OH NO YOU DIDN’T # 6: COOP has a sci-fi moment! GOOGLE read his mind (and now he’s spooked)!
Google has just officially scared me. To understand this, you have to bear with me here…
Anyone who’s tried to watch Shane Carruth’s indie sci-fi thriller Primer (made for only $7000) probably had to do a lot of head scratching to figure it out.
Me? I flat out couldn’t follow it. The plot is too complex, the acting is too monotone for me to pay full attention and the time travel concept behind it is too cerebral even for me. It made me feel so thick-headed that I got frustrated with it and put it out of my mind.
Fast forward to today (actually, Thusday when I wrote this article) when it appeared again on the Independent Film Channel. I figured, “Hey, I’ve come along way since I last saw it. I really dug Timecrimes which had some similar ideas and plot points. I’ll give Primer another shot.”
I still didn’t get it. Don’t get me wrong, I understand a lot of it but there’s something I’m missing.
For those of you unfamiliar with Primer, here’s the plot as I understand it now…
Two wage donkey engineers in Texas get fed up with their Office Space-like jobs and develop a side project they hope will generate a million dollar invention so they can retire young. They inadvertently create a makeshift time machine that can send someone back in time 6 hours into the past. Figuring they can use it to manipulate the stock market, they start experimenting with the technology. Sounds simple enough, but one of them is an impostor from the future who has already figured out how to travel back further. He already knows what’s going to happen and has taken things too far, manipulating the early stages of the experiment for his own selfish goals.
And after that, it gets real complicated. I won’t even try to explain it.
What really FREAKED ME OUT is what happened when I used Google to try and find some sort of explanation of the movie so I wouldn’t feel like such an idiot.
So I typed in the phrase “explain the movie” and before I could finish, the predictive search engine dropped down a menu of options it thought I might be looking for…
#1 predicted option was Doubt (which is weird because who needs that explained?)
#2 predicted option was Knowing (which made sense because of the biblical turn in the end and it’s a recent movie)
#3 predicted option was Primer
How the hell did Google know I needed the movie Primer explained??? The movie is 5 years old and not really a current topic of discussion (cue the Twilight Zone music).
That’s when it hit me. In the future if machines take over, it won’t be a SkyNet defense system or an experimental robot that does it. It will be search engines because honestly, they are starting to get too good and helping me find what I’m looking for.
I never did find an explanation that fully explained Primer to my liking, but I’m hardly concerned about it now. Google apparently knows details about me that no one else in the world does.
Think about it.
How many times have you typed a search into Google relieved to know that no one was watching over your shoulder because the subject was either taboo or embarrassing or dare I say… illegal?
You know what I’m talkin’ about.
Google knows your secrets now. If it had any consciousness it could use your search history to blackmail you into doing its bidding (just like in Eagle Eye). And Google isn’t limited to just search engines. Oh no. Now it can analyze website traffic statistics, cloud compute your documents, manage your email, your blogs and so much more.
That’s just the current generation of Google. What will the next generation of search engines be capable of?
Wow, I’ve totally creeped myself out just by typing all of this. I’m not the paranoid type, but if it can predict that I need the film Primer explained to me… geez.
Go ahead, try it yourself. Think of a movie that you thought was confusing, start typing a command into Google similar to “explain the movie…” and see if the same thing happens to you.
Here’s a really slick trailer for Primer (3 out of 5 stars) just to get your mind off of it if Google happens to read your thoughts too…
-C
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Fear not. It suggested “explain the movie primer” for me too (on a separate computer than the one i read this page on) and i’ve never heard of it before. so google *isnt* tailoring the suggestion exactly to me. i guess primer is just a movie many people dont understand! or else the suggesting was tailored to you, and now everyone has read your post and is typing it in…
one tip – log out of your gmail account before doing “private” searches. google seems to associate your searches with your account. try typing in a search for your name while logged in and while not logged in. (its differrent both ways for me).
Thanks for the Google tip on private searches, Gautam. It’s NOT like I look up illegal or taboo stuff or anything, but it’s a good thing to know (wink, wink).