"Google reads your mail,we don't",fired the crazily belligerent Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.I just read that Slashdot piece how I read any other Slashdot piece and I was not going to take Ballmer seriously.I am NOT anti-Microsoft,rather I like Bill and his ideas but no,I was not buying into another show of Ballmer-ian insanity.Something for the bottomless dustbin of my mind,that's all.Or, was it?
Circa August 2008.
In between a very jovial dinner,a friend remarked how weirdly humorous the Internet had become-He had received some kind of a break-up email from his girlfriend,and despite the obvious bout of dejection that followed,he could not help suppress a wry smile when he saw the algorithmically generated accompanying ads-'Makeupwithyourgirlfriendnow.com','haveabreakup?wearehere.com' and what not!(I don't remember the names exactly.Neither did he.But they had the same spirit).I instantly imagined him-there he was ,in his room,all solitary and heartbroken and out of the blue,his dear laptop coming out of its usual inanimateness,comforting him ,directing him to sites that may offer him a solution.He had found solidarity(read your Camus?) in the computer!!!
He brought me back to reality when he grumbled,how the very next moment he felt like busting his poor laptop into pieces!
And then,it all came back to me.Every time you send a 'gmail',Google's servers read it,process it with Natural Language Processing Algorithms and publish relevant ads along with the mail to the receiver.If that is not spooky enough(merely some keyword classification shit,is that what you are thinking?),as there is rapid progress in the area of semantics and knowledge representations,we are almost already at the point where even obscure euphemisms and metaphorical expressions will not escape the algorithmic scanner and even your most private and innocent thoughts would be subject to the machine's ruthless perusal.
I realized that embedded in all this debate about Google's privacy policy ,was a more fundamental question,one that is looming so large on our collective future,that sooner or later,it would spare none of us with a direct confrontation-the difference between man and machine,is there any?
John Searle is perhaps the world's greatest living philosopher.He teaches at Berkeley.In 1980,he attempted to answer this question using his infamous Chinese Room Argument-(the italicized explanation is from wiki)
Searle requests that his reader imagine that, many years from now, people have constructed a computer that behaves as if it understands Chinese. It takes Chinese characters as input and, using a computer program, produces other Chinese characters, which it presents as output. Suppose, says Searle, that this computer performs its task so convincingly that it comfortably passes the Turing test: it convinces a human Chinese speaker that the program is itself a human Chinese speaker. All of the questions that the human asks it receive appropriate responses, such that the Chinese speaker is convinced that he or she is talking to another Chinese-speaking human being. Most proponents of artificial intelligence would draw the conclusion that the computer understands Chinese, just as the Chinese-speaking human does.
Searle then asks the reader to suppose that he is in a room in which he receives Chinese characters, consults a book containing an English version of the aforementioned computer program and processes the Chinese characters according to its instructions. He does not understand a word of Chinese; he simply manipulates what, to him, are meaningless symbols, using the book and whatever other equipment, like paper, pencils, erasers and filing cabinets, is available to him. After manipulating the symbols, he responds to a given Chinese question in the same language. As the computer passed the Turing test this way, it is fair, says Searle, to deduce that he has done so, too, simply by running the program manually. "Nobody just looking at my answers can tell that I don't speak a word of Chinese," he writes.
This lack of understanding, according to Searle, proves that computers do not understand Chinese either, because they are in the same position as he — nothing but mindless manipulators of symbols: they do not have conscious mental states like an "understanding" of what they are saying, so they cannot fairly and properly be said to have minds.
According to John Searle, biology is necessary for "understanding" of language. A man made machine (say, a computer) may appear to understand, but actually does not understand.
Neat ,really neat,but a careful look may reveal otherwise.The philosopher needs to be doubly cautious not to mince words ,more so when using such unassuming,everyday words like "understanding",for in philosophy,it is always the most banal of words that acquire the profoundest of connotations,to the point that their meaning is ultimately declared unclear.I feel we must have a close look at what "understanding" really means in view of the common Internet user.When my friend,first came across the ad,his immediate reaction was the urge to break into the laptop into pieces.
Searle then asks the reader to suppose that he is in a room in which he receives Chinese characters, consults a book containing an English version of the aforementioned computer program and processes the Chinese characters according to its instructions. He does not understand a word of Chinese; he simply manipulates what, to him, are meaningless symbols, using the book and whatever other equipment, like paper, pencils, erasers and filing cabinets, is available to him. After manipulating the symbols, he responds to a given Chinese question in the same language. As the computer passed the Turing test this way, it is fair, says Searle, to deduce that he has done so, too, simply by running the program manually. "Nobody just looking at my answers can tell that I don't speak a word of Chinese," he writes.
This lack of understanding, according to Searle, proves that computers do not understand Chinese either, because they are in the same position as he — nothing but mindless manipulators of symbols: they do not have conscious mental states like an "understanding" of what they are saying, so they cannot fairly and properly be said to have minds.
According to John Searle, biology is necessary for "understanding" of language. A man made machine (say, a computer) may appear to understand, but actually does not understand.
Neat ,really neat,but a careful look may reveal otherwise.The philosopher needs to be doubly cautious not to mince words ,more so when using such unassuming,everyday words like "understanding",for in philosophy,it is always the most banal of words that acquire the profoundest of connotations,to the point that their meaning is ultimately declared unclear.I feel we must have a close look at what "understanding" really means in view of the common Internet user.When my friend,first came across the ad,his immediate reaction was the urge to break into the laptop into pieces.
Should he be blamed for his reaction?
Are Google's engineers trying to say that knowing the entire process behind the generation of such outrageously pin-pointed ads is 'basic consumer awareness'?
I think what they are forgetting that "understanding" something fundamentally means agreeing with a perception and taking the conscious and unconscious decision to formulate further action based on that perception.If gmail ads are creating the perception of intrusion of privacy,it should be deemed as intrusion of privacy.
So,do not expect the common Gmail user to do a John Searle analysis everytime they send an email.
Am I asking Google to stop its gmail ad program and be ready to loose money?That is another difficult question.Frankly ,when I come to think of it, it is a small price and an even smaller compromise(think of the 1 GB space) if we look at how thoughtlessly we have forsaken our own privacy to all things 2.0 and so ,the word privacy itself ,has seen its own gradual redefinition.
Is man relegating himself to a machine as machines gradually get more human?
As the hedonist of a mankind takes to the seductive highway of technology,this is going to be just one of the many unsettling questions that he must either face or turn a blind,callous eye.
PS:the picture is a nice caricature of the Chinese Room thought experiment.
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