单选题 .  Google has imagined a future where it uses enormous quantities of data it collects on individuals to manipulate their behaviour and achieve "desired results" for the whole species. In a leaked video from the company's secretive X research division, the narrator cites Richard Dawkin's book The Selfish Gene and depicts Google's data as a "selfish ledger" which treats users as "transient carriers" or "survival mechanisms" for valuable data. He says that the ledger could move beyond a passive record to actively influence people's actions, in line with Google's "values". If Google didn't have enough data on a particular user its algorithms would identify a suitable "smart" product to sell him or her to gather that data.
    Google dismissed the video as a "thought experiment" unrelated to any present or future plans. However, analysts said that the dystopian future it painted was plausible. Similar ideas can be found in some of the firm's patent applications, including one for "detecting and correcting potential errors in user behaviour". The leak comes at a particularly embarrassing time for Google as technology giants come under pressure from politicians over their harvesting of users' data. One Times digital editor recently discovered that Google held almost a terabyte of data on him, the equivalent of 1, 024GB or tens of millions of word files, including his search and browsing history, his movements, and his photos and emails.
    In the eight-minute clip from 2016 the narrator says: "User-centred design principles have dominated the world of computing for many decades but what if we looked at things a little differently? What if the ledger could be given a volition or purpose rather than simply acting as a historical reference?" He says that, to begin with, users would retain control over the goals set by the ledger, with "Google...responsible for offering suitable targets". He added: "Whilst the notion of a global good is problematic, topics would likely focus on health or environmental impact to reflect Google's values as an organisation."
    The footage explains how, initially, people could change their phone settings to ask Google for help to "eat more healthily", "protect the environment" or "support local businesses", for example. After choosing to protect the environment, Google would use popup notifications to nudge a user to take a shared Uber, rather than a single-occupancy one, or to buy locally grown rather than imported fruit. Nevertheless, as the notion of a "goal-driven ledger" becomes more "palatable", the narrator says that behaviour-altering plans could be put into action without the user's instigation. To gain more data "which it requires to better understand the user", the ledger might attempt to sell a particular connected device that would give Google the required insights.
    If no existing product fits, the narrator says that Google's algorithm may investigate a "bespoke solution", using historical data on the user's tastes and "aesthetic sensibility" to create a new device that's likely to appeal and would gather the sought-after data. The narrator says that by gathering increasingly comprehensive data over multiple generations, as sensors become ubiquitous in the world around us, Google would gain powers to make "increasingly accurate predictions about decisions and future behaviours"—and ultimately to influence them.
    He says that, in the same way that geneticists can use their knowledge of individual genes to modify them, Google could use its knowledge of individuals' behaviour to influence it. He says: "As patterns emerge in the behavioural sequences, they too may be targeted. The ledger could be given a focus, shifting it from a system which not only tracks our behaviour but offers direction towards a desired result."
    Paul Armstrong, of Here/Forth, the technology consultant, said: "Big data offers society a huge opportunity to alter humanity but the motives behind who wields power should be questioned. Technology can be used for good or bad; it's who wields it that is the issue and increasingly Google and companies like it can seem more over-reaching rather than beneficial." A spokesman for X told The Verge news website: "We understand if this is disturbing—it is designed to be. This is a thought-experiment...It's not related to any current or future products."
    Google has removed almost all mentions of its "don't be evil" motto from its code of conduct after thousands of Google employees claimed that the company's co-operation with the US military on drone technology was not in keeping with the slogan. It was previously cited repeatedly from the start of the document, but is now included only once in a final aside.16.  The word "dystopian" (para. 2) can be paraphrased as ______.