Search-engine architects must decide when their creations should act as a kind of expert and when they should neutrally direct people to what they are seeking.<\/p>\n
What is Google\u2019s responsibility to its searchers? In a Thursday panel at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Ashkan Soltani, the Federal Trade Commission\u2019s chief technologist, offered a hypothetical that captured why that question is so difficult to answer.<\/p>\n
Before getting to that hypothetical, let\u2019s assume that Google commits\u2013\u2013whether formally or informally\u2013\u2013to the notion that it has some responsibility to look out for its users. For example, if someone searches for the best way to drive from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City, it will direct them to the fastest or safest route, not the route that takes them past an out-of-the-way fast food chain that paid off the search engine.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s an easy case: The best interests of the searcher is clear.<\/p>\n
In contrast, Soltani\u2019s hypothetical raised larger questions about what it means to act in a searcher\u2019s best interests. \u201cSuppose Google is a fiduciary to us, they and Bing decide that they’re going to look out for us. And I happen to believe that vaccines are probably bad,\u201d he began. \u201cAnd I Google \u2018should I vaccinate my child?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Google is \u2018looking out for me,\u2019\u201d he continued, \u201cshould they interpret that in the best way as, you’ve got to shake this person by the lapels,<\/em> the way that I presume a doctor would?\u201d<\/p>\n Or should a benevolent Google\u2019s approach be, \u201cWe’re looking out for you, we know what kinds of articles you’re looking for, let us speed you to your destination?\u201d<\/p>\n Generally, he said, he has no ready answer. \u201cBut I think the reason we turn to experts, why they have power over us and why we want them to be fiduciaries, is to get the benefits of that expertise,\u201d he added. \u201cIn that instance, we\u2019d probably want to be told that the best state of medicine now is that you probably want to have that vaccine.\u201d<\/p>\n So when should a search engine act like an expert? When should it direct searchers as neutrally as possible to the Web pages that they\u2019re seeking? And to what degree should it consider the interests of people other than the person searching?<\/p>\n Here are some other hypothetical search terms:<\/p>\n As yet, I can\u2019t think of a single method I\u2019d want a search engine to apply to all of those search terms.<\/p>\n Can you?<\/p>\n Source:\u00a0theatlantic.com<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Search-engine architects must decide when their creations should act as a kind of expert and when they should neutrally direct people to what they are seeking. What is Google\u2019s responsibility to its searchers? In a Thursday panel at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Ashkan Soltani, the Federal Trade Commission\u2019s chief technologist, ...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":28738,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4548],"tags":[89],"class_list":["post-28737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology-en","tag-google"],"acf":false,"yoast_head":"\n\n