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Google Is Alive!

2011-06-13 · explainer · Hank · 4:00 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Science & nature (also: Philosophy & meaning) · mode: Explainer

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

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

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 · Navel-gazing

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
    • 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 · Twitter

    “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. — 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

  • ★★★ 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

00:03:55 — Sign-off and a GLaDOS clip

In the description and comments

  • ★★ 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. — video description · Google
  • ★★★ Hank says he values life tremendously: one bacterium on an otherwise lifeless world would be its most precious thing, but with trillions nearby he isn't concerned with their welfare, so being alive is no good test of value. — video description
  • ★★ After further research Hank says the school list (move, respire, sense and so on) is less a set of criteria than properties of life as we know it; he cares more about deciding what makes one thing alive and another not. — video description
  • ★★ Hank says his 'want' is loose, meaning reacting to surroundings to fulfil needs; he doesn't really think programs want, having instructions rather than needs, but asks how different that is from bacteria following their genes. (hedged) — video description
  • ★★★ Hank judges Schrödinger's criterion better than his own, since fire increases entropy and fails it, and Google meets it; but an autonomous toy factory would then count too, almost as alive as a virus. — video description · Google

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: Erwin Schrödinger · Google · life · value of life

Also: Works: *batteries not included · Part of Your World · Star Trek (franchise)

Organizations: Twitter

Concepts: Computer virus · Entropy · Schrödinger's cat · Second law of thermodynamics · Virus

Characters: Data (character, “Star Trek: The Next Generation”) · GLaDOS · Johnny 5

Products: Googlebot

Memes: Navel-gazing

Only in the description or credits: Bacteria · fire

Also centred on life: Thoughts From the Universe - Woah · Nourished by Leaving · Are Languages Alive? · I Had a Hallucination This Week · Moon Joy

Also centred on value of life: How Much is a Human Life Worth? · There is Only One Source of Value

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