Richard Wright’s Estate Calls Google Book Settlement ‘Grievously Flawed’

Richard Wright’s Estate Calls Google Book Settlement ‘Grievously Flawed’

BY MOTOKO RICH 

The New York Times JANUARY 27, 2010 12:09 PM

In a telephone interview from his home in Sydney, Australia, Malcolm Wright said that he objected to Google being allowed to scan and use his grandfather’s work for commercial ends. “Without displaying it to end users, Google can still derive a lot of value from these works by running their algorithms on them,” Mr. Wright said. “I have the feeling a lot of people don’t necessarily take into account that Google’s entire business is based on artificial intelligence. Google writes algorithms that learn to cater to human demand and so basically, for Google, the Holy Grail is for more and more content to unleash their algorithms on because not only does it bring them advertising revenue, it allows them to have their algorithms grow and mature.”