Cross posted from a buzz thread about implicit graph matching.
creepy/yuck factor? At one time organ transplants were considered frankenstein creepy. Street view was (and some say is) considered creepy. The facebook news feed was once considered creepy. People's views change over time, especially if there's an underlying value that one can understand. For all of the above I'd say that the value is there and folks have adjusted.
Having a benevolent trusted partner that can search all of your content and knows you better than you know yourself using heuristics and AI? That stuff is science fiction magic. We can make it happen, and it forms the basis for serendipitous search.
I'd say we're going to have a lot more moments like this where we surface stuff to the user that they didn't expect nor ask for. Making everything opt-in is not the answer -- there has to be a middle ground here where value is given before it is asked for.
#googplus