Google, a "Minority Report" to the email: - The Republic

Mountain View wants to patent an algorithm able to interpret the user’s thinking as you type in Gmail, for blocking its transmission in case of infringement of laws or in the event the system should purport of hazards of what is written. A system that could prove to be a useful tool but also a double edged sword

The magic words are three: Policy Violation Checker, control of policy violation. A triptych that could transform the electronic brain of Google in a controller without respite of everything that you write inside of Gmail. As a spell checker, but this time for thoughts. An innovation that Google is working, ready for the patent and potentially disturbing implications: a sort of digital units of self-censorship to avoid writing things that you might regret. And for which one day could serve a function to ensure the removal from the web of what is imprinted forever. A sort of right to be forgotten for the content published on the Net A the topic addressed in the past by Google chairman Eric Schmidt, who thinks Big G to provide a tool for “correction of the past.” Into This case, however, the neglect would quote. The Policy Violation Checker would address, as in “Minority Report,” to catch the criminal before he commits the crime. In this case, the cri minal would have thought. In detail, the thought user intends to write a certain phrase. Made of words potentially dangerous, that the algorithm would be ready to block before the (naive?) User to press the “Send” button. Protecting it from breaking laws or compromise relationships.

That the Policy Violation Checker is an idea that many observers already see the web as a U-turn

in the paradigm of Google, that “Do not be evil”, do not be bad. A tool that could certainly be very useful to curb the “digital language” at times when there is easily controlled. But also a system of assisted reasoning, a safety belt for expression, legitimate charity, but that if he ever came into function should at least be made optional. From Google say that a patent does not necessarily lead to the adoption of the algorithm in products: “We deposit patent applications for a wide variety of ideas that our employees develop. Some of these ideas are transformed over time actually in products and services, others do not. It is not necessarily correct to infer from our patent applications the idea that we could launch a product in the future, “writes Big G. Into Certainly in the case of adoption, if the technology appliabile step by step, user selectable and perhaps offered the detail of why censorship is applied, you might reveal one more tool for Google, also educational. But if it were to fall from as censorship, the web would be ready to send it back to Mountain View.