For its part, Google does not claim to be divine (at least not obviously). According to its website, Google's mission is: "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful". Obviously, such a task will never be complete, but Google has made significant progress toward accomplishing that goal. Perhaps the only "company" who can rival Google's efforts is Wikipedia. But what would happen if Google did complete its mission and made every single bit (and byte, page, word, idea, thought, picture, etc.) of the world's information quickly and easily accessible to anyone within the next ten years? I believe the world would be a different (and not necessarily better) place.
One current example that is likely to continue is how the easy access of simple information is likely to change education. The presence of Wikipedia and Google, two websites that provide a plethora of well-organized information, has led to new distinctions in information: information that can be obtained quicker from memory and knowledge that can be found faster online. Interestingly, such division are based on the increased value of time expressed in one of Google's "Ten Things" as "Fast is better than slow".
Such externalizing of information is not surprising considering the phenomenal increase in knowledge humanity has achieved in the modern era. Yet, the consequences of a well-organized "collective intelligence" have yet to be realized. With the creation of writing, humanity was able to build off the discoveries of others. This is the basis for our current education system: certain information is required to productively function in society and that information is what schools exist to impart on anyone who desires to know. (The efficiency and efficacy with which this information is passed is debatable, but the transfer of knowledge from one generation to the next seems to be the core reason education as we know it exists.)
Yet, if the trend towards a separation of information based on efficiency of retrieval (memory vs. megabytes) continues into the future, the very purpose of education is likely to change. Education will still need to provide a certain knowledge base (of some size which many will likely argue about), but it will also need to equip students with the tool necessary to survive a world of information overload. Accurate evaluation of the relevance, authority, and authenticity of information will be even more important in ten years than it is today. Such critical thinking skills are what will help people succeed, even just survive, in both the work world and society as a whole.
In the end, Google's philosophy combined with the spread of the internet is sure to continue changing society in new and unexpected ways. Changing the nature of knowledge and education is only one part of Google transformative force. From the aggressive openness and transparency seen in Google's Android phone and Google Voice service to the unexpected new services Google and the internet as a whole is likely to provide, the world will never be the same. If nothing else, the mindset of freely accessible services and information (almost communist in nature) that the internet embodies and Google provides will affect humanity's worldview into the foreseeable future.
(Longer Essay #2)
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