Google's one-way mirror: a business model for privacy invasion by Daniël Verhoeven

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Author: Daniël Verhoeven

About the importance of Mirror neurons, also in CMC intention counts

Mirror Neurons were discovered in 1994 in the macaque brain by Gallese and Rizzolatti. What do Mirror Neurons do? They mirror observed actions:

"The observation of an object-related hand action leads to the activation of the same neural network active during its actual execution. Action observation causes in the observer the automatic activation of the same neural mechanism triggered by action execution." (Gallese, 2005).

In the years that follow, Gallese and others (also called the Parma Group because they all work at the university of Parma in Italy) explore the Mirror Neuron system. The Mirror Neuron system is also demonstrated in the human brain.What is special about this is that the neural system for action execution is triggered but the execution of the action is inhibited. It's not mere a system that is mirroring action it also performs simulations. When a given action is planned, its expected motor consequences are forecast. This means that when we are going to execute a given action we can also predict its consequences. The action model enables this prediction. Since the Mirror Neurons uses the same neuronal circuits this mechanism allows us also to predict actions of others.

"The same functional logic that presides over self-modelling is employed also to model the behaviour of others: to perceive an action is equivalent to internally simulating it. This enables the observer to use her/his own resources to experientially penetrate the world of the other by means of a direct, automatic, and unconscious process of simulation." (Gallese, 2005)

This 'process of simulation' of the action of others takes place regardless of the fact we are in direct communication with them. In a way our brain is communicating with the persons we observe before we even exchanged a word.

Iacobini compared the action of Mirror Neurons when observing intentional and not intentional behaviour. He concluded that the reaction pattern of the Mirror Neurons is different when the actions observed were intentional. Mirror Neurons are only activated when the action is meaningful to the observer, the system cannot be deceived:

"-areas active during the execution and the observation of an action-previously thought to be involved only in action recognition are actually also involved in understanding the intentions of others. To ascribe an intention is to infer a forthcoming new goal, and this is an operation that the motor system does automatically." (Iocobioni, 2005)

The system of Mirror Neurons also works with emotions as to Gallese:

"We recently published an fMRI study showing that experiencing disgust and witnessing the same emotion expressed by the facial mimicry of someone else, both activate the same neural structure - the anterior insula - at the same overlapping location (Wicker et al. 2003). This suggests, at least for the emotion of disgust, that the first- and third-person experiences of a given emotion are underpinned by the activity of a shared neural substrate." (Gallese, 2004)

These results provide a neurological basis for pragmatic linguistics, saying that we understand each other in grasping the intentions of our collocutor. This is not to say that Mirror Neurons are the only mechanism through which we understand the intentions of others, analysis of the perceived action and connecting it to the context and some theory we have in mind play a role as well (Rizzolatti and Craigheiro, 2005, p. 108-109).

Extract form Gallese's "Mirror neurons and the social nature of language: The neural exploitation hypothesis"The MNS has been invoked to explain many different aspects of social cognition, like imitation (see Rizzolatti et al., 2001), action and intention understanding (see Rizzolatti, Fogassi, & Gallese,2006), mind reading (see Gallese, 2007; Gallese & Goldman, 1998), empathy (see de Vignemont & Singer, 2006; Gallese, 2003a,b; Sommerville & Decety, 2006) and its relatedness to aesthetic experience (see Freedberg & Gallese, in press), and language (see Arbib, 2005; Gallese & Lakoff, 2005; Rizzolatti & Arbib, 1998). The posited importance of the discovery of mirror neurons for a better understanding of social cognition,together with a sort of mediatic overexposure and trivialization, have stirred resistance, criticism and even a sense of irritation in some quarters of the cognitive sciences.I think a clarification is in order. The relevance of the MNS in so many different aspects of social cognition does not stem from a specific endowment of these neural cells, as if mirror neurons were ''magical neurons,'' so to speak. Mirror neurons derive their property from the specific input[1]output onnections they entertain with other populations of neurons in the brain.The MNS is involved in so many aspects of social cognition because the activation of the multiple and parallel cortico-cortical circuits instantiating mirror properties underpins a fundamental aspect of social cognition, that is, the multilevel connectedness among individuals within a social group. Such onnectedness finds its phylogenetic and ontogenetic roots in the social sharing of situated experiences of action and affect. The MNS provides the neural basis of such sharing. Embodied simulation and the MNS certainly cannot provide a full and thorough account of our sophisticated social cognitiveskills. However, I believe that the evidence presented here indicates that embodied mechanisms involving the activation of the motor system, of which the MNS is part, do play a major role in social cognition, language included. A second merit of this hypothesis is that it enables the grounding of social cognition into the experiential domain of existence, so heavily dependent on action (Gallese, 2007; Gallese et al., 2004). To imbue words with meaning requires a fusion between the articulated sound of words and the shared meaning of the experience of action. Embodied simulation does exactly that.Furthermore, and most importantly, the neural exploitation hypothesis holds that embodied simulation and the MNS provide the means to share communicative intentions and meaning, thus granting the parity requirements of social communication. By attributing to action the crucial role it plays in experientially grounding the meanings we share with others, the neural exploitation hypothesis stresses that the multi-level comparative study of the premotor system of primate brains is a necessary starting point for a better understanding of social cognition, and, more generally, for a better understanding of who we are.

Rizzolatti and Craigheiro also wondered if mirror neurons are also the basis for altruism.

"Can we deduce from this that the mirror mechanism is the mechanism from which altruistic behavior evolved? This is obviously a very hard question to answer. Yet, it is very plausible that the mirror mechanism played a fundamental role in the evolution of altruism. The mirror mechanism transforms what others do and feel in the observer's own experience. The disappearance of unhappiness in others means the disappearance of unhappiness in us and, conversely, the observation of happiness in others provides a similar feeling in ourselves. Thus, acting to render others happy - an altruistic behavior - is transformed into an egoistic behavior - we are happy." (Rizzolatti and Craigheiro, 2005, p. 116-120)

Our brains appear to have developed a basic functional mechanism, called 'embodied simulation' by Gallese, which gives us an experiential insight of other minds. The hypothesis of the 'embodied mind' has gained more and more proof in recent neurological research.

This let's us also tune up with others, this is what we call empathy. The theory (well let's not forget it is based on a mass of empirical research) of Mirror Neurons states that we are continually in a process of mirroring the behaviour of the people we live with and deduct from these neuronal mirror actions the intentions of the others. The system of Mirror Neurons thus has a double functionality: It let's us grasp the intentions of our collocutor and it creates empathy for him.



Research uncovered the role of mirror neurons in action understanding and imitation, intention understanding, emotions and empathy, and language evolution. Giacomo Rizzolatti and Maddalena Fabbri Destro explain the role of mirror neurons in language evolution:

"The discovery of mirror neurons provided strong support for the gestural theory of speech origin. Mirror neurons create a direct link between the sender of a message and its receiver (Rizzolatti and Arbib, 1998). Thanks to the mirror mechanism, actions done by one individual become messages that are understood by an observer without any cognitive mediation. The observation of an individual grasping an apple is immediately understood because it evokes the same motor representation in the parieto-frontal mirror system of the observer.On the basis of this fundamental property of mirror neurons and the fact that the observation of actions like hand grasping activates the caudal part of IFG (Broca's area), Rizzolatti and Arbib (1998) proposed that the mirror mechanism is the basic mechanism from which language evolved. In fact, the mirror mechanism solved, at a initial stage of language evolution, two fundamental communication problems: parity and direct comprehension. Thanks to the mirror neurons, what counted for the sender of the message also counted for the receiver. No arbitrary symbols were required. The comprehension was inherent in the neural organization of the two individuals." .

"It is obvious that the mirror mechanism does not explain by itself the enormous complexity of speech. Yet, it solves one of the fundamental difficulties for understanding language evolution, that is, how what is valid for the sender of a message become valid also for the receiver. Hypotheses and speculations on the various steps that have led from monkey mirror system to language have been recently advanced (Arbib, 2005) "(Giacomo Rizzolatti and Maddalena Fabbri Destro (2008), Scholarpedia, 3(1):2055).

See  also for a  review of the role of mirror neurons the article of Giacomo Rizzolatti and Maddalena Fabbri Destro in the Scholarpedia.

More neurological research points in the direction of the intentional and social grounding of our communication skills. The work of Tania Singer and Ernst Fehr in Zurich linking neurological research on empathy to micro-economics (altruistic punishment) was one of the first to give a push to several interdisciplinary studies where neurology is used to shed light on human communication and exchange. Neuro-economics and Neuro-sociology are research fields that are developing fast today. Mirror neurons are one of the basic systems for the human communication. They are also involved in Computer Mediated Communication, you cannot switch them off. Or as communication theorist Watzlawick did put it: "You cannot not communicate."

Google's one-way mirror

Google is a one-way mirror, meaning you cannot look back. Besides Google is still a lousy search engine.   Vint Cerf, Googles evangelist even admits that Google is rather a big shovel:

"Look search today is messy. Think about one of those big construction shovels, you know, like a tractor with a big shovel on the front. And you have to operate it by pulling and pushing a series of levers. It's big and imprecise. Using a search engine today feels like trying to move one of these Earth-moving shovels." (Interview with Vint Cerf of Google, 13 August 2008, Siva Vaidhyanathan)

But it is for all a money shovel:

"The real brilliance of Google is the ability to monetize search through AdSense. This company uncovered the relationship between advertising and information. The old way of advertising had no direct interaction with the audience. But now the audience can click." (same interview)

The primary view of Google is behaviourist and system centred. The following oracle of Vincent Cerf's is clear:

"There are things that computers can do that six billion humans can't do. Computers have the scale capacity to discover and analyze things," (same interview)

This a quite humiliating claim for human kind in my opinion. Recently bionics made important progress by realising a bionic eye. But we must also consider the relativity of this realisation. Our retina contains 126 million sensitive cells, the bionic interface consisted out of only 60 electrodes. One estimate puts the human brain at about 100 billion (10^11) neurons and 100 trillion (10^14) synapses. Each neuron can be considered as a small biological computer on its own.  Google's cloud computers is compared with the human brain merely a fart.

Google is expanding because that's the only way to stay on top since it misses evolutionary constraints. It will only reproduce its own model. Google's chief evangelist Vincent Cerf is looking for answers in the InterPlaNetary Internet. I'm afraid he isn't going to find them. Google will expand until it bursts.

Google's search system is a black box, all we know about it are the published patents, but the search algorithms used aren't part of them.

Wiki Search acknowledges the demand for openness as you can read on the about Page:

"For hundreds of years, the most respected institutions have treated transparency as a requirement. Those who, of their own accord, promise openness find that with this pledge comes credibility, as, in the words of the late Justice Louis Brandeis of the United States Supreme Court, "Sunlight is the best disinfectant." Indeed, those who avoid the light of scrutiny and instead opt for obfuscation are often assumed to be hiding something, and for good reason."

David Koepsell pleads for a new paradigm in scientific research based on the Wiki model:

"In idealized science, the search for the laws of nature and explanations of phenomena is collaborative and ongoing, and does not become fixed in a final text, but is always subject to revision and refinement in the face of new evidence. The wiki model is the natural extension of the initial model of science employed in the early salons and meetings of the first scientific societies, before publishing overtook the processes employed by natural philosophers as the be-all and end-all of science itself." (David Koepsell, Back to Basics: How Technology and the Open Source Movement Can Save Science)

Also Tim Bernbers-Lee (unplugged)  stressed the need for open WEB standards and its use in data queries as you can see in this video of 2007 and his view in "Up to Design Issues".

A business model for Privacy Invasion

I have no clue what techniques Google is  using for its contextual ads, I guess one is latent semantic analysis. My experience before was that Google adapts its answers based on my previous search behaviour. Google stores that information and is quite hypocrite about it. After several protests Google promised to delete this logged information after 9 months, but it only anonymizes IP addresses on its server logs. Google recently confirmed my suspicion when launching a detailed behavorial add program.

"The most privacy protective solution would be to have behavioral targeting systems be based on the user's opt-in. To no one's surprise, Google has not gone down that road ("'Offering advertising on an opt-in basis goes against the economic model of the Internet,' Google spokesperson Christine Chen told the IDG News Service"), and we are not aware of any major player in online advertising that has an opt-in targeting system. Google has, however, done some things that make opt-out quite a bit better." (EFF)

Google defines and  re-shapes the economic model of Internet[1]. What's more, Google's contextual voyeurism entails a privacy invading culture snooping and spying the Net  while we tend to consider the Net as an information source. Google contextual ads business model has many followers. See for some recent examples:  Deep Packet Inspection, Advance Interactive Media using questionnaire as a manipulating marketing technique and  video screens with built in tracking systems.

'Contextual advertising' is typical Orwellian newspeak. Why not call it what it is: "unsolicited advertising" like "unsolicited mail": SPAM. At the same time it is a huge privacy invading system. Everybody that is questioning this should read Greg Conti's  "Googling Security: book that opens your eyes to how much you disclose to Google"

As pod casters, broadcasters, bloggers, site builders, in one word: content providers we leave our traces on the Net. While the Net is a huge space to seek an audience, big players, telecom providers and service providers,  want to use the Net primarily to make money, annihilating human presence, turning and degrading communication into bits and bytes, into usable code for profit making. Google's net neutrality is circumstantial as we showed in a previous article.  A free meal is never entirely free. Most people are not aware of that evidence. This is the shadow side of Web 2.0. See also In Your Face: Recession and The Rise of the Anti-Social Web, about the risk that service providers like Google and Facebook will try to make profit with usercontent when they run into financial problems, something that is rather likely to happen today.

We should become aware of the reshaping of our communication practices using the Net. Why not make part of its infrastructure public or social owned. After all, Internet (DARPA TCP/IP) and the Web (HTML of Tim Berners-Lee at CERN) was developed in the public domain. If not, there would be no Internet, no Web, I'm afraid. Google is using our data, why do we  have nothing to say about the way it does? Because Christine Chen said so? Because Google wants it this way? One of the reasons is simple: a lot of content-providers do not understand Google's trap. They participate in the page-ranking competition and join the page-ranking manipulation business. This allows Google to say that keywords aren't relevant any longer when describing documents.

"Next we have two name values: keywords, which these days is mostly useless, ironically, and description, which is still somewhat useful." (Google Code Home, Metadata, http://code.google.com/intl/nl/webstats/2005-12/metadata.html)

But after all, what could you expect when Google started a business based on a random surfing, pageranking mechanism and contextual advertising? Google itself is at the core of pagerenking manipulation business. It does not only organise an auction of webcontent (see Tony Curzon Price) it also organises an auction on keywords. Google has come under fire for allowing AdWords advertisers to bid on trademarked keywords. In 2004, Google started allowing advertisers to bid on a wide variety of search terms in the US and Canada, including the trademarks of their competitors. See Stefanie Olsen, Google plans trademark gambit, .CNET. http://news.com.com/2100-1038-5190324.html.

Danny Sullivan,  widely considered a leading "search engine guru",  proposed that Google should open it's search index for researchers and for its compettitors to research, because since Google has he largest search index it has an advantage his competitors cannot coop with. But Google won't do that. On Google's closeness he remarks in "Google: As Open As It Wants To Be (i.e. When It's Convenient)";"

"There's probably no deeper example of Google being closed than when it comes to book search. Google's efforts to scan books are well known at this point. But Google keeps coming under fire for agreements said to restrict those scans for being used by its competitors.

(...)

To be fair, Microsoft has also added similar restrictions. But if Google's on an "open" kick, why not join the Open Content Alliance?"

(...)

AdSense isn't an "open" marketplace where publishers set prices and see how much advertisers are willing to pay, with Google taking a known and set percentage. Google will take whatever it wants, and publishers are left guessing. So much for open.

Google has been criticised for selling keywords of its competitors but another issue is also coming up: Google's quasi monopoly in online advertising. The mainstream press, such as The New York Times, has noticed that even Google itself is starting to worry about the possibility that the Department of Justice of the US may seek regulation, possibly even the break-up of Google. Eric Clemens is Professor of Operations and Information Management at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He sketches what an anti-trust case against Google might look like:

• "·Even with the appearance of competition from other search engines such as Yahoo and Microsoft in the market for sponsored search, Google enjoys monopoly power over corporations that participate in its keyword auctions. This monopoly power is especially great when Google deals with corporations whose operations are largely fixed cost, such as hotels and airlines.


• Google is abusing its monopoly position by overcharging corporations for access to consumers. These charges are passed along to consumers and ultimately result in consumer harm.


• Google is likewise abusing its monopoly position, deterring market entry in areas that would benefit consumers and damaging potential entrants.Any one of these would justify regulatory intervention. The second and possibly the third would also justify some form of financial compensation to those who could demonstrate that they had been damaged by Google."

And of course Google's privacy policy has been under attack many times. Recently the Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a 15-page complaint asking the FTC to force Google to stop offering online services that collect data until the presence of adequate privacy safeguards is verified. The FTC is de Federal Trade Commission in the US. The EPIC complaint [PDF] also listed other security flaws in Gmail and Google Desktop, a desktop indexing program, and urged Google to donate $5 million to a public fund that will support research into technologies such as encryption, data anonymization and mobile location privacy. (see EPIC Urges FTC To Investigate Google Services)



References:

Arbib M.A. 2005a From monkey-like action recognition to human language: an evolutionary framework for neurolinguistics. The Behavioral and brain sciences. 2:105-24

Arbib, Michael,  2005b, "The Mirror System Hypothesis. Linking Language to Theory of Mind", published on Interdisciplines, http://www.interdisciplines.org/coevolution/papers/11

Gallese, Vittorio, 2004, Intentional Attunement. The Mirror Neuron system and its role in interpersonal relations, paper published at 'Interdisciplines', consulted online on 15/03/2008 at http://www.interdisciplines.org/mirror/papers/1

Gallese, Vittorio, 2007, "Mirror neurons and the social nature of language: The neural exploitation hypothesis",University of Parma, Parma, Italy, consultedd online on 15/03/2007 at http://www.unipr.it/arpa/mirror/pubs/pdffiles/Social_neuroscience_2008.pdf

Rizzolatti G, Arbib MA. 1998. Language within our grasp. Trends Neurosci. 21:188-94

Rizzolatti,Giacomo, Craighero, Laila, 2005, Mirror neuron: a neurological approach to empathy, Neurobiology of Human Values, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005, online  http://www.robotcub.org/misc/review2/06_Rizzolatti_Craighero.pdf

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[1] After pressure of the Electrtonic Frontier Foundation, Google has delivered an opt-out option for the behavioural ad system.

Additional Electronic Resources

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Broken Mirrors, A Theory Of Autism

Neuroeconomics of Mind Reading and Empathy

Psychologists shed light on origins of morality

Nikolas Rose, Neurosociology, and Neurochemical Selves

What Is The Value of Neuroscience?

Privacy

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A Race to the Bottom - Privacy Ranking of Internet Service Companies

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Les "Déchets Infoactifs" : Avec Le Développement Des Réseaux Sociaux (FR)


La Vie Privée S'expose À La Surveillance (FR)

Facebook, Le Meilleur Ami Du Détective Privé (FR)

Vos Traces Internet Valent De L'or (FR)

Peut-On Tout Confier À Google ? (FR)

Das Google-Imperium (DE)

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