The Positronic Brain of Google

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The Bicentennial Man, a Robin Williams film that many of us remember and may or may not enjoy, introduces viewers to a 1999-style world where androids with robust artificial intelligence and other lesser robotic automatons exist in a servile caste formed beneath the existing social structure of humanity and the United States.  The actual story and its universe are closely based on the novella The Positronic Man by Issac Asimov, the legendary science fiction writer who coined the word "robotics", as credited by the Oxford English Dictionary.  Referenced by the adjective within the novella's title, the positronic brain is essentially the most complex mechanical creation man could ever create, a true brain-like computer capable of all the calculations and inferences necessary to run and artificial intelligence system mimicking the beauty and quickness of the human conscious.  How Google, as a brand name and corporation, becomes a keystone supporting the weight of this impending  sort of Utopian, and potentially technocratic, future, well... that, detective, is the right question.

If you caught on to the origin of my previous six words, then you have seen and know I, Robot.  That particular Will Smith-apocalyptic-style feature is loosely derived from Asimov's Robot series of novels.  Of course, the film (really not any kind of spoiler here) shows insurmountable robot uprising in a slightly dystopian Chicago circa 2035 AD.  In no way is this terrifying proposition directly related to Google's involvement with the evolution of mechanical beings, but far is it from the minds of the public in light of the company's expansion.  Hopefully we are all aware of Google's end-of-the-year shopping as we said goodbye to 2013.  One example: the techno-giant purchased Boston Dynamics among several other leading robotics companies. For those unfamiliar, they make this and that.  How easy it is to immediately generate the thought, "robots will kill us all'.  Yet the morality of Google's ownership and involvement with one of the preeminent robot creators does not simply boil down to global dominance.  Among the other recent acquisitions is a superstar intelligent, learning thermostat and smoke alarm builder called Nest.  Today, it was announced that fledgling United Kingdom artificial intelligence company DeepMind has fallen under the fold.  While DeepMind's forms of AI seem rather vague and possibly unassuming, it does produce learning-focused systems.  On the whole, Google is certainly 'diversifying' its portfolio, but to what end?  Visions of Arnold Schwarzenegger's face half-torn revealing his metallic skeleton are an easy association within the minds of many.  Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt seem to visualize positioning their brand as the ultimate purveyor of the future in the vein of an 1893 World's Fair.  Of course, the primary inference is that Google is finally coming into its own as the real-world US Robotics or Cyberdyne Systems.  We hope for the benevolent days of the former and maybe none of the latter with its military complex scariness.  Movies have conditioned us to believe that any robotics super-corporation will inevitably and unintentionally walk down the road of a robo-pocalypse when "Vicki" and "Skynet" become self-aware.  However, Google's intentions are so widely-strewn and eccentric that it is impossible to know the what the company will represent in 10 years.  It is worth noting, more for the fun of it than for any real consideration, that Google will establish an 'ethics committee' to watch over is doings with Deep Mind and, presumably the rest of its artificially intelligent creations, which sounds like Asimov's Three Laws that keep humans safe from robots. Most likely this AI stockpiling will mainly impact Google+ in the nearest of futures.  It was mentioned that Google just beat Facebook to the punch in purchasing DeepMind. Therefore, its real-world applications are definitely in the realm of social media and managing the data about ourselves that we allow to permeate the Internet. It is repeatedly mentioned the Google+ will finally be relevant this year and maybe this is one of the last odd-fitting puzzle pieces needed to be able to interpret the final image.

Yes, Boston Dynamics is developing Atlas for 'disaster rescue' and BigDog/Wildcat as military pack-animals, together which more or less help connote the killer robot scenario.  However, the prospects of incorporation with Google's semi-mysterious side project Calico are far more intriguing.  Labeled the project to 'end death' by the media, Calico is nominally aimed at well-being and extending life.  Given the founders' Sergey Brin and Larry Page's penchant for the esoteric and overly-ambitious projects, Calico is intended for more along the lines of what the media portrays.  This perspective blended with the current infant-like and non-threatening abilities of Atlas as well as the company's dabbling with the home-place's Internet of Things, through its Nest acquisition, lends to a more Bicentennial Man future than any other outcome.  Now it appears that Google is the purveyor of life and quality of life. It is the idealistic, stainless steel and white linen, old age but still doing fun things, perfectly and joyously still connected to your family and the world around you both in person and across social media, all-the-while having infinite accessibility to the knowledge that inspires and powers you [pause for breath] type of living. It is a beautiful, sympathetic, synergistic vision of a company that we currently see as knowing too much about our lives. The type of life stimulation that the Google universe would provide would undoubtedly cater to all age groups given that: A. it already does & B. Google is a business. Certainly this recent commercial campaign for Google's Play store reaches towards a similar sentiment of THE search engine, and its ilk, existing solely for the purpose of being loved companions in life's endeavors and experiences. Apple's scope of work is now totally irrelevant in this universe; although Google does not really manufacture any Android or Chrome hardware now, its buying trends show that anything is possible.

So, Google owns several robotics companies, a couple of AI programmers, and is not too shabby itself in the matters of data aggregation, integration, and intelligent software. We have the makings of a world where Google provides to you the consumer some sort of physical service, other than browsing the Internet and connecting with friends, whether that is making your phone work, providing a non-human servant to your parents as they age, or fighting our wars to keep us from harm's way. I find it tremendously exciting. I truly dislike having to rely on an increasingly expensive technology base necessary for our society to function but, I do love a creative science fiction story, cool robots, and super-gadgets. My inner child (which really is just me) is happy.

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