'Is Google Making Us Stupid?'

The author’s tone has an eerie sense of precognition. It may discourage some while encouraging others. The author seems to claim a type of apocalypse in the future. He describes the future as a grim type of future that is almost completely controlled by artificial intelligence. He uses facts, quotes and many other examples from both experts and historians. I believe he made a good point and did a good job of convincing people to believe the same way that he does.

One thing that he used was when he said that he felt himself getting distracted while reading and not being as interested as he did. This may appeal to certain people on a personal level because they may feel the same way about that, or may know somebody that does. He describes it as a “remapping” or “tinkering” that he feels. As he describes these things to you, you kind of get a feeling that starts to wonder if it happens to you at all. You may even start to second guess yourself the next time you read a book or an article. This is one of the strategies that the author may have used to catch the readers interest and to get them to contemplate such things.

Another strategy that the author used what to used hard facts to prove his point. He used many different sources and different forms of people expressing themselves and agreeing with his theory. For example, by him quoting the creators of Google themselves saying, “If you had all of the world’s information directly attached to your brain, or an artificial brain that was smarter than your brain, you’d be better off,” he helped feed his theory of the future being controlled by completely by computers. His facts helped him get his point across to the audience greatly. His references that he used from the book A Space Odyssey listed an example of what he think might happen. The way the computer HAL is trying to plead with Dave Bowman to refrain from dismembering his circuitry any more than he already has. It’s sad when you think about it, a computer pleading with a human to stop it’s destruction. Acting like it has feelings and can feel pain. All of this fuels Carr’s fire.

Carr claims that people would barely have anything left of their own personality. That they would merely be shells with microchips in them being controlled by artificial intelligence. It is a depressing though, which is exactly what he wanted. He wanted to strike a bit of fear into people to get them to understand the consequences of what could possibly happen. Nobody would be themselves, as he described, and there would be no more personality in the world. It would be as if mankind hadn’t even existed. It reminds me a bit of the movie The Terminator. The author suggests that we go back to more original methods of knowledge. When the Internet and nothing of that sort existed, people had to take the labor of reading books to get the information that they needed. This would allow people to be more well-read and to know more about the real world, rather than just reading the little snippet that they want to get out of it and moving on with their lives. As much as we all love to “get in and get out,” we miss a lot of the big picture in life. It is the little things in life that often count, and if we miss those we don’t have much.

All in all, I believe that the author did his job well. He helped us picture a future of computers and technology. The way he did this was with different strategies that proved to us how much technology has helped us just as well as it has hurt us. It touched on a personal level with some, while also touching on a technical level for those who like to keep it strictly business when it comes to choosing sides in a debate or argument. He makes good points and supports his statements with good facts and gives examples and stories of how much of an impact it may have, it can have, and it already has some people.