Don't Take Me Seriously - Book - Page 169
Featured commentary
Autocompletion as divine guidance
A
couple of days ago, one of
my colleagues complained
that Google’s autocomplete
suggestions were becoming
frighteningly intuitive. Halfway
through typing her search phrase, the
complete phrase she had in her head
was already showing up in grayed-out
type in the search window.
You know, even for weird stuff.
Now, if you Google “Google
Autocomplete,” you get the following
explanation:
“As you type, Google’s algorithm
predicts and displays search queries
based on other users’ search activities.
… You may see search queries from
relevant searches that you’ve done in
the past.”
It all seems so friendly and helpful
and harmless, doesn’t it?
Well, that depends on who is in
charge of the algorithm. I mean, think
about it. With a minor tweak, some
subversive could alter the formula
so that phrases with a certain slant
on things would always show up as
the top suggestions. Hapless fools
like me would then, out of laziness,
click on these things and become
Jim
WALKER
DON’T TAKE ME SERIOUSLY
brainwashed by whichever ideology
or product promotion was favored in
the calculations.
Well, that’s the paranoid
perspective, anyway. And for another
column, maybe.
But let’s take a look on the hopeful
side.
I asked myself, “What if God could
work through Google?” Every cosmic
and eternal and existential question I
had in my sputtering little brain might
have the answer phrase lined up right
there in the queue.
All I would have to do is type a
word or two in the search window,
and (heavenly choir “hallelujah”
here), the rest of my search for
the meaning of existence would
autocomplete. I’d be one click away
from enlightenment.
Now, in ages past, you might
have had to fast and pray for days to
receive such heavenly answers. You
might have had to sacrifice a goat
and make lots of promises about, you
know, never doing that thing you do
again. And even then, you’d have
to interpret your resultant feelings
and surrounding signs and events to
determine what the proper course of
action would be. I mean, Moses was
the only one who got his answers in
the written form.
But now, maybe I could, I
wondered, get them with a simple
query and click.
So, feeling a bit broken, empty and
purposeless these days. … I tried one.
My intended query: “Where do I go
from … here?”
Autocomplete suggestion: “Where
do I go from … you?” Accepting this
suggestion, because it seemed kind of
appropriate to my recent
circumstances, I clicked to what were
lyrics … “Where do I go to get over
the fact, you got on a plane and you
ain’t coming back?”
My interpretation: God thinks he’s
funny, and was rubbing it in.
So I tried again.
My query: Not accepting the
autocomplete this time, I typed
“Where do I go from here?”
Top search result: More lyrics,
this time from “Pocahontas II.” “The
Earth is cold, the fields are bare, the
branches fold against the wind that’s
everywhere.”
“Really?” I muttered.
My interpretation: God not only
thinks he’s funny, he doesn’t know
when to back off.
“Dude, I’m suffering here. Throw
me a bone,” I said.
But I gave it another shot.
My query: Changing it up a bit,
I went with, “What will my future
hold?”
Autocomplete: This led me to
another lyric, something about
running and skipping, from “My
Little Pony.”
“Oh, come on!” I exclaimed.
My interpretation: This was not
only insulting, it made no sense at
all. So I backed up and looked at the
bigger picture. “Oh!” I shouted in
pleased surprise. “Now I get it —
lyrics — I am supposed to fulfill my
destiny by becoming a songwriter.”
And I was just about to enroll in a
very expensive online songwriting
course, when I thought about all those
times I had Googled “lyrics” when
working on these columns in the past
— which would definitely affect my
autocomplete algorithm.
And so, I was extremely
disappointed to conclude that it was
only math at work, after all.
I assumed that any divine advice,
if given, had been, “Figure it out for
yourself.”
But I gave it one more try, just for
giggles. “What will my future hold?”
And the autocomplete led me to one
final lyric:
“What does your closest future
hold? Day at a time, I suppose.”
Well, it was an answer.
And a pretty good one, actually.
Maybe there is something to this
God-through-Google thing after all.
Once again, Walker claims the
rights to any permutations of this
story idea, in all media, and in
perpetuity. Comment at jwalker@thesignal.com or @DontSeriously.
