The Next Battleground for the Soul of Civilization
The land that time forgot
In the beginning there were universal resource locators (URLs). Then came search engines. When Filo and Yang started Yahoo the intent was to identify the best content. Then came Google (a.k.a. Alphabet), with the stated mission of “organizing the world’s information,” with an algorithmic approach to search called “PageRank.” It was a watershed in the evolution of the Internet.
This algorithm modified the classic literary citation system (i.e., the known become more well-known or the rich become richer approach). In this case, the algorithm calculated the number of “links” to and from content providers. Those with the largest number of links became the top results listed in response to a query.
To be sure, this approach dramatically sped up the search process and delivered a larger, more encompassing number of content providers. The addition of algorithmic ad placement led to a tectonic shift in the search landscape. It was the point of liftoff for search engine marketing (SEO) aimed at manipulating the order of top placed search results.
The rest, as they say, is history
Outside of some foreign countries, where domestic companies have most favored nation status, Google became the dominant 800 pound gorilla in the search business. While it dabbled in other activities, nothing remotely approached the extraordinary amount of cash its search-ad business generated.
Their first problem arose in connection to the corporate slogan referenced in their 2004 prospectus.
“Don’t be evil. We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served — as shareholders and in all other ways — by a company that does good things for the world even if we forego some short term gains.”
However, like most corporate behemoths, success led to legal and financial games against real and potential competitors. In the end this slogan became a comedy staple.
A second problem arose in the “PageRank” algorithmic approach itself. Inevitably, the idea that popularity is the right measure to judge content was a bridge too far. It is tantamount to reading only the most popular books at a traditional library.
Thus, regardless of the content’s merit, older books that have been checked out more over time and pop culture books would be the primary reading diet. But Harry Potter books are not a good source of science, and even worse, popular books can reflect ignorance, bigotry, and anti-science predilections.
ATM for the mundane
The core problem with all current search engines is that what is represented as important is often not. When search results to a query are provided, rather than describing them as link totals, the claim is that they are the “relevant” links. Using Google, the definition for relevant is: “closely connected or appropriate to the matter at hand.”
The correlation between the algorithmic search results based on link counting and ‘relevancy, as being closely connected or appropriate to the matter at hand, is, at best, tenuous. Granted, algorithms have been tweaked with machine learning. Nonetheless, the claim of relevancy is sheer alchemy and rank sophistry.
But there is a much bigger and far more important problem. Even if the results delivered are relevant, relevancies are only useful for trivial pursuits and entertainment. When you need to know something is reliable — accurate, up to date, and not misleading — you are on your own. Search engines cannot help. That is because no search engine algorithm can evaluate the quality of content.
Knowledge is power
Setting aside the offensive political corollary to this phrase, “It is who you know, not what you know,” we all believe that the more we know, the better our chances are to succeed in life. What few appreciate is that there is a data science hierarchy. At the bottom of the hierarchy is data. Up one rung is information. This is followed by knowledge, then understanding and, if lucky, wisdom.
An easy way to think about this is to see data as a single letter of the alphabet. Thus, information reflects a single word and knowledge a sentence. Since all words have more than one meaning, a search company’s mission to “organizing the world’s information” badly misses the key objective i.e., knowledge.
The point is that the Internet has become as central to life as electricity. The days of simply providing so-called “relevant” information and accepting it as adequate are over. What we want and need to move forward is knowledge with the imprimatur of “reliable.” No one wants or needs mediocre or unreliable content. No one.
While existing search engines suffice for the mundane, we do ourselves, and especially our children, a huge disservice by not demanding reliable knowledge. But therein lies the rub. The algorithmic approach Google pioneered, adopted by all others — these ATMs for the mundane as I like to call them — is now an institutional barrier to reliable knowledge.
There must be some way out of here, said the joker to the thief
As a practical matter, there are only two options to get beyond this mundane ATM juggernaut. The option preferred by search engine companies is for us to wait until they advance artificial intelligence (AI) sufficiently. Absent a timeline for this development, abstractly it sounds great. There is, however, one notable AI caveat.
The day AI is capable of evaluating the quality of Internet content is the day we should all start to worry. That is because AI will also be able to evaluate all of human history, all contemporary research, and all the plans of any society and their adversaries. Without sounding alarmist, this is a point in human history beyond which there is no return.
The alternative option, effectively available now, is to simply add curated content evaluations onto search results. (Full disclosure, this is what my company provides.) While not as sexy as algorithmic magic, especially for engineers, the societal benefits for such curated knowledge on-demand are enormous and real.
There is, unfortunately, a caveat here also. Building a curated knowledge database can exacerbate existing sociopolitical polarization. We already have groups with neutral sounding names — Pro-choice and Pro-life — that could not be more distant in their worldviews. It is reasonable to expect that once one knowledge database is added to search results there will be competing knowledge databases.
I went down to the crossroads, fell down on my knees
As most know, Wikipedia is among the top ten most visited sites. When examining its evolution the war over what should or should not be included often turned ugly. In the end, there was an arbitration process instituted to settle disputes. But the result never sat well with many people and the service suffered for it.
With the curated database approach to adding reliable knowledge to search engines, there is no such interference or arbitration threat. Consequently, there can and will be polarized fundamentalist, ideological and partisan services attempting to deliver corresponding, albeit skewed, curated results. To be sure, there will be some overlap in certain areas. Nonetheless, the inventive capacity of such groups means they will stake out search engine territory to move the goalposts in this emerging knowledge war.
Thus, curated knowledge databases probably represent the next battleground in the struggle for the soul of civilization. To the extent there is a first mover advantage, it is to become the more respected source of trustworthy knowledge. This requires being more transparent and reliable than any other service and to become at least as ubiquitous as Wikipedia — fast.
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