tedster - 9:00 pm on Sep 5, 2009 (gmt 0)

Michael Arrington at TechCrunch published an interview with Google's CEO Eric Schmidt [techcrunch.com], under the sensational headline "Google CEO Eric Schmidt On The Future Of Search: Connect It Straight To Your Brain."

Long-term Borg ideation aside, the interview also contained Schmidt's comment about where he sees Google in ten years.

So I don't know how to characterize the next 10 years except to say that we'll get to the point - the long-term goal is to be able to give you one answer, which is exactly the right answer over time.

I am struck nearly dumb by that statement. The absurdity of thinking that there can even BE "the right answer" just jumped out at me. Has he been living with data so long that he lost touch with the real human world?

Organize the world's information? Maybe a bit grandiose, but an OK mission statement. Give us a tool to explore the world's information? That's more what I want from Google.

But tell us "the right answer" for any query? I shudder at the Orwellian vision. I am not having any of that, thank you very much.

I can only hope that he misspoke or his remarks were poorly reported.