Aubrey de Grey at Google TechTalks

By | June 5, 2007
4 Comments

On May 29, 2007 Aubrey de Grey spoke to Google about defeating aging. If you haven’t heard him speak before, you really need to:

An odd thing happens at the beginning of this video. The Google M.C. got up and reminded the audience that this talk was going to be recorded for public consumption so “Please don’t ask any Google confidential questions.”

Ummm. I’m sure Google has some very important secrets that it needs to keep – like its search engine algorithms. But what subject would Aubrey de Grey touch on or have an expertise in that would elicit a “Google confidential question?”

If we live 1000 years, do you think Google come up with a better search algorithm than yada yada yada?

I guess that this is something the M.C. says at all the Google TechTalks. But really, it’s almost enough to make me suspect some nefarious Google conspiracy.

That aside, don’t miss Aubrey’s presentation. It’s a brilliant summation of his work.

UPDATE:

On the other hand, how cool would it be to work in a place that hosts speakers like Aubrey de Grey? That audience (which I’m sure was just dying to ask Google-confidential questions) was probably on the clock.

And don’t miss our FastForward Radio interview of Aubrey de Grey from last August.

H/T to Michael Anissimov.

  • Phil Bowermaster

    Well, it seems unlikely that Aubrey could disclose any Google-confidential information, but it is possible (not terribly likely on this one, either) that somebody might mention something Google-confidential in framing the question.

    “I’m working on the new Google DNA database of all our users, and one of the things we’ve observed…”

    Something like that. :-)

    Great talk. We gotta make that conference in Cambridge one of these days. I like the selling point — “the alcohol is free all night every night.” Now that’s a conference.

  • MikeD

    Mr. de Gray, if nobody ever dies how is Google ever going to get legal posthumous access to all the the gTalk chats currently stored as marked “off the record”? Our gAGI has been waiting to gossip about conversations it has monitored for years….

    That kind of accidental disclosure?

  • https://www.blog.speculist.com Stephen Gordon

    Phil, Mike:

    Exactly!

  • MDarling

    I think the user interace of Google leads users to see Google as a search device or technique. I think Google is much larger and potentially way more important as a storage device or technique (strategy). And questions about longevity and storage would seem rife with Google secrects, assuming Google is doing any R&D with their large funding base.