Why Targeted Ads Anger Neil deGrasse Tyson

What are your thoughts on digital privacy? What do you mean? Well, like phones. Yeah. Like phones, like, do you ever talk to someone about something and then you see it in your Google feed? Do you see ads? Yeah. So we don't, I mean, I haven't researched this, but my wife tells me, we were once gifted one of these, you know, what do you call those things that you talk to? Oh, Alexa? Yeah, whoever the Google one is. Is that Alexa? Okay, at home, Google at home. No, Alexa is Amazon, right? Amazon. So it's Google at home and she says, don't turn that on. I said, why not? Because they'll be listening. And I didn't believe her at first and then I started hearing stories. And so I don't have one, but it's not because I know that it's listening or not listening. Well, it is substantiated. Yeah. Being actual, they've said, they've apologized for actual human contractors listening in to conversations that people have had, having sex, having arguments. Like it's real. Yeah. That seems like it should be a problem. So what's your question to me? What am I all for it? Or am I, what's your question? No, my question is one of the things that you're getting out of their ability to scan things is they're tailoring things to your liking. Like, you know how your phone tells you it's 22 minutes until you get home? I get it. And you're like, bitch, how do you know where I live? Exactly. I'm going to tell you where I live. I got it. Here it is. And I'm just old fashioned about this. Okay. I'm get off my lawn about this. Yeah. I'm the old man in the rocking chair on the porch saying, Sunny, get off my lawn. But you're also a scientist. Okay. But I don't want to, okay, I wear multiple hats. I'm also a dad. I'm also a husband. I got all these hats for all those things. In this particular case, I'm old man. And my old man's sensibility is if you track what I shop at a store, what I buy at a store and then send me coupons based on what you think I'm going to buy next based on what I've bought before, which is kind of the same thing you're describing, you have denied me the chance of stumbling upon something that I never thought of buying. And that takes away my freedoms and I don't want that. How have they denied you the chance of stumbling upon something different? It's not diabolical. It's just in the casual flow of life. I'll give an example. I walk into a wine shop. They say, can I help you? And I say, if you help me find what I'm looking for, it's a guarantee that I will never find what I'm not looking for. I'll end up spending less money in your wine shop. That's a weird way of looking at it. It's the art of browsing. Dude, you're old enough to remember when I got to look up this word in a dictionary and you get through six other words. Oh, I never knew that word. Let me read that. You learn other words en route to the word you're targeting. I understand. Okay. So that is how I feel. And that's how I think about my interaction with this world. I like the randomness. The randomness of it enriches my life. And if you're going to advertise to me because you think you know who I am, maybe you do, but I'll ultimately end up spending less money because it's the diversity of how I think and what I buy and what I think of buying and how I buy it and how much money I spend that is the richness of the life I lead. You're trying to channel me into some product, something that fulfills a, what do you call it when they have the study, whether you're going to buy something or not? Survey. No, no. Table of people, do you like this product or not? Focus group. Am I just a focus group to you? If I am, you don't know me. And I want to experience this world by stepping where I've never stepped before and buying something I've never thought of buying. And if you know my previous habits, you're assuming I'm going to stay that way for the rest of my life. And maybe most people do. And maybe I might do that. But if I do is because I chose to, not because you have decided that that's how I should be. Well, don't you think they're just doing it? I'm screaming at you. I'm sorry. No, you're getting a little excited. Sorry. Don't you think they're just doing that because they think it would be effective to advertise in that way? So if you go Googling new Nikes and then as you're looking at something and the Google ad pops up and it's for new Nikes, they said, hey, Neil, I know you were looking at these bad boys. We saw you. We saw you. Maybe you just need a little nudge. I mean, it's not, I don't think that's that diabolical. I'm the old man on the porch. I'm saying the next generation might feel completely different. They might say, I love it. They know exactly what I want. You heard about the case where they were, I read this. I haven't reverified it, but it's completely plausible. There was a teenage girl who was Googling pregnancy tests because maybe she got pregnant. Okay. And the fact that she had searched pregnancy tests, she got coupons in the mail for baby products. And her parents said, what is this? She got outed. That's a little weird. Yeah, but it's the kind of thing that can happen. That seems intrusive. Certainly. That's intrusive only because it's pregnancy? It's intrusive in every way. No. Don't tell me it's not intrusive because you want to buy Nikes. Because they're sending you physical things. That's not just something that appears on your Google feed that you can quickly glance over. What's the difference between sending you mail to your mailbox and filling your advertising space in front of your face with product? For one, other people can see it. I walk by your computer, I can see it. Don't look. I guess I'm arguing in principle rather than in detail. Okay, well let me take the counterpoint. On the positive side, what they're doing in terms of, particularly Google, in terms of your driving, right, and in terms of using of Google Maps and documenting the history of all these people driving, and especially with things like Waze, which they acquired, is they've developed a much more efficient product than Apple, which what Apple does with Apple Maps, they shred everything you do. Yes, they do. They value your privacy. All the way you've been and where you're going? That's correct. But Apple Maps sucks. Because they don't have enough data. They don't have nearly the amount of data. Google has billions. What is Google giving you that Apple Maps isn't? They're telling you, you're 22 minutes from home, time for you to drive home? Are you valuing that? Well, yes. And also it's just a better map. No, okay. Wait, hold on. Their program's far better. I can ask it how long it'll take me to go somewhere, rather than it knowing what my daytime schedule looks like and then coming in. Like you said, how do you know, bitch? You know, I have that same reaction as you did. And I said, I wonder what's causing this. It's a little creepy. And again, I'm the old man syndrome. A 10-year-old kid that's only ever known this and becomes 15 and 20, that is life to them, right? And maybe they're not going to complain about it. But I'm the old man on the porch. But do you think that this sort of intrusiveness or at the very least this connection that you have to these devices and that they have to your patterns and your information seems inevitable? That doesn't mean I have to welcome it with open arms, but I agree it's inevitable.