This reflection is in response to a Lecture given by Dr. Robert Epstein. Dr. Epstein is highly educated and has spent many years investigating and analyzing Google's power and the effect Google has on our minds.
Prior to listening to Dr. Epstein's lecture, I was blatantly unaware of Google's size and therefore power it has over technology. Disregarding, for the moment, the hypothesis presented by Dr. Epstein that Google can alter our ideas and beliefs, I think it is necessary to address the power that Google has. What I didn't realize was the absurd amount of companies that are actually owned by Google. I knew about the obvious Google search engine, gmail, and twitter, but the idea that Google is taking over a new company almost weekly is difficult to comprehend logistically for me. A quick -and also ironic- Google search told me that Google currently owns "Approximately 232" companies. This being said, that's an enormous amount of companies that the majority of everyday people wouldn't know Google owns. I, for one, was unaware that Google owned YouTube and FitBit. This new-found information led me to do some digging into other companies that were owned by Google that I was unaware of. However, as I began looking through lists of companies, it wasn't the big names that I found most interesting, but the locations and "categories" the companies fall into. Google has managed to acquire companies in a large number of countries other than the United States and in a variety of different areas of interest. The large majority, as would be expected, are technology related companies, but technology is everywhere now, so they are able to monitor and collect data from nearly every aspect of our online lives.
Mandiant has to do with cybersecurity.
Fitbit is health and activity.
Nest is in-house electronics like speakers, smart displays, thermostats, doorbells, and cameras.
Waze is navigation and travel.
YouTube is video entertainment
That is a mere 5 of the 232 companies Google owns, yet so many aspects of our lives can be analyzed from the data collected from those 5 companies.
Now, let me add in Dr. Epstein's idea of mind manipulation. The basis of Dr. Epstein's beliefs are that Google is able to manipulate and alter our opinions based on the information given to us. When I think about this in a simple context, this makes sense. For example, I went to the beach over spring break. While I was there, it was quite slower that what I had expected and I created the opinion that a smaller number of people went than I expected. However, when I opened Instagram, the first 20 posts with the exception of maybe 2 were at the beach. This altered my opinion and made me think a lot of people went to the beach. As I continued to look at Instagram past the first 20 posts, the locations that people went became much broader.
This idea of flooding our initial viewing with a desired outcome and therefore altering our opinion is exactly what Dr. Epstein is warning us about. My example is largely irrelevant in comparison to much larger issues, but the precedent still holds. His biggest warning in regards to the effect on our lives and our country is the ability to present political information in a certain way to sway votes. It's not about hiding or misleading users, but rather strategically placing information in a way that they expect (based on the information they've collected on us) to act. Google understands that we, as users, want quick and easy information and therefore we most likely will click on one of the first 5 options when we search. So, they could deliver us 4 options that lean in their desired direction along with 1 that might not with the remaining others that don't further down in the search results. They aren't hiding anything necessarily, just intelligently placing the information they want us to see.
This idea is one that has made me think about a lot of aspects of technology and the information large companies have. Ultimately, it's quite jarring and is definitely something that we, as people, need to be aware of and at least acknowledge that this is possible.