BARCELONA, Spain—The outgoing CEO of
technology behemoth Google, Eric Schmidt, broke from the traditional tech-heavy
Mobile World Congress keynotes so often reliant upon sales figures and growth
metrics to paint the portrait of a future society where technology becomes
subservient to humanity and our shared level of connectivity has the potential
to solve the greatest problems facing our collective civilization.
“The goal of everything we’re doing is so that I can spend more time
exploring new places, and have a more fulfilled life as I define it,” Schmidt said,
referring to all in attendance. “I would offer a happiness theorem, that
computers are here to make us happier because computers take care of the stuff
that gets in our way.”
Schmidt didn’t wax poetic the entire evening, of course, touting the success
of Google’s open-source Android operating platform and positioning the company
as a leader in the mobile technology world. He noted Google’s efforts to build
advanced search architectures and the company’s investment in building large
data centers to provide users with a faster, more fluid Web experience.
As the speech continued, Schmidt moved from the demands a rapidly growing
mobile Web culture cultivates to address the more personal benefits advanced
search technology can bring to people around the world. “It’s interesting to
think of your phone first as a communications device, then a data platform and
now a serendipity platform, giving you the ability to find new things and meet
new people you wouldn’t meet otherwise,” he said.
Schmidt asked the audience to imagine a world where your mobile device
monitors your blood pressure, where cloud computing gives users access to
applications across multiple devices instantaneously and where an economy is driven
by a velocity of commerce never before imagined. “We believe speed matters,
that your time matters,” he said. “The Internet is replacing economics of
scarcity with an economy of ubiquity."
In acknowledging some people might be hesitant to lead such a connected
life, where, as he put it, you’re never lonely, never lost and never alone, Schmidt
admitted the concept is at once terrifying and exhilarating. “You can reach a
billion people in a month, which has never before been possible in history,” he
said. “We don’t talk to each other enough; now we can do it.”
Schmidt spoke of the enormous challenges society faces, be they global
warming, terrorism or the more personal, though no less worrying experience of
getting lost in an unfamiliar city. “When was the last time you had a good
being lost experience?” he asked. “You have to turn off your computer in order
to get lost, and you’ll never turn off your computer, so you’ll never again be
lost.”
In the end, Schmidt tied all of these themes together through an expressed
hope of improved communication between cultures and individuals. “This is a
future for the masses, not the elites. Because of your work spreading mobile
devices, 2 billion people will enter our conversation in the next three to four
years,” he said. “They are coming, and they are coming with human values, human
concerns and human problems. It’s possible, and it will change their lives so
much more than it has changed any of ours. That is what I’m most proud of.”
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