Comment by pen2l | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pen2l | Hacker News Reader

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You bring up a good point, this is actually really bad. It's bad because the kind of position Google is in, because of its brand power, because of its authority in the modern world. They cannot joke around like this at this point. They need to take this down.

> And this is what brings fake information into the world.

Others are saying "you don't have a sense of humor" -- wrong response. I remember when I was younger my older brother explaining to me and my dad how Google works... by some pigeons sitting in a large building behind keywords because they're quick and have great vision. Yeah he bought the prank. I'm surprised he believed it, because he was pretty bright (did math + EE double major in 2 and a half years, now a manager at a large successful tech company). But this happens, all of us have blind spots, jokes like these hit us in bad ways. Even really smart folks can be had. This is like the stupidest and most contemptible kind of humor really.

And the world you paint, where excessive care must be taken to avoid even the slightest possibility of confusion, is deeply dull and boring. It's the same attitude that's led to such widespread bland corporatism.

You should be skeptical of everything Google tells you, like every other organisation. If anything, this should be a pointed reminder of that fact.

> You should be skeptical of everything Google tells you, like every other organisation. If anything, this should be a pointed reminder of that fact.

Okay so you're driving to your parent's house and open up Google Maps for directions, are you going to start doubting its directions?

There is a difference between a joke being made by a person or a small company vs. implanting fake information in a source (Google Maps) which is taken prima facie by almost everyone in this day and age to be true and accurate.

Since you're on this site, I will assume for now (for sake of explaining my point) that you have a lot of knowledge on tech related stuff but perhaps have a blind spot in your medical knowledge. Suppose you have some illness and you go to research it at a popular and well-reputed site which claims to have information about medical illnesses. The site in the middle of nowhere has a joke about some random fact about the human body that someone without a medical science background could easily spot but you couldn't. You see now how this could suddenly fuck up your understanding of things and propagate down in your knowledgebase to then start affecting your decision framework? I'm tired and my example is a little far-fetched but I think you get the point I'm trying to make. Google can joke around come april time, but this kind of bull shit in "google maps" is not acceptable. My niece could easily take from this that human beings have the technology to pull off something like this in the way google is showing and make wild and inaccurate extrapolations that will confuse her.

Okay so you're driving to your parent's house and open up Google Maps for directions, are you going to start doubting its directions?

If it says something totally ridiculous, of course! The existence of services that provide information is not an excuse to ignore individual logic and reasoning.

You see now how this could suddenly fuck up your understanding of things and propagate down in your knowledgebase to then start affecting your decision framework?

If I Googled for my symptoms, and came across a page that said I have "Googleitis", and all of the information around that was about "Google's April Fool's Day Googleitis Prank" then I'm not sure it would.

My niece could easily take from this that human beings have the technology to pull off something like this in the way google is showing and make wild and inaccurate extrapolations that will confuse her.

Information is messy, people are fallible, confusion isn't harmful.

> Okay so you're driving to your parent's house and open up Google Maps for directions, are you going to start doubting its directions?

If it tells you to drive into a lake, yes, you should doubt it.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/woman-follo...

That article seems to be very carefully worded to imply that the navigation system was involved in the accident, without coming out and saying so.

> A woman following her car's sat nav on a foggy night took a wrong turn and ended up driving into a lake. [...] she lost her way and drove down a steep boat launch into Lake Huron. [...] Local police said the way the harbour’s boat launch is built means a wrong turn taken on a rainy night would come as a shock.

That is to say, when she drove into the lake it seems to have been because she wasn't following the directions, and this, combined with the fog and a confusing design for the boat launch, caused her to not realize that she wasn't on a regular road (albeit the wrong one) until it disappeared out from under her.

The article then concludes with some statistics about GPS causing distracted driving, without either connecting them back to the news item at hand or comparing them to distracted driving caused by non-electronic navigation.

Reminds me of this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/06/15/seven...

Google maps for a time suggested you swim across the Atlantic ocean if you requested walking directions from NYC to Europe, this is clearly ridiculous and a good example. While usually providing useful information you still have to think and use some common sense. Another good example is that google might be providing what it thinks is correct information but might be out of date, for example there are people who pay attention to the nav and drive across bridges that have been washed out because they didn't pay attention to the physical signs. Trusting google is not a replacement for common sense and logical thinking.

I think this is mostly harmless.

To use your medicine example, it'd be more like looking up a webMD article for the common cold and seeing one about the common cold in martians. Don't we as readers and observers to think critically about what's presented to us? This reminds me of people who take outlandish and impossible Onion article headlines, don't bother reading the story, and then share it with shock and indignation on social media.

Also, in the example of your niece, this would serve as a good learning point for her then. If someone is confused by this, I'd say it's harmless confusion and it's something that's safe to be confused about.

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