Artificial Intelligence In Nicholas Carr's Is Google Making USupid?

In the Atlantic Magazine, Nicholas Carr wrote an article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Carr poses a good question about how the internet has affected our brain, by remapping the neural circuitry and reprogramming our memory. Carr states, “My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell-but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the say way I used to think.”

Technology nowadays always use to have so much information at our fingertips, but is this a good thing? That is what Jamais Cascio’s “Get Smarter” and Nicholas Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stoopid?” both discuss; they specifically address the effects that new technology, such as the internet, has on the way humans think. The difference is that Carr argues that this new technology is making us stupid while Cascio argues that it is making us smarter. Nicholas Carr’s article discusses the negative effects of the internet and technology like it. It specifically mentions slight changes in the way people do things because of the influence of technology and gives many historical and anecdotal examples. Jamais Cascio’s article is about the advancements of technology and how it is makes people smarter. Cascio talks about Twitter, mental enhancement drugs and AIs, focusing a lot on the benefits of the advancements.

Nicholas Carr is an American author who writes the majority of books and articles about the continuously evolving world of technology and how it is effecting our society. Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, was a 2011 Pulitzer Prize finalist and a New York Times bestseller. In this essay I will be rhetorically analyzing Carr’s essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid” published in 2008. The purpose of Carr’s essay was to bring light to an issue that many of us face but only a meniscal few have come to terms with; and that is that technology is mentally incapacitating our society and simultaneously making us lazy. This essay was intended for anyone was has been consumed in today’s culture by new technological advances to the extent of not being able to function without some sort of device, IE cellphone, laptop or tablet on a daily basis.

Nicholas Carr’s Is Google Making Us Stupid? explains the impact the Internet is having on his (and others) patience with in depth reading habits, and possibly the way their brain is processing information. The old days of having to spend hours researching a subject are long gone because of the Internet. Having such a powerful tool available at any time can be a good and bad thing wrapped up in the same package. Over the last couple decades, home computer and smartphone ownership has been on a steady rise with most homes now having multiple devices. Therefore, having unlimited information available at all times has become a reality.

In the essay “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, Nicholas Carr expresses his beliefs and personal experiences on how the internet has altered our brains and how we think. He addresses the fact that, although our brains’ abilities to deep read and concentrate are suffering, the internet is extremely beneficial and convenient. Because of the easy accessibility, it takes little to no effort to find information, and therefore, a minimal amount of thinking is required. Carr highlights that people are more impatient because of the internet and that our minds are becoming more erratic. The author used research, conducted by a U.K. educational consortium, to show that a new form of reading is developing over time; rather than reading every word on a page, it has turned to more of a skimming method. Nicholas Carr realizes that we may be doing more reading than ever due to the internet, but it is different in the way that people have to interpret the text. Reading, unlike talking, is not a natural ability. One must learn to deep read, make connections, and translate the underlying meaning. Overall, Carr believes it is a mistake to rely fully on computers because in the end, it will just be our own intelligence that morphs into artificial intelligence.

In Nicholas Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, he discusses the negative impacts that technology has had on human intelligence and how technology is going to pass up humankind. Carr’s main point is that point is that due to modern innovations like the internet, himself and the rest of mankind have slowly lost the ability to read in-depth and focus on complex tasks. He also argues that companies like google are working to create innovations in Artificial Intelligence, causing technology to eventually pass up humanity. Carr believes that technology is important, but it will eventually lead to our demise.

In his Is Google Making Us Stupid?, Nicholas Carr contends that the overload of information is “chipping away his capacity for concentration and contemplation”(315). He admits with easy accessibility of information online, the process of research has became much simpler(Carr 315). Yet such benefit comes with a cost. Our brains are “rewired” as the cost of such convenience(Carr 316). As the result, “we may well be reading more today than we did in the 1970s or 1980s...but it’s a different kind of reading, and behind it lies a different kind of thinking”(Carr 317). Carr argues the forming of such habits can prevent us from deep reading and thinking. In fact, he provides may evidences in the

In his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr argues that the internet is changing the way the human mind processes information. He contends that the instant access to information through Google, though it offers efficiency and immediacy, is rewiring our brains and diminishing our capacity for concentration and contemplation, thus destroying our intelligence. He believes that it is causing a loss of ability to concentrate whilst reading detailed books or other long narratives. He warns that this alarming biological development can potential flatten human experience because we no longer hold the innate need to fully divulge into details. Carr successfully utilizes facts, examples, scholars and well-known thinkers, argument appeals of ethos, pathos and logos to skillfully and effectively compose a well-organized argument about the internet’s negative

In, “Is Google Really Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr (2008), he validates how people are heavily relying on the internet pushing for Artificial Intelligence. Carr also talks about how it is changing the way our minds work with negative side effects. He demonstrates how the internet may be shaping our thought process by giving observational examples as well as personal experiences. Beginning with his personal experiences he says how he finds it difficult to keep focused on a book, as a writer, this is rare to him. He tries to find a reason to his inability to stay focused and comes to a conclusion it is due to the internet. Carr is very persuasive in his article, although his point of view maybe seen as an opinion, he does show and support

The essay Is Google Making Us Stupid by the author Nicholas Carr, was originally a cover article of The Atlantic in 2008. The purpose of his work is to warn the technology users of the negative effects that these devices have in humans. Carr starts the essay with a scene from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey in which one of the characters describes how his mind and the way he reads is changing by the time since he has been using a computer. He is no longer able to spend hours reading, describes how to get concentrate in a long paragraphs is difficult to him. The fact of how fast the internet works, forces his brain to process information the way Net does.

What Nicholas Carr is saying in his essay “Is Google Making Us stupid?” is that when we depend on the internet, we tend to skim over long articles instead of taking our time reading the articles. When we skim over things we do not absorb as much information as we do when we take our time reading it. Part of the reason we skim over things that we read is that we get easily distracted and it makes it harder to concentrate. Depending on the internet has made it to where we do not use our brains as much to solve problems or think of new ideas. When you have access to the internet you depend on it for a lot of things and you do not use your brain as often to solve problems.

Nicholas Carr argues in his article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” that the internet is changing the way we think and work for the worst by reducing our ability to concentrate on books, and long articles. Google is reshaping our brain, we have become accustom to skimming through headline and jumping from one article to the next without completing the first. The internet is altering our learning by giving us access multiple distraction such as emails, social media, and advertisements all these factors contributing to our lack of concentration when attempting to absorb information.

This day in age, technology is more present in our lives than it’s ever been. Every day we constantly check our phones, emails, tablets, and even smart watches. These devices have opened doors that we previously didn't even know existed. They are outlets to unlimited knowledge from all over the world. Although many people, including me, have grown up with these commodities, they are still extremely new. Home computers have only been mainstream for 20 years or so, while smartphones have only been mainstream for about 5 years! What all this leads itself to, is that we are just now able to observe the way this new technology and instant access to knowledge can affect our brain. Author, Nicholas Carr, believes that the world’s largest search engine, Google, has molded our brains to be incapable of deep thought, and that it also even makes us stupid.

For over fifteen years, Google has placed countless amounts of information right at the fingertips of people all around the world. With this vast amount of information that Google provides, the opportunity to expand our intellect is very prominent. However, many believe that Google is actually hindering our intellect. In Nicholas Carr’s, Is Google Making Us Stupid, Carr evaluates the effect Google has on learning and acquiring knowledge, and argues that Google is, in fact, hindering our intellect. Google is making us stupid by replacing our own knowledge with an “artificial intelligence,” creates almost a self pride on various issues, and takes away from the value of opening your mind to reading a good book.

Nicholas Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” explains the impact the Internet is having on his (and others) patience with in depth reading habits, and possibly the way their brain is processing information. The old days of having to spend hours researching a subject are long gone because of the Internet. Having such a powerful tool available at any time can be a good and bad thing wrapped up in the same package. Over the last couple decades, home computer and smartphone ownership has been on a steady rise with most homes now having multiple devices. Therefore, having unlimited information available at all times has become a reality.