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> Someday, Google will know what I'm going to Google before I Google it.

> It's going to see a pattern of what I watch on TV, the websites I visit during the day, and on my phone, who I talk to, where I go, what I do, the kind of business I run, the products I buy, etc, etc.

> Or will this all be in front of my face as soon as I put on my Google Glasses?

This is the whole premise behind Google Now, which on its current incarnation is merely the tip of the iceberg.

May be in a decade they will launch Google You. Your virtual avatar modeled after you that does all your jobs for you including calling your friends and family('s avatars).

This is what "agents" are. They used to be the future. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_agent

Oh good, if they're busy playing Sims with our avatars, maybe they'll leave us alone and we can get along with the rest of our real lives :-P

Wired has already predicted that - Google Being. http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/05/on-google-island/

In Russia, Google search YOU!

Sorry, I had to.

Let's make this now.

Google already made it... but only the NSA has access to it.

>Someday, Google will know what I'm going to Google before I Google it.

You raise a good point that very few people understand. What information you receive determines, to a large extent, what you think. The relationship between inputs and thoughts is somewhat messy, especially for those people who can take apart ideas and put them back together in novel ways. However, people of below average intelligence, who only think in analogies to concepts they are familiar with, have behaviour and thought patterns that are very regular.

Perhaps there's a market for a serendipity app that occasionally suggests new experiences. "I see you're out shopping for Father's day -- how about taking a break for some rock climbing on your way?"

PS: Do you have a reference for people of below average intelligence thinking only in terms of analogies to familiar concepts? It seems plausible, but I'd be interested in any studies done.

I'd not put intelligence as the most important factor to predictability, the amount of shared "experiences" and similarity of context ("history") would be at the top of my list.

> Someday, Google will know what I'm going to Google before I Google it.

They will not if you use https://duckduckgo.com/ :)

  Someday, Google will know what I'm going to Google before I Google it.

I just can't imagine this being the case. I don't search about a subset of categorizable things, unless Random counts as a category. I'm sure neural networks could be used to pull some data out of what I search - but not enough for me to never search again. Not enough to satiate my curiosity.

> When I turn on my Google Android phone in the morning, the phone will be smart enough to know everything I check every morning. I'll see the weather forecast first, then my sales numbers, probably headlines on Reddit and HN.

I see this is scary. At the same time this is something we collectively want.

I think the problem here is not what predictive services based on our data are being offered. The problem here is that these services are being offered by a company that has much of our data. _Who_ is doing the computation is worrisome, not the computations themselves.

I would love to be able to do `apt-get install google` on my privately own server and get the same good services while keeping all my data under my roof.

> I think the problem here is not what predictive services based on our data are being offered. The problem here is that these services are being offered by a company that has much of our data.

Predictive services using your data wouldn't be much use if they weren't offered by someone with not only much of your data but also big honking scads of other data, including other people's interaction data, both to analyze to find general patterns for prediction, and to actually provide the information you need based on the predictions.

> I see this is scary. At the same time this is something we collectively want.

That's what early adopters want, but for the rest of us...

I don't know if our behavior can really be predicted on such a fine grained level.

Sure, you could generate a dashboard based on most viewed information. This wouldn't rocket science and could be done today.

OTOH, pulling up google maps a few days before fathers day? That could be for any number of purposes unless it knows that you always go shopping for gifts precisely 3 days beforehand.

> I don't know if our behavior can really be predicted on such a fine grained level.

There was a project in the MIT Media Lab something like a decade ago where they stuck about 100 graduate students with Bluetooth-enabled cellphones (this predates smartphones) and tracked many of their behaviors over the course of a semester. Things like phone calls, personal interactions, movements, etc.

A very interesting result from that study was that they built a model for predicting daily behaviors for their subjects with up to 79% accuracy [1]. The whole project was groundbreaking at the time, and they have some very interesting papers.

[1] http://realitycommons.media.mit.edu/pdfs/eigenbehaviors.pdf

Because of my Calendar and my todo lists, and my emails with friends and family, and my searches on Google, I do think that Google could know precisely what I may be trying to map as soon as I open my maps app on my phone :)

I just emailed Mom asking what Dad might want for Fathers day, and I told my wife I'm headed out sometime this week in a text on my phone, and I searched Google for products that took me to Amazon....

So, when I pull up my map one afternoon soon after these communications, I think it will know what I'm up to - or could at least show me a popup saying "Headed Father's day shopping? Want some locations based on your recent web activity?"

I say Yes, and all kinds of fun spots and deals popup.

Google Now does some of these things. Now provides me for directions almost everyday. It also lets me know what what movie times are relevant for me. I was recently in NYC, Now gave me relevant things to do while I was there. They were great suggestions. It blew me away.

But how does it know which trips will be father's day shopping and which will be for some other purpose? Assuming you use your car more than once that week.

The result it likely to just be constant annoying spam.

I really think that we are in a period of fundamental change regarding information. The norm has been that we find information, but increasingly information is finding us.

While I don't feel the technology is quite there yet, it's only a matter of time before recommendation/predictive systems reach a level where they are able to personalise everything that we interact with.

Judging by Amazon's ability to suggest relevant products to my taste those predictive analytics still feel very dull. Maybe one shiny day, but it seems like a long road aheady of us.

I find Amazon's best at reminding that I've got third-party cookies enabled.

E.g., I research the Hitler teapot† on Amazon. Then, suddenly, I'm seeing teapot ads everywhere.

†http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/illusion-chasers/2013/06...

I agree that amazon suggestions are not great, but Amazon have a fairly limited set of information to go by - only your previous purchase and search history on that site. If Amazon had the same amount of information that Google/Facebook has, they would be able to make much better recommendations.

As an aside, Amazon should really have an 'I already bought this somewhere else' button. 6 months after searching on Amazon for a watch but then buying it elsewhere, I'm still getting watch suggestions...

I know for music they have a button like that. I go through my recommended albums every so often looking for new deals and they have two buttons: 'I already own this' and 'Not interested', which means those items get hidden and it updates its recommendations.

It's actually pretty neat and I think its definitely made the recommendations more useful. I think it can be done for videos as well, but I guess they don't have it for general retail.