In 2008 someone told me that Google is trying to reach the point to read minds, and It wasn’t about finishing the sentences. At that time my skeptical mind could’t accept that it can be possible by using algorithms. And I simply forgot about it. But recently I have seen things that made me reconsider thoes words.
Youtube suggestions and relativity to our thoughts: For a few years now Youtube is my main source of entertainment and education. I have watched videos and on many different topics. However, recently I noticed a trend in the way Youtube suggests videos to me.
Sometimes in a conversation a topic comes up about a previously watched video years ago. And surprisingly that night I get a suggestion from the same video or similar topic. Recently this phenomenon has happened so many times, that I can’t ignore the hypotheses that Google can read minds. For example, two days ago I was walking in the supermarket with a friend of mine and we passed by the cheese section and there were a big wheel of Parmesan and it was obvious that they didn’t know how to cut it. It looked like somebody without any skills hacked into it with a knife. So I turned to my friend “look how they are destroying the Parmesan” I pointed out. And I was shocked when I saw that my friend didn’t know either the correct way of cutting it. However that night Youtube gave me a video suggestion “how to cut Parmesan”. So I could show it to my friend.
Thoughts and considerations: Personally I have mixed feeling about this, on one hand I’m still so skeptical that I can’t believe it, on the other I see it as a good thing, because it can help me to navigate trough Internet much faster and easier.
Now I want to know your opinion about this matter. Can Google read minds? What are your experiences about this kind of things. How often it happens to you. Do you think it’s bad of good? Is there any explanation for it?