[Applejinx]

No, it's an axiom. It defines a way to make collective/collaborative entities hopefully bigger than the sum of their parts. I think of these things (corporations, groups, movements) as aggregate people, and that's very much what Google is about.

Google deals almost entirely with aggregate people: statistics, algorithms, collective behaviors, machine learning, implementation that's never about individuals but is about larger population trends. Aggregates, not special unique snowflakes.

As such this is not an illusion but an axiom. Google and entities like it (themselves humongous aggregate 'people') MAKE individuals replaceable, the better to be dealing with other entities like themselves. This is only going to accelerate the more they get to bring AI and machine learning into the mix… which by now is long established, nowhere more than at Google.

[Rochus]

> it's an axiom

An axiom which only applies to a certain percentage of cases?

[haakonhr]

Maybe an axiom as in being something we assume (because we can't/won't figure out whether it is actually true) this and base our decisions on this axiom.