The Future is Predictable

So I’m trying to write a text message in Hungarian but my iphone is annoying me, because every word I write it makes another suggestion, like its saying ‘I think you meant to say
’. So I write ‘szia’ and it says ‘don’t you mean ‘Axial’?? What the hell is Axial? I write ‘igen’ and it says ‘don’t you mean ‘oven’? And it got me thinking how computers (and phones) are suddenly becoming annoying in the way they (or rather the companies that live in your computer) want to predict everything for you. So the internet has become this smart-arse predictor finishing your sentences, thinking its being really clever, but more often than not making itself out as some kind of stupid friend or relative, who thinks you’re a bit of a baby and need its help.

‘This is the website you’re looking for, this is the word you’re trying to spell, this is the music you should get next’. Google of course is the chief dumb-show-off-friend. Every little baby-step word you say it makes a guess. Imagine you’ve got a friend that tries to finish what you’re saying after every word. Here’s an example. You go to Google to get advice on how to make goulash.

You type ‘how’ it suggests ‘how I met your mother’
You type ‘how to’ it suggests ‘how to write a cv’
You type ‘how to make’ it suggests ‘how to make pancakes’
You type ‘how to make a’ it suggests ‘how to make a website’
You type ‘how to make Go..’ it suggests ‘how to make google go crazy’
You type ‘how to make Gou..’ finally it suggests ‘how to make goulash’

Well done stupid-google-friend!

Then there’s Amazon, like some crazy relative sitting by the fire thinking ‘well Rod bought that he might like this too’. I buy the new Radiohead CD. Amazon says ‘how about buying OK Computer’? Come on Amazon, you think I might already own that even though I didn’t buy it from you? Or you buy a book on knitting for an elderly relative, and suddenly Amazon is always suggesting new knitting books for me. So it thinks its being helpful and clever, but its just being a bit sad.

So, where does this all end? In the future will there simply be a ‘Rod Shop’ which sells and plays my kind of music, the foods I like best, things I need for my type of car or my kind of flat, and basically provides everything I ever bought. It’ll probably be my dentist too, my doctor, my job-advisor, my teacher and my shop. Just one big nipple of services and consumer goods. Those living in your internet appear to just want us all to be big predictable babies, with our big friendly (but slightly dumb) internet Wet Nurse. But its making want to throw the toys from my pram. Oh and if you’re Hungarian and you get a message from me asking about an ‘Axial Oven’ its just my way of saying hello.