Google boss: Our "Truth Predictor" will target pols
- IT TOPICS:Government & Regulation, Networking
Politicians beware: Google's honcho Eric Schmidt says that within the next five years, Google will develop "truth predictor" software that will let citizens know if a politician is telling a lie. Who needs software for that? If a politician's lips move, he's lying.
Schmidt made the statement in a speech, and then provided follow-up details to the Financial Times.
It was all rather hyperbolic, and clearly only designed to get a bit of press. There is no Truth Detector in the works.
But hidden in Schmidt's silliness was this nugget of truth: "Many of the politicians don't actually understand the phenomenon of the Internet very well," he told the newspaper.
That's putting it mildly. Senator "Know-Nothing" Ted Stevens of Alaska made that clear with his "The Internet isn't a truck, it's a series of tubes" speech.
Like it or not, Stevens and his ilk hold the future of the Internet in their hands. And we don't need a Truth Predictor to tell us that when they tell us they have our interests in mind, rather than the interests of Big Telcecom, they're lying.
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