While the world continues to change every day due to technological influences, and sometimes for the worse, Google CEO Eric Schmidt remains an optimist, sure that tech is all for the best.

In a world where technology can be used for good or evil, on one side of the coin for making the world smaller and on the other side for a terrorist attack, most people have mixed feelings about the benefits of technology. Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, falls squarely on the side of technology as a positive thing, according to a CNET article. He admits that some of the ramifications can be negative, of course, but feels that much of the progress in the world today comes from technological advances.

Speaking at The Atlantic’s First Draft of History Conference Friday in Washington, D.C., Schmidt said “If you live in a little group of terrorists, you can decide that the whole world agrees with you. (But) the same is also true of optimists and people who want to change the world.” He believes that it may be true that such technological change can be used as a weapon against the world’s citizens, we need to remember that the combination of access to knowledge and cheap powerful computers can also result in positive changes in our society.

During a 30-minute  interview with James Fallows of  The Atlantic, Schmidt touched on a variety of topics, including:

• Governments could improve their ability to make “gray-zone decisions” by opening up information and debate to a wider circle of voices, Schmidt said. It’s so easy in the current world to create “disinformation” that the best way to tackle a complex subject is to have a wide circle of people discussing the possible effects of a decision as to minimize the impact of that disinformation.
• The print-based news industry is doomed, Schmidt said, but the silver lining is that an emerging Internet-based news industry could have a bright future because of its ability to sell “products that are highly targetable, and products that are highly targetable are highly advertisable.”
• “I start everyday by assuming that people don’t appreciate how fundamental the Internet is,” Schmidt said, when asked about his and Google’s efforts to support investment in broadband Internet connections, which is currently being debated in Washington. Fast Internet connections should be a national priority but complicating the matter is the fact that opening up fast connection to the home will negatively impact a lot of existing businesses, such as the cable industry.
• Schmidt expressed his hope that the settlement in the Google Books case is approved, but the settlement he referred to will likely be different from the one that will emerge as the parties involved revise the terms of that deal ahead of a status conference next week with a federal judge in New York.

Though it may seem commonplace that a relative giant in the tech industry should be absolutely pro-technology, that is not always the case. Many tech executives have strong reservations about the impact that technology is having on the society that we live in. It remains to be seen if Schmidt is wearing rose-colored glasses and if there is a bigger downside to tech than he thinks.

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Entry was posted on Saturday, October 3rd, 2009 at 9:02 pm under Google, Technology.

Read more entries by Michael W. Jones.
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