reasoning:

- Firstly he is arguing that if Google et al can see enough of your on-net activity they can predict our behaviour very accurately

- Secondly, he is arguing that you have a duty to be totally transparent and visible to make it easier to do this

- Thirdly, that this is OK as its being "ready for the Tech Revolution" and because Governments will demand it anyway.

In other words its Big Brother Time (and I mean of the Orwellian variety, though it may look like turning everyone into a contestant on Big Brother in execution - Reality TV becomes Reality).

Of course, one could be a mite cynical - as one RWW commentator put it:

Once again, the end of anonymity predicted by a tech entrepreneur who personally stands to gain many billions of dollars just as soon as people give up their privacy (or have it banned). Never would have seen that coming.

One could also argue that ths is typical Google in its lack of a "social" DNA - if the Algorithm can't be reprogrammed to predict The People, then godammit we need to reprogram The People until it does.

Nevertheless, this is quite worrying stuff given that (i) this chap runs Google who is spending a lot of lobbying and influencing money globally, (and is given "Techonomy" platforms and the like), (ii) he is not the only tech entrepreneur who can make billions out of reneging privacy and (iii) so few people are protesting about all of its implications.

But for the record, you do not have to believe in the wholesale loss of anonymity, 100% transparency and total subjugation of your data to Google and Government to be "Ready for the Technology Revolution. In fact I'd argue that any "Revolution" that demands this is more about Enclosure and Control than any form of Liberte, Egalite and Fraternite.