Tom Chatfield
The grand regency chamber at the heart of Bath’s Guildhall is an incongruous place to be talking about search algorithms and digital privacy. Courtesy of the rather excellent Bath Literature Festival, however, that was exactly where I found myself this Sunday, debating whether Google is good for you in the company of Tim Kelsey, Heather Brooke and our chair, Tiffany Jenkins. I kept expecting to see a bonnet or two nodding in the audience, but no such Austenesque accoutrements were to be found. In fact, there was little technophobia of any kind, with the debate leaning strongly towards the opinion that governments and states were the people you really wanted to worry about—and that the great task is to lobby and scrutinise them mercilessly in the hope that they’ll hold private companies to account in turn.
There was, though, an interesting moment of silence on our part when we were asked what might or can be done to curb Google’s dominance of the search and online advertising industries. In honesty, nothing much at present was about the sum of my answer, although Tim and I agreed that quasi-monopolies have a habit of not lasting. More transparency all round was the battling cry, with the added injunction on Tim’s part that citizens have to realise that their contracts with the welfare state must trump many “privacy” concerns if they wish standards to be upheld and scandals avoided. Heather did not entirely agree on this point: indeed, her next book, The Silent State, will examine the question of just how far the state has encroached on citizens’ privacy and rights in Britain.
I finished off with a meditation on the unintended consequences of one company having so much power—and, as it sometimes seems, so little appreciation of the value and values of the older media whose business models it’s hollowing out. And then I was off for a cup of tea and a blessed afternoon away from the terrors of my inbox…
The Bath literature festival continues until Sunday 7th March, with daily debates sponsored by Prospect exploring everything from high culture to whether the French really are best at everything.
Nigel Warburton
Could 2010 be the year of the censor? After collaborating with Chinese censorship for several years, Google is having second thoughts: an admirable move, but one that leaves the way open for even more extensive state control. January also saw Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo begin an 11-year prison sentence. His heinous crime: asking for greater freedom in line with human rights legislation. In Denmark, the attempt on cartoonist Kurt Westergaard’s life resurrected the cartoon controversy while, closer to home, the British government banned the extremist group Muslim4UK. Meanwhile, Ireland brought in new anti-blasphemy laws. Expressing ideas is becoming an increasingly risky business.
John Stuart Mill eloquently defended free expression in his 1859 pocket classic On Liberty. The clash of truth with falsehood in the marketplace of ideas is, he argued, what keeps thought and action vital and vigorous—while the suppression of dissenting views, even absurd ones, harms humanity. For Mill, the limit of free speech was incitement to violence, or causing actual harm; offence was not an adequate ground for censorship. But not all philosophers have argued in favour of free expression.
Plato wanted to censor the arts because, he argued, they misrepresented the nature of reality, something that only philosopher-kings could accurately discern. Two millennia later, in 1965, the Marxist Herbert Marcuse also railed against free expression, asserting that it was of little use when the people in a capitalist democracy were so indoctrinated that they parroted their masters’ thoughts. In place of this “repressive tolerance” he advocated a different kind of “tolerance,” namely the censorship of right-wing positions.
This would all be grist to Mill’s mill. He believed that any idea worth preserving should be strong enough to stand up to public criticism—and that even a crazy line of attack might have within it a tiny kernel of truth that would not otherwise emerge. All of which makes the government’s use of anti-terrorism laws to silence radical Muslim critics worrying. Perhaps it’s not just cheap clothes that we’ll be importing from China this year.
Adrian Bannon
Is this the end? Google has threatened to pull out of China
In China, the release of Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s 1984 hit song, “Two Tribes Go To War,” was greeted in a similar vein to the arrival of the internet search giant Google: both were immediate smash hits.
The Google tribe is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable organisations of our time. Through the creative utilisation of cutting-edge technology and innovative business deals, Google’s mathematicians-turned-mogul founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, have taken their tribe from academic slipstream to the global mainstream. Every tribe, however, needs a battleground—and for Google that must include the world’s fastest growing and relatively untapped economy: China.
The country is set become the biggest internet market in the world. In attempting to gain a strong foothold in this Midas market (Google still trails local Chinese competitor Baidu by a considerable margin), Google has nevertheless achieved the double bonus of keeping Microsoft at bay as well as having access to China’s perennial army of computer scientist graduates.
But getting so heavily involved in China has presented Google with its own set of problems, and the recent sophisticated attacks on the email accounts of Chinese human rights activists and the 20 plus other companies, highlights this. The Google philosophy of “youth + freedom + transparency + new model + the general public’s benefit + belief in trust = The Miracle of Google”—as famously enunciated by Dr. Kai-Fu Lee, a high profile Chinese Microsoft employee who crossed the binary war lines by seeking to join Google—sits very uneasily with the Chinese political equation of “Communist bureaucracy + active monitoring + restriction + censored internet.”
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Paul Anderson
With the recent launch of Windows 7, Microsoft is banking on a return to the technological limelight. It still runs on 90 per cent of the world’s personal computers, but the company has seen revenues slide and finds itself threatened by web upstarts like Google and the renewed vigour of old foes such as Apple. Microsoft executives plan to throw $9bn next year into taking on their rivals but, more intriguingly, they have announced plans to work with some of them too.
The longstanding thorn in Microsoft’s side is what has become known as the “power of free”: the idea that software code is an algorithm, a kind of mathematical recipe that is not patentable. It has been championed for nearly two decades by, among others, Richard M Stallman, a long-haired bear of a man who delivers tub-thumpingly passionate lectures in his bare feet. In computing he is as close as it gets to rock n’ roll. Computer users should be free to view, edit and reuse the code, Stallman says; without these fundamental rights, we can’t be sure what the software is really doing and how that might affect our civil liberties.
These ideas have spawned a whole generation of programmers who produce free and open source software (FOSS). Over the years they have come up with software such as OpenOffice, which rivals Microsoft Office. More importantly for Microsoft, Stallman’s project to build an entire operating system, the underlying software that makes a computer work, produced GNU/Linux. The poster child of the FOSS movement, it is a free, open source alternative to Windows that runs on many millions of computers across the world and is Windows’s only serious competitor in the corporate computing market.
Microsoft executives have reviled FOSS in the past, openly deriding it as “communist” and “a cancer.” So they stunned everyone when, this summer, Microsoft contributed its own code to the GNU/Linux project. And in late August they announced they were putting $1m into Codeplex, a non-profit foundation for the promotion of open source. According to Darren Strange, head of open source engagement at Microsoft UK, the move was “a very realistic, business based decision, not a fit of altruism as such.”
What is really going on here? In part, Microsoft is interested in learning the methods FOSS communities use to produce code. The collaborative style of working, in which volunteers come together over the internet, provides an environment conducive to innovation. In addition, some of Microsoft’s big corporate customers run mixed environments with Windows and GNU/Linux, so they need software that works with both. Microsoft wants its application products like Office to run successfully under GNU/Linux, but they also want to protect their crown jewels, Windows. It is a delicate balancing act.
The move may also be an attempt to silence critics. With its huge market share, Microsoft’s activities have troubled competition bodies within Europe. It’s been argued that everyone should be able to access public documents without needing to purchase a particular software product. Microsoft’s use of intellectual property rights to keep its code secret raises concerns about long-term access, particularly to public sector data—our health records, tax data, and so on.
The software giant’s new tack has split opinion in the FOSS communities. Many have welcomed them as a sign that open source has come of age. Justin Erenkrantz, president of the Apache Software Foundation, one of the leading FOSS communities, thinks that it represents a “sea change” and adds, “every positive and constructive engagement Microsoft has with the open source community will continue to chip away at the old perceptions.” Others, like Stallman, remain unconvinced.
The bottom line is that the success of giant companies like Microsoft is defined by their ability to move with the times. And it’s becoming clear that FOSS offers a “viable and credible alternative to proprietary software,” in the words of one office of government commerce report. While estimates vary, it appears that the public sector could save millions by moving to FOSS. Much of this will come out of Microsoft’s pocket. Their new willingness to work with open source could therefore represent a genuine strategic shift. In the meantime, the company has just started recruiting staff to build Windows 8.
Philip Ball
What would email look like if it were invented today? Google thinks it has the answer with Google Wave: its new “personal communication and collaboration tool.” Developed by the team behind Google Maps, it promises to replace existing email with something more versatile—like a cross between email, chat rooms and blogs. Users can turn discussions into documents and spreadsheets, all visible and editable in the “email” window. And there’s a neat playback facility that allows the history of the evolving document to be re-enacted. Google thinks it’ll be valuable for scientific collaborations. Perhaps it may also help counteract email’s rapid eclipse of traditional letter archives.
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Tom Chatfield
Be afraid. Be slightly afraid
There’s an article in the latest Atlantic that asks an interesting question, but offers no answers. “What Scares Google,” by Kevin Maney, notes that big companies have historically failed to adapt their highly profitable strategies to the next generation of technology—IBM’s dominance was scuppered by home computing, Microsoft’s by the internet—and draws the lesson that even Google is likely to struggle to transform itself come the next great shift. But what will that shift be, and who stands to gain from it if not Google? Futurology has long been a mug’s game, and Maney wisely remains silent: he simply wraps up with the pronouncement that you should “Fear what you can’t see, not what you can.” Fair enough. But looking out for things that you can’t see isn’t half as entertaining as free-wheeling speculation. So here are a few thoughts.
First, given that the mobile internet represents a large slice of global technology growth, Google ought to be scared that Apple’s “closed” iPhone system has thus far trumped any rival based on Google’s open “open” Android platform, and that the App store is raking in millions of dollars a day for Apple. This is looking increasingly like a new model for online access that lavishes most of its profits on application and service providers, rather than on benefiting advertising providers. And, as far as money is concerned, Google is an advertising provider.
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Mark Henderson
When Time magazine drew up the shortlist for its invention of the year award in October 2008, it did not lack suitable candidates. Yet the judges rejected the claims of the Large Hadron Collider and the sexy Tesla Roadster electric car in favour of an idea that has for years been long on promise and short on results: personal genomics.
Time selected the $399 personal genome service of genomics company 23andMe, a Google-backed startup, and the magazine pronounced that genetic tests for all would start “a revolution that will transform not only how we take care of ourselves, but also what we mean by personal information.” The implication is that 23andMe, and competitors such as deCODEme and Navigenics, herald a new era of personalised medicine.
These personal genomics companies scan a portion of your genome from cells provided by spitting into a tube or swabbing your cheek and use the results to assess your risk of a range of diseases and traits. 23andMe looks for 116, from baldness to breast cancer. Yet the worth of examining up to 1m of the 6bn DNA letters in a human genome is uncertain.
First of all, such tests are not directly predictive. They look for genetic variations that raise a person’s risk of developing a condition like Alzheimer’s, but do not necessarily mean that they will get the disease: a combination of other genes and environmental factors matter too. The results can therefore be confusing to the non-expert, and risk creating needless alarm or false reassurance.
The tests cover only a small fraction of the genetic variations that affect risk of disease, and they can be inconsistent too. When the same person takes tests offered by different companies, there is no guarantee that they will come up with the same results: Nic Fleming, a freelance journalist, found that 23andMe gave him a raised risk of age-related macular degeneration (an eye disease), while deCODEme said that his risk was lower than average. As none of these calculations have to be independently verified, it is very much buyer beware.
My own experience with deCODEme reveals further issues. When my genome was scanned 18 months ago, it suggested my risk of a heart attack was 12 per cent above average. Yet when I logged into the deCODEme website to check my details recently, I found that it had risen to 28 per cent above average. This isn’t due to change in my health or behaviour, but simply because the company has updated its algorithms—my risk estimate will change again when more data are added. My profile did reveal one very clear risk worth knowing about: a threefold increase in my chances of contracting glaucoma. But I already knew this because of a family history of the condition, which is still usually a more reliable guide than tests.
So is personal genomics all hype? Each company quotes arresting stories that appear to suggest otherwise. Sergey Brin, the Google entrepreneur whose wife, Anne Wojcicki, co-founded 23andMe, learned that he has a high risk of Parkinson’s disease from its tests. Jeff Gulcher, deCODEme’s chief scientist, discovered that he had an exceptionally high risk of prostate cancer. Further tests revealed he actually had an aggressive prostate tumour that was still treatable. But such cases are unusual. For now, the value lies in satisfying curiosity, not medicine.
This, however, is unlikely to be the case for long. When the first drafts of the human genome were completed in 2001, sequencing a genetic code cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Today, the cost has fallen so rapidly that the company Illumina recently launched a personal sequencing service for $48,000 (covering all 6bn DNA letters, rather than just the 1m or so that genomics companies until now have been scanning). It may cost as little as $1,000 in a year or two. Some observers predict that reading DNA will eventually become so cheap that it is essentially free.
At the same time, a new approach to disease genetics, called the genome-wide association study, has identified hundreds of genetic variations that are linked to common diseases. Initiatives like the 1,000 Genomes Project, which is creating an atlas of these variations, will further increase medicine’s ability to interrogate the genetic code—helping, for instance, to divide diseases such as type 2 diabetes into narrower categories, with different therapies. Many cancer treatments are already tailored to the genetic signatures of tumours, while discoveries about the genetics of drug metabolism will allow doctors to match treatments to genetic test results. The question is not whether these developments start to influence healthcare, but how quickly. And that will be decided largely by how businesses, medical professionals and society at large prepare.
For personal genomics companies, the challenge is to find a viable business model: deCODEme is already in financial difficulty and, despite its media profile, 23andMe refuses to discuss customer margins or profits. As sequencing gets cheaper, it will be difficult to charge much simply for collecting data: the real money will be in interpreting results. Another source of income could be pooling anonymous data about subscribers into databases, for sale to drug companies.
Medicine itself faces different issues, highlighted by a House of Lords report in July. New IT systems and labs are needed to handle genomic information, the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of genetic tests must be evaluated, and medical education needs reform. At present, British doctors’ genetics training covers rare conditions caused by major mutations, not the fuzzy genetics of common disease. It certainly does not equip GPs to advise confused patients waving printouts of 23andMe scans, or to use genetic profiles to aid prescribing.
For the rest of us, a key question is: who should see our genetic information? A British moratorium on the use of DNA by insurers runs out in 2014. Should it be replaced with a formal ban, so that insurers cannot charge higher premiums to those with a high risk of diabetes or Alzheimers? Or should we trust the market? There is no such thing as a perfect genome, and insurers that take no customers with genetic risks will rapidly go bust.
Genetics is too often considered a deterministic science, revealing traits hardwired by our DNA. This can frighten us when we learn that we carry a gene linked to a dread disease, or breed overconfidence when genetic risks are low. Yet this science more usually works in clues, not certainties, and in concert with the environment. Someone who has a low genetic risk of lung cancer can still raise it substantially by smoking.
Personal genomics will reveal much, but only so much. It should help us to make better lifestyle choices, and help doctors to make better choices about our medical care, but it will not provide an infallible guide to our future health.
Brian Semple
Chris Anderson: a "professional exaggerator"?
Chris Anderson knows a thing or two about self-promotion. His first book, The Long Tail, caused a stir three years ago in its suggestion that the internet was creating a golden age for niche retailers. His latest work, Free: the Future of a Radical Price (which like The Long Tail began as a Wired article and was developed on Anderson’s blog) makes an equally sweeping claim – to plug the gap in economic thought that arises from the disappearance of prices.
However, in a review in the new August edition of Prospect, William Davies suggests that the answers Anderson provides to this problem are really little more than an extension of already existing economic models, such as Moore’s law (which predicted in 1965 that the cost of computer processing would halve every two years). Davies also crticises Anderson for being enthralled to Google, Free sometimes feeling “less like a glimpse of the future than a reverential analysis of a business model dreamt up 15 years ago”.
Still, Davies acknowledges that Anderson does have a point, if also a repetitive and slightly disingenuous way of making it. What does Free mean for the Rupert Murdochs of this world? Let us know your thoughts below.
Tom Chatfield
China's present, the world's future
With the recent news of Google’s travails against censorship in China (its site was blocked for several hours amid accusations that it was helping to “spread pornography” and break China’s strict, if opaque, laws on what is and isn’t legitimate online), it seems a good time to be talking about the future of search. Not the future of global search which, I think we can safely assume, will be dominated by Google for years to come. But the future of an altogether more regional internet. In my science and technology piece this month, I cast an eye over the booming field of regional search: and, in particular, at China, which now boasts both the world’s largest online community – with almost 300m Chinese citizens online – and a regional internet in which Google is but a minor player compared to the might of home-grown Chinese search engine Baidu.
Damian Tambini
Murdoch: the death of free speech?
Reports today that News International will move the Sunday Times online to a “paid-for” model are part of a more general shift away from a “free as in free beer” internet, as I mentioned in my article in this month’s Prospect. But do these moves mean we should worry about a move away from a “free as in free speech” internet?
It depends of course whether your definition of free speech includes people’s right to receive and exchange ideas among one another. If it does, the brief period in which newspapers and broadcasters have attempted to gain market share on the internet by offering free access and have funded distribution through advertising has been a boon for free speech. It has been a period of amazingly fast and free exchange of ideas. Facebook, Google and the wider blogosphere have emerged as the major new distribution mechanisms for news and comment and they have enabled us to flag, point, post, tag, “like” and comment freely and quickly. Yet as the newspapers teeter on the edge of collapse, we do have to acknowledge that somebody has to pay for journalism.
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The grand regency chamber at the heart of Bath’s Guildhall is an incongruous place to be talking about search algorithms and digital privacy. Courtesy of the rather excellent Bath Literature Festival, however, that was exactly where I found myself this Sunday, debating whether Google is good for you in the company of Tim Kelsey, Heather Brooke and our chair, Tiffany Jenkins. I kept expecting to see a bonnet or two nodding in the audience, but no such Austenesque accoutrements were to be found. In fact, there was little technophobia of any kind, with the debate leaning strongly towards the opinion that governments and states were the people you really wanted to worry about—and that the great task is to lobby and scrutinise them mercilessly in the hope that they’ll hold private companies to account in turn.
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