Brooke Gladstone's The Influencing Machine

Brooke Gladstone and Josh Neufeld are the authors of the article “The Influencing Machines”. This article is about technology and is written through a comic-style form. Gladstone’s main idea on this article is that we should not fear technology. Gladstone’s and Neufeld’s comic-style article about technology is the best way to convey her argument because it gives visuals to express her argument, has a different form of arrangement of her details and thesis, and she gives examples of modern technology that should not scare us.

In the article, “Mind Over Mass Media,” by Pinker, the author states how knowledge is increasing, and how human brain powers are not limited to information and the way they interact with each other. To illustrate, he contends, “News media caughten up for a reason. Knowledge is increasing exponentially; human brain power and waking hours are not. The internet and information technologies are helping us manage, search and retrieve our collective intellectual output at different scales, from Twitter and previews to e-books and online encyclopedias. Far from making us stupid, these technologies are the only things that will keep us smart” (197). In addition, media caught on for a reason because people are able to retrieve more information and manage their daily lives with the technology people have today. People in general are lazier today, than back many years ago because of the technology people have. People are able to sit in their living room in their homes and not leave the house to socially interact with anyone else. Technology is increasing the knowledge of people because of all the media and web browsing there is for people to interact with and learn something new that they didn’t know before. Technology is advancing today’s society with knowledge and control for people to interact with others and strengthen people’s brain power by using the technology people have

In the article “The Influencing Machines” by Brooke Gladstone and Josh Neufeld, the authors take a stand against people fearing new technologies. The authors are effective in making their argument with the main claim being that a person should be cautious of new technology but they don't need to fear it. Also, the purpose of this article is to relax anyone that fears technology while being geared towards an older audience.

The internet and digital media has not only changed our brains and the way we consume media, it has changed the actual media we are consuming. There is a recent shift in media from lengthy articles to short pieces. In the book The Shallows: How the Internet is Affecting our Brains this change is discussed and explored in the context of how the changing brain and changing media are both having an impact on each other. The changing media is also discussed in Is Google Making us Stupid? which explores these

This quote derived from Brooke Gladstone and Josh Neufeld's “The Influencing Machines”, voices the anxiety that other people feel when being introduced to new products and how they could destroy society overtime. It gives us insight as to what trends are helping the people vs. the one’s that aren’t. Take the fidget spinner, this product was created for kids with ADHD as a means to alleviate stress and help them stay still, but as its popularity increased so did its use with children who do not have ADHD. The use of it in schools has led it to being banned in some states such as: Florida, Illinois, New York and Virginia. This quote suggests that society will concede to outside influences and will be utterly lost to the point where they are

“…it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence” (224). With this thought, Nicholas Carr ends his 2010 book, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. Here, he attempts to convince readers that ultimately, technology has the power to be our cognitive undoing as humans. Carr’s arguments towards this idea and whether or not they are convincing and thorough will be explored. While some may consider the information he provides to be unconnected, I find each of the topics he covers to be powerful in his argument that technology can be a dangerous tool in humanity’s progress towards a higher intelligence.

In Steven Pinker’s article, “Mind Over Mass Media”, the author illustrates the intellectual benefits obtained from mass media and argues that the media doesn’t have a negative effect on our brain. His examples are the great American crime decline not because of new technologies, the predictions that the new technologies would be harmful were wrong. Not only just the crime rate decline but also the I.Q. level rose continuously. With any new media that has emerged some people continually believe that our brain power and skills will plummet. The article points that people need to use new technology with self-control. As the author concludes, that “the Internet and information technologies are helping us manage, search and retrieve our collective

“Self-Driving Trucks May Be Closer Than They Appear” article was written by New York Times journalist Conor Dougherty. The article basis was about the recent invention of the self driving car also known as the Tesla and how self driving trucks were starting to make an appearance in the self driving car industry because of the benefits it would have. Quoted in the article, “Trucking is a $700 billion industry that touches every corner of the economy. Trucks haul natural resources from mines to forests.” (Dougherty) Many more reasons are stated in the article about the vast use of trucks for transportation in the article. It also states the worldwide benefit of having self-driving trucks in the economy.

Self-driving cars will soon be in their rearview mirrors. I do believe Americans are ready for cars that can drive themselves?, and it be safe for “ai’s” on the road instead of normal human drivers?, and this will be beneficial to traffic, crashes, and time? With General Motors vehicle-to-vehicle, or V2V, communications technology in some of its upcoming Cadillac models, it will definitely reduce the many crashes we have each year, because of it's ability to brake and avoid hitting other cars. Who knows when these new “self-driving-cars” will be on the road, or weather they'll help make the road a safer place, but with technology advancing every day let's just say it might come sooner than we

In the article“Mind Over Mass Media” by Steven Pinker he covers the controversial topics of the effect that the new forms of media have on our mental capabilities and moral opinions. He refutes that media has not taken a toll on our intelligence, but, in fact, it has increased it, even to the extent of raising our IQs. Although there are likely negative impacts like addiction or distraction, he indicates that these impacts can be controlled, so hence the title “Mind Over Mass Media.” Pinker’s central claim is that new media technologies increase our intelligence and through their use, more discoveries are being made. Through the powers of his persuasion, Pinker draws us in, by appealing to his audience using historical and scientific evidence,

Most people believe that these self-driving cars are going to make our roads much safer than they are with human drivers. According to an article titled “Road Crash Statistics” by the Association for Safe International Road Travel, “nearly 1.3 million people die in road crashes each year, on average 3,287 a day.” They also claim that road crashes is the ninth leading cause of death. Obviously automobiles are dangerous, but they are also very effective for transportation. According to Statista there were over 7 million cars sold to U.S. customers in 2014. Even though automobiles have caused so many deaths, most people really need them.

Johnson claims television is harder today, but our modern shows are based on beauty, money, and materialistic things. Shows are no longer made to bring families together to watch, they are fabricated reality series with violence, sex, and profanity. Moreover, Johnson argues that television and video games are making us smarter. However, his definition of smart is that it improves our cognitive skills. Cognitive skills do not necessarily make us more intelligent nor are they the same. While watching television or playing video games we memorize and retain celebrity gossip and not useful information. Useful information is not retained because our brain can only hold a few pieces of information at a time. Nicholas Carr, author of The Glass Cage: Automation and Us, which analyzes the personal and social ramifications of this generation's growing dependency on computers, states, in the Smart Technology is Making Us Dumb debate “If you think about it, if you can only hold two to four pieces of information in your conscious mind, then if you're constantly taking in new information, you have to push the existing information out very, very quickly in order to make room” (Smart Technology Is Making Us Dumb). We are constantly overloading our brains because information in the form of television reaches our brain faster, but does

What the author finds truly disturbing, however, is the threat of our brains being replaced by artificial intelligence. As the creators of Google admitted, their ultimate goal is to give people access to all the information available on the Internet by connecting their brains to artificial intelligence system. For Carr, such ambition suggest that intelligence can be boiled down to a mechanical process that will leave no place for critical thinking, creativity and personal reflection.

Or will new, stricter laws on drunk driving be implemented in defense that a person must have a clear head to operate heavy machinery even if said machinery can operate itself? Environmentalists may put up a fight to prevent the destruction of land to expand highways to accommodate driverless car lanes. And also, what if a driverless car gets pulled over by a policeman? Who would receive the ticket? If a car crash does happen because of a driverless car, Google can expect a major lawsuit or several major lawsuits as well as a decline in sales. The reliance on technology could mean that over time, drivers are no longer having the skills to operate cars. Drivers might be helpless to get around, having been out of practice in the driving world for some

Google has announced that their self-driving cars will be on the road in two to five years. The company hopes that they will in America by 2020 but even if they are not people wonder if they will be safe and if we are ready to share the road with these vehicles. I believe that we will be ready for self-driving cars on the roads because we already have vehicles with system to prevent collisions such as early warnings and automatic lane changing from tesla motors. John Villasenor is a professor of electrical engineering and public policy at the University of California, Los Angeles, he is also a member of the World Economic Forum's Global