This creepy Google 'thought experiment' shows a computer shaping human behavior

Google Selfish Ledger.
(Image credit: Screenshot/The Verge)

Your smartphone already knows a lot about you: where you go, what you buy, and what you're searching online.

But The Verge revealed that Google has imagined taking that knowledge much, much further. An eerie video produced by X, Google's futuristic concept lab, shows users creating a data "ledger" as a device learns about each person's preferences, goals, and decisions over time.

For example, if a user's goal was to protect the environment (a goal that "reflects Google's values as an organization"), Google would prompt the user to make environmentally friendly choices at the store or when hailing an Uber. If Google doesn't know enough about a user to make the right recommendations, it can 3D-print new devices to collect even more information, like a scale to learn a user's weight.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Rather than making devices user-centric, the video asks, "what if the ledger could be given a volition or purpose?" The stored data doesn't have to just sit there, it could be guiding multigenerational life decisions, Google suggests.

Google told The Verge that the concept was meant to be "disturbing" and thought-provoking, and said it was not related to any current or future products. Even so, the creepy video is enough to inspire a viewer to power down their phone — at least until they feel a phantom vibration. Read more at The Verge.

Explore More
Summer Meza, The Week US

Summer Meza has worked at The Week since 2018, serving as a staff writer, a news writer and currently the deputy editor. As a proud news generalist, she edits everything from political punditry and science news to personal finance advice and film reviews. Summer has previously written for Newsweek and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, covering national politics, transportation and the cannabis industry.