Friday, December 24, 2021

Google - The AI Indifference Engine!

I've had some ill dealings with Google in the past few years, and on the whole they're okay... but what really grates my carrot about them is their penchant for hysteria and control-freakiness. 

What am I talking about? Is it their monopoly of our information? Their near-total control over what we see in internet searches? Well, yes, but that's not the focus of today's rant. Again - what am I talking about?

Let's take a look at two examples, shall we?

Earlier this year I registered a business profile with Google in order to open a shop page to market my books on Google and make use of all the beneficial exposure this would provide. Easy because it's online? Er... no.

First off, they display a hysterical, paranoid need to verify everything. In spite of this almost stereotypical modern American trait of being paranoid about people in other countries sending them bombs or demons via the internet, they did not provide any digital means to conduct said verification, like sending a one time pin to my registered phone number. No. Instead they sent me a fucking post card! What is this, the 20th century? 

I suppose if South Africa had a properly functioning - well, ANYTHING, that might have worked out okay - but it took something like 6 months to arrive in my mail box! When I tried to enter the pin number, guess what? The one month waiting period had already elapsed and the pin had expired! Google in their divine foresight did provide a nice button labeled "resend"... and still no digital alternative methods to verify that I am in fact who I claim to be. Er... no thanks. You can stuff it. That's right... where the sun don't shine. Wankers.

Not only did that entire process completely and hopelessly fail, but almighty Google didn't even have the decency to respond to my resulting email of complaint. To date they still don't offer any pin verification alternatives to sending a bloody post-card halfway round the world on the never-never system. Clearly they just don't give a toss about the inconvenience caused, and might as well be sending it via carrier pigeon from the year 1922.

There is no English way to put this, so I will say it in Afrikaans: "Kan jy vlieg, Google? Wel gaan kruip in jou moer in!"

Moving on to my second example, while updating the book lists for another business on Google (hosted by a friend), Google randomly blocks certain books from being posted. This appears to be related to keyword algorithms scanning book descriptions. I can mention two examples: the book description for a sci-fi novel, "Black Sunrise" by me: "...as the bombs fell on Atro City..." and drama "The Darkness Within Me" by Anya Louw, which repeats the phrase "...dealing with her inner demons..." twice. 

I had to omit the sentence in the first example, and in the second I had to post that book without any description at all, just to get it to show on the Google shop page! Try as I might, nothing could persuade Google's goose-stepping, brain-dead AI to accept "The Boy Who Doesn't Exist" -  a teen romance by Erin Moberly - with or without description. Who the hell would possibly find ANY of this "offensive"? Nobody with more than two brain cells - which clearly excludes Google's domineering and untouchable AI which occupies the position of judge, jury and executioner. Not to mention the fact that Google doesn't even offer a "please let me speak to an actual human being" option.

It's funny how Americans lose their minds whenever the idea of censorship is brought up, but for some weird reason, we're not allowed to use the word "bomb" or "demons" in perfectly innocuous contexts! In addition, their attached "report" offers no tangible explanation of what the actual niggle is that they're failing the posting for - leaving me scratching my head - but it obviously wasn't the cover images that triggered their well-deserved anal cramps. Their so-called one-size fits all "explanations" are vague, mysterious and clear as mud. Google however, in its divine magnanimity, does deign to offer an appeal process in case you dare to disagree with their presumably flawless AI-run vetting department. Trouble is, they don't take the trouble to provide any buttons or links to take you to anything related to lodging an appeal, not even after following their instruction to re-log in using my business account. Typical.

It is just me who thinks that a company that bills itself as an impartial, multinational corporation guarding user privacy and catering to the needs of its clients - and expects to be taken seriously - ought to at least give a shit when people are unhappy?

Instead they've proven themselves to be remarkably indifferent, apparently leaving absolutely everything to an incompetent yet all-powerful AI wall that prevents its users from usurping its "decisions". 

I scratch my head in wonderment at people who actually WANT more of these machines running things! Imagine the mess that would be - a world run by untouchable, elevated machines unencumbered by humanity, unaccountable for their own actions, mistakes, assumptions or failures. What absolute morons! 

Oddly enough, for all Google's tight-ass anal retentive arm-waving hysterics and thought policing, Google still seems to have missed my wife's poetry book description which light-heartedly includes the word "suicide". Whoops. I find a little dark satisfaction in that.

All material copyright © Christina Engela, 2021.

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