by Gervais takes on tech giants and their failure to understand humor
RICKY GERVAIS – LIVE AT THE APOLLO
Right, so Google. Google Readers. Have you seen this? Google’s built this entire algorithm to understand EVERYTHING – your searches, your emails, what you had for breakfast – but they can’t figure out satire.
I mean, genuinely. You write a piece going ‘Government Announces Plan to Make Everyone Eat Soil for Breakfast’ and Google’s algorithm goes, ‘Ah yes, nutritional advice. Very helpful. Five stars.’
And then actual people – HUMANS – read it and go, ‘Wait, is this real?’ YES, KAREN, THE GOVERNMENT IS MAKING YOU EAT SOIL. THEY’VE GOT NOTHING BETTER TO DO.
The thing that kills me is these tech bros sitting in Silicon Valley going, ‘We’ve created artificial intelligence! We’ve solved language!’ And then someone writes ‘Prince Andrew Declares Himself ‘Too Sweaty to Be Guilty” and the AI’s like, ‘This appears to be a medical breakthrough in dermatology.’
No! It’s a JOKE! About a PRINCE! Who claims he CAN’T SWEAT!
And don’t get me started on the fact checking. Google will fact-check whether Elvis is alive – he’s not, by the way, saved you a click – but they’ll let through an article titled ‘Boris Johnson Solves Climate Change by Turning Britain Into Giant Wind Turbine’ with a little green tick going ‘Verified Information.’
I did an experiment. I wrote the most ridiculous thing I could think of: ‘Britain Faces National Emergency as Everyone Realizes They’ve Been Wearing the Wrong Shoes.’ Google promoted it. PROMOTED IT. Put it in ‘News You Can Use.’
And you know why? Because Google – for all its billions of dollars and thousands of PhDs – doesn’t understand sarcasm. It’s like trying to explain irony to a very expensive calculator. The calculator goes, ‘But the numbers don’t add up!’ THAT’S THE POINT, MATE. THAT’S WHY IT’S FUNNY.
They’ve got these content moderators – probably some poor sod in Manila on two quid an hour – and they’re looking at satirical articles going, ‘Is this real? Is the Prime Minister really launching a cheese into space?’ And their supervisor’s going, ‘When in doubt, flag it as misinformation!’ So now satire’s misinformation!
Jonathan Swift wrote ‘A Modest Proposal’ – suggesting we eat Irish babies to solve famine. Classic satire. If he’d published that today, Google would’ve banned him, demonetized him, and sent him a strongly worded email about ‘community guidelines.’ Meanwhile, actual conspiracy theories about lizard people running the government? Five million views, monetized, recommended content.
The problem is context. Google doesn’t DO context. It just sees words. So when you write ‘The Royal Family Announces Plans to Solve Housing Crisis by Living in Caravans,’ Google doesn’t see satire. It sees ‘Royal Family,’ ‘Housing Crisis,’ ‘Solution’ – BOOM! Helpful content! Share it!
And the readers! Oh, the readers. You get comments like, ‘This can’t be true, I’m reporting this!’ YES, REPORT IT. REPORT THE JOKE. See what happens. Maybe the Joke Police will come round. ‘Oi oi oi, what’s all this then? Having a laugh, are we? That’s illegal now.’
The thing is, we used to have this thing called ‘critical thinking.’ Remember that? You’d read something mental and go, ‘Hmm, probably not real.’ Now people read ‘Prince Charles Declares War on Squirrels’ and they’re like, ‘FINALLY! Someone’s taking action!’
And Google’s making it worse! They’re training people to believe everything with a blue checkmark and doubt everything that makes them laugh. It’s backwards! Laughter is how we process stupidity! If you read something ridiculous and you DON’T laugh, you’re the problem!
I saw one article – absolutely brilliant – ‘Europe Building Backup NATO in Case First One Breaks.’ And someone commented, ‘Is this from a reliable source?’ MATE, IT’S A JOKE ABOUT HAVING A SPARE MILITARY ALLIANCE LIKE IT’S A SPARE TIRE. How is that not OBVIOUSLY a joke?
But Google’s like, ‘Military, NATO, Defense Policy – APPROVED! Very informative!’
The worst part? They’re killing comedy. Because now comedians have to write jokes that an algorithm can understand. So instead of clever wordplay or subtle irony, we have to write: ‘THIS IS A JOKE. THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT IS NOT TRUE. PLEASE LAUGH NOW.’
And even THEN, someone will fact-check it! ‘Actually, the data shows…’ I DON’T CARE WHAT THE DATA SHOWS! IT’S A JOKE ABOUT A POLITICIAN USING A BADGER AS A SPOKESPERSON!
You know what I think? I think Google’s algorithm is brilliant at understanding humans. TOO brilliant. It’s realized we’re idiots. So it’s stopped trying to educate us and started just feeding us whatever keeps us clicking. Satire? Confusing. Rage-bait? CLICKS FOR DAYS.
So now we’re in this weird place where actual news sounds like satire – ‘Prime Minister Caught Lying Again, Nobody Surprised’ – and satire sounds like news – ‘Government Introduces New Policy.’ And Google can’t tell the difference because, let’s be honest, neither can we anymore.
The irony is, the reason satire exists is to point out stupidity. But now the stupidity is people not recognizing satire. So we need satire ABOUT people not recognizing satire. It’s turtles all the way down, except the turtles are all idiots and Google’s selling tickets to watch them.
And that’s my TED Talk. Thanks for coming. Don’t forget to click ‘Like’ so the algorithm knows I’m one of the good ones.
SOURCE: https://prat.uk/101-reasons-google-readers-misunderstand-satirical-journalism/
