Techonomy Conference Update

A ”Who’s Who” of leading technology innovators and thinkers have gathered in Lake Tahoe, Nevada for the inaugural Techonomy Conference.  Attendees include industry titans Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos and a host of leading academics and writers. Our colleagues Jerrold Spiegel and Michael Frankfurt are there too.  Thus far, the biggest news out of the conference relates to Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s comments about privacy, some of which appear to be causing a stir . 

Among Schmidt’s comments:

“If I look at enough of your messaging and your location, and use Artificial Intelligence,” Schmidt said, “we can predict where you are going to go.”

“Show us 14 photos of yourself and we can identify who you are. You think you don’t have 14 photos of yourself on the internet? You’ve got Facebook photos! People will find it’s very useful to have devices that remember what you want to do, because you forgot…. But society isn’t ready for questions that will be raised as result of user-generated content.”

“The only way to manage this is true transparency and no anonymity,” Schmidt said. “In a world of asynchronous threats, it is too dangerous for there not to be some way to identify you. We need a [verified] name service for people. Governments will demand it.”

The BBC reports that Schmidt was also “circumspect” on reports that Google and Verizon have made a deal  regarding net neutrality, simply saying that Google has “been talking to Verizon for a long time about trying to get an agreement on what the definition of net neutrality is.”