In my five years at Google, I am not sure I have met a single engineer who is "trying to figure out how to get Scott Hanselman to click on ads."
I have met tons of engineers who work on interesting problems like building models of query patterns to detect spiking queries (Google Trends and Google Hot Trends, all publicly accessible: http://www.google.com/trends/), Gmail, Maps/Directions/Traffic, improving (machine) efficiency of Google Search, and tons of systems problems/architectures like MapReduce, Dremel, etc. And people I haven't met are working on everything from Flu Trends to Driverless Cars.
This oft-repeated claim that Google is squandering a bunch of engineer talent building things that don't improve humanity reflects a distorted view of what Google engineers do, one that is easily refuted even by the publicly-accessible information about Google's engineering accomplishments.
Furthermore, many basic services form a backbone of functionality for larger features. Things like voicemail transcription and 311 speech recognition were likely used to develop better recognition models so that deaf people can now have closed captioning for online videos, and will allow us to have natural interfaces with our public infrastructure in the future. Spam and importance filtering in GMail might be used to research and develop distributed machine learning, which can be used for much larger scale problems in other industries.
I'm glad that Google is working on things like automated cars from the same revenue that they get from something as simple as online advertisements.
My first thought when he asked why the great minds at Google are doing nothing for people suffering from diabetes and other ailments: How many people do you think have had their health greatly improved by researching their condition through Google?
How many people do you think have had their health greatly improved by researching their condition through Google?
No doubt. When I was diagnosed as a diabetic a few months ago, one of the first things my doctor told me was "get online and research diabetes". Now, he knows I'm the type that would do that anyway, and that I try to be a very active participant in my own health-care decisions, but still... rather than trying to recite a laundry list of data and dump it into my brain, he's basically tell me "go use Google".
Heck, as far as that goes, my doctor routinely Googles things himself, while we're talking. Just a couple of days ago, we were talking about some test I might need, and he's going to Google and looking up stuff while we're talking.
So yeah, Google are helping people in any number of areas, albeit indirectly.
Just one thing to add: I think that driverless cars could be a huge force for good. At the top of the list IMO is obsoleting DUIs completely.
Sure people can get taxis but there's much more of a logistical impediment. You have to call a cab (which will arrive in an unpredictable amount of time, especially on busy nights when you want it most). And you have to leave your car at the party and find some way back to it the next day. If your own car could drive you home it's an absolute no-brainer.
They could be, but human tendency makes me cautious in my optimism. For example, as cars get more fuel efficient, rather than saving their money, people tend to simply drive further. As cars get safer, people tend to take more risk.
What, I cannot help but wonder, will be the proverbial fly in the ointment when self-driving cars take over the market?
That makes sense. And I am sure engineers working on cool problems at Facebook and other large companies can say the same. But there has to be someone thinking about how to get people to click on ads at these companies, because selling ad clicks is their bread and butter. Right?
Yes I'm sure there must be some mixture of business people, engineers, and UX people who do focus on this. But I've never met any of them, and have never had a conversation with any other engineer that discussed how to get people to click on ads. My point is that it's a small minority of Google's engineering effort that goes towards this.
There are ads and there are ads. Spamming you with Brand awareness billboards so that you buy Frobulous instead Snaztacular (both produced in the same assembly line and recipe) at the grocery store is one thing, helping you find a good deal on a product you are searching for (even if you don't know its name) is another
Part of the rationalization I have made for creating ads is that proper targeting gives exposure of products that people would actually need/want. When scaled up to millions of people this specialized ad delivery allows for much greater diversity of products and solutions in the marketplace. Ideally this should lead to less of a "winner take all" effect in a group of competitors and would allow for more niche solutions to be catered to and sustained.
Certainly I would never say this goal is comparable to anything in medicine, but the domain does have ambitions beyond simply making money.
I have met tons of engineers who work on interesting problems like building models of query patterns to detect spiking queries (Google Trends and Google Hot Trends, all publicly accessible: http://www.google.com/trends/), Gmail, Maps/Directions/Traffic, improving (machine) efficiency of Google Search, and tons of systems problems/architectures like MapReduce, Dremel, etc. And people I haven't met are working on everything from Flu Trends to Driverless Cars.
This oft-repeated claim that Google is squandering a bunch of engineer talent building things that don't improve humanity reflects a distorted view of what Google engineers do, one that is easily refuted even by the publicly-accessible information about Google's engineering accomplishments.