Intelligence Squared What Do We Ask Google, and What Does It Tell Us About Human Nature? With Simon Rogers
32 snips
May 9, 2026 
Simon Rogers, Google’s Data Editor and author of What We Ask Google, mines billions of searches to map human curiosity. He talks about private health queries, surprising cultural food trends, how searches reveal grief and loneliness, and the idea of nowcasting—using search patterns to anticipate social change. Short, curious, and often unexpected snapshots of what people really want to know.
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Food Searches Expose Culture Memory And Migration
- Food searches reflect both global commonality and strong local variation tied to memory and migration.
- Rogers highlights pancakes across cultures and refugee-driven interest in home cuisines like Somali and Ukrainian food abroad.
Top Food Searches Can Surprise Cultural Expectations
- Unexpected top food queries reveal surprising preferences, e.g., pizza is the top food search in Paris.
- Rogers contrasts Paris (pizza) with Italy (Italian food) and England (Indian food) to show quirks in local search habits.
Weird Translation Peaks And Impossible Pet Questions
- Rogers recounts puzzling translation peaks like 'Tuesday' in Polish and 'Thursday' in Russian that resisted easy explanation.
- He also shares the amusing discovery that people search "can you keep... as a pet" including impossible ones like pandas.
