MNZ: The Atlantic Monthly March 2011

So this issue had a big long article regarding computer artificial intelligence and some dumbass thing where people try to trick computers or some bullshit. That article was entirely too long, and meandered in unnecessary directions. What was most interesting to me was the little editorial preliminary write-up about Google and the artificial intelligence programmed into it to try and figure out what you are trying to get to before you tell it. This is something that bothers me immensely, because a lot of times, I'm just dicking around online, trying to find out about something I know nothing about. I do not want my search results polluted or poisoned by my previous searches or comparing my online habits with other people's online habits or anything really. I just want straight up results, like if I was looking in a goddamned wall full of notecards at a library in 1984, digging through the Dewey decimal system. Do not predict what I want.
My annoyance with this has caused me to have multiple gmail accounts to log in and out of to try and get different results. The thing is, your IP is noted, so I've noticed (yes, I've paid attention) that I get the same search results with different accounts at home, yet will get different results at work. What this means is we are digitally tagged, so that regardless of whether you are trying to get fresh results or not, they know who you are and where you are and target their responses according to what they think is most wanted by you. More importantly, their advertising is targeted accordingly as well, which increases the likelihood you click one of the links, which increases the value of them selling those fucking sidebar links. Which also brings to mind the accusations that Google actually moves sites up and down its search results listings according to advertising purchases, or just straight up personal decision. Can't remember where I read it (ha, might've even been this magazine I'm writing about for all I know), but there was some dude who whose website was disappeared from Google, completely. Like you couldn't even type in his address and company name and have it show up. Gone. How much stuff is like that?
Tons I bet. So no matter how much you turn off the autosearch smartbot program, or log out to try and have fresh results, Google has you pegged, tagged, and charted, demographically. Even more bothersome, considering all the dumb shit I'm interested in, is my children will use the same internet zone I use. This means they are going to be fucked, because when they look up historical information, Alex Jones or William Cooper is gonna come up. And I'm not opposed to that, but I'd like them to find their ultra-awareness on their own.
There is so much about this interweb age that is neat and fun, but there's so much that's weird as fuck. We voluntarily put information about ourselves into the public sector, and allow computer programs we've never met in the form of applications have access to all sorts of personal data, often times financial, and don't bat an eye. We think we are more connected than ever, when we have actually disconnected ourselves more and more, focused on the constant switchover from tiny smartphone screens to home desktop screens to slimline laptop screens to tablet and ipads and whatever the fuck else. They probably were about to drop some cornea implant screens before the tsunami devastated Japan.
And ultimately though, this is why I still subscribe to magazines, and buy them at the dwindling array of book stores left, and shuffle through the discarded magazine free bin at my local library. Magazines just have what they have, and I can read it. There's more information a lot of times, deeper stories, and prettier pictures a lot of time. Sure, there's not porn, and yeah, the ads are still targeted to certain demographics. But it allows me more freedom, of mind and of what I mentally ingest.