Google CEO Schmidt: "People Aren't Ready for the Technology Revolution"

So there's so much data out there and one of the most important uses for that data according to Schmidt is to predict where I am going next.<p>If that's Google's best thinking about data, it shows very well why they have so far not managed to make money on anything outside their original ad business model.<p>And I have to say, if everything they are able to come up with is new ways of spying on me in order to create information that is useless to me then I'm going to prevent them from getting access to any of my data.

Finally someone from Google said it: <i>"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."</i> No wonder people worry about the privacy implications of their Google accounts.

A quibble: he says "There was 5 exabytes of information created between the dawn of civilization through 2003". But this is misleading, far more than 5 exabytes of "information" were created during that time, but only about 5 exabytes of it was stored for posterity. This is an important distinction, I think.<p>Also, as to technological revolutions, nobody is ever ready for them. Revolutions are disruptive, no matter how prepared you are your life will be disrupted by them (if you are lucky it will be for the better).

"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."<p>I'm torn between thinking "wow, that's scary" &#38; appreciating how much potential for good there is in a completely transparent world. I've been thinking about (genomic &#38; medical) identity: research could benefit massively from a world of total transparency.<p>23andme is sitting on a growing collection of personal genomics data which they are trying to use for research purposes through their 23andwe program. That's great, but that is still a massive collection of data locked up in a single company.<p>Imagine a world where every single individual is sequenced at birth &#38; his data is made publicly available for research purposes. Total transparency. Kind of the polar opposite of the current situation where the patient owns his data &#38; permission needs to be gathered to use of that data for research purposes.<p>We're forgoing massive progress for fear of an artifact of current society (a.k.a. insurance companies).

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Ben Franklin

The reason why I get too uncomfortable around this kinda stuff is that they seem to treat human-beings like machines.. These entities seem to say, we know what you do, what you like, when you're hungry, what you're supposed to do... etc. We're gonna get you so bombarded with stuff that you lose whatever little consciousness you have and start spending wherever we ask you to..<p>From movie Network (1976): "I'm a human being, goddamn it. My life has value."

5 exabytes of mostly useless information. Information is not an end unto itself.

Is that a bulletproof vest he's wearing in the picture in the article?