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Google Is Alive!

2011-06-14 · Hank · watch on YouTube · Science & nature · explainer learning

Lower-confidence wave

2011 videos did not pass the QA gate (17 %); their analysis is shown but less reliable.

Hank argues that the school checklist of life's traits is not a definition, proposes that life is whatever wants (needs something and tries to get it), adds Schrödinger's entropy definition, and cautiously concludes that Google is alive; he adds that nobody really values all life just for being alive.

What is said

00:00:00 — Do you know what life is? Dead vs alive is easy; viruses, computer viruses, Johnny 5, Batteries Not Included, GLaDOS; why a definition matters

  • ★★ Hank says telling dead from alive seems simple, but the hard question is whether a virus, or a computer virus, is ever alive, or robots like Johnny 5 and GLaDOS. — 00:00:14
  • ★★ Without a definition of life, Hank asks, how will we know when we have created something alive — and does it matter, or is it navel-gazing? — 00:00:27

00:00:41 — Twitter answers give the school checklist (move, respire, sense...): criteria, not a definition, and too restrictive for Data

  • ★★ Asking on Twitter, Hank mostly got the list of criteria apparently taught in schools: move, respire, sense, reproduce, excrete and nourish. (hedged) — 00:00:41 · Twitter
  • ★★ Hank says that list is a set of criteria, not a definition of life. — 00:00:49
  • ★★★ Hank finds the checklist too restrictive: Star Trek's Lieutenant Commander Data doesn't respire, grow or reproduce, yet is alive and even sentient. (hedged) — 00:00:54
    • number check: he doesn't reproduce — doubtful

00:01:06 — Hank's definition 'life wants'; why humans never stop wanting (a Little Mermaid riff)

  • ★★★ Hank's own definition is 'life wants': if thing X needs thing Y to keep existing and tries to get Y, X is alive. — 00:01:06 > «my personal definition--this is the one that I've come up with: life wants»
  • ★★ If wanting is the fundamental attribute of life, Hank thinks it goes a long way to explaining why humans never stop wanting. (hedged) — 00:01:16

00:01:39 — Problem: a program like Google's search bot also wants

  • ★★★ The problem with 'want' is that it is easy to program: Google's search bot wants to seek out information and send it back — does that make Google's software alive? — 00:01:39 · Google

00:01:52 — Schrödinger's definition: life decreases its own entropy using energy, against the second law of thermodynamics

  • ★★★ Hank's favourite definition is Schrödinger's, paraphrased: life is any system that continuously decreases its own entropy using energy around it. — 00:01:52
  • ★★ Hank explains entropy as a measurable physical quantity of disorganization; the second law of thermodynamics says it must increase, yet his body is extremely organized. — 00:01:56
  • ★ Hank finds it amazing that Schrödinger answered a fundamental philosophical question with an equation. — 00:02:42

00:02:51 — Google organizes itself with grid power: Hank ventures a cautious yes, Google is alive

  • ★★ In the description Hank clarifies he is not arguing Google should be treated as a sentient life form: if alive, it is alive the way a virus is, with unchanged ethical status. — 00:00:00 · Google
  • ★★★ By Schrödinger's definition too, Google qualifies: made by humans, it now organizes itself using power from the grid, so Hank ventures a cautious yes, Google is alive. (hedged) — 00:02:51 · Google > «is Google alive? I'm going to break some rules here and venture a cautious yes»

00:03:16 — Nobody really values all life: a hundred billion organisms in his unbrushed mouth have no value

  • ★★★ Hank says people who claim to value every individual living organism just for being alive don't really believe it. — 00:03:16
  • ★★ Having skipped brushing his teeth, Hank says about a hundred billion living organisms are in his mouth. (playful) — 00:03:23
  • ★★★ Those organisms have no value and Hank doesn't care if they die; he hopes viewers don't either, since they kill billions every day. (playful) — 00:03:35

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