The Progression Of Advanced Technology Single Handedly Alters Humans

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.

With every passing year, it seems as though humans are becoming more attached to their electronic devices as technology advances at an astounding rate. As a result of this, many people believe that the trade off for having such advanced technology is a decrease in overall brain function, a point that is essentially what Nicholas Carr is arguing is true in his essay Is Google Making Us Stupid?. However, a majority of Carr’s argument lies in the fact that people do not read as much because of the Internet, only want information directly given to them instead of having to read through pages of words, and are becoming dangerously reliant on artificial intelligence. However, based on the recent surge of technological

Humans are becoming more technologically-efficient every day. New inventions and innovations are constantly being made. The Internet is becoming more “reliable” every day. However, how much do we really get from the constant advancement of Internet use and smarter technology? Should we look at their contributions to the world as a benefactor or a curse? The common effect of “artificial intelligence” in the technology we use every day is examined by two brilliant authors, Nicholas Carr and Jamias Cascio. In Carr’s article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, he explains the effects of the Internet and technology in our society and claims that the overuse of technology is dangerous and can affect how our mind operates. Jamias Cascio, on the other

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.

The internet – the decisive technology of the Information Age – is making its way in an attempt to make life easier for people and undeniably, it is very effective in doing so. However, in the article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr talks about how that artificial intelligence is taking over our own genuine intelligence. He discusses the changes that have occurred in people since the internet became a universal medium to access information. Carr’s main purpose is to make us aware that the internet is having negative effects that diminish our capacity of concentration and contemplation. In his thesis he states that “as we come to rely on computers to meditate out understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens

“…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.

Technology, especially the Internet, makes humans’ life easier and more effective. A quick access to information brings people a huge opportunity to explore the world and develop them. However, Nicolas Carr, in “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” argues that technology affects people’s life, it changes their mind and actions, and humans start to lose abilities of “deep thinking and deep reading”, which are essential skills of being humans. In other words, our world becomes more simplified that people are unable to be smart and creative as they were in the past. For him, today’s people think and act in the frame of programmed world of the Net. Moreover, although Carr worries that the Net based corporations, such as Google, are seeking to replace human’s

In his essay, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”, author Nicholas Carr discusses his belief that the internet is negatively changing the way people’s brains process and consume information. Carr describes this phenomenon when he writes, “as we come to rely on computers to mediate our understanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence” (328). Carr’s point is that the less effort put into reading and researching caused by societies constant access to the internet, lessens deep thinking and mental growth, which in turn results in a loss of individualism in our society. Incidentally, in his article, “Smarter than you Think”, writer Clive Thompson agrees with Carr’s statement by saying, “Today’s multitasking tools really do make it harder than before to stay focused during long acts of reading and contemplation” (355). However, Thompson goes on to argue that the benefits humans derive from the advancements being made in technology outweigh the possible risks in changes to cognitive functions caused by the melding of man with machine. Thompson builds his argument by examining how the game of chess has evolved

Moreover, according to his article, since commercial Internet companies make the most part of their profits from advertisements, the companies are willing to see us distracting by linkages and clicking them (595). At the end of the article, he expresses his worries that artificial intelligence might become a threaten for human intelligence (597). In the article, Carr has given his reasonable analysis and outside information to show why his concerns about the Net are significant. He locates his argument among the debate on whether the Internet benefits us. However, although he provides evidence to support each his reasoning step, his conclusion that the Internet changes our brains is not necessarily true based on other direct studies about the human brain. While regardless whether the Net changes our brains, we should be aware of the change in our reading pattern caused by the Internet and consider the influence of artificial

Transhumanism is “a way of thinking about the future that is based on the premise that the human species in its current form does not represent the end of our development but rather a comparatively early phase”. In relation with artificial intelligence, there has been major controversy about the ethics behind combining humans with artificial enhancements in order to improve our condition. Some transhumanists have posed that, by combining artificial intelligence with human cognition, the current state of human intelligence could dramatically increase. Some forms of transhuman artificial intelligence include: universally shared memories, direct access to the internet, downloadable consciousness, and disease

Human individuals are affected negatively by scientific/technological advancements due to the overwhelming dependence on this technology. Technology has replaced all natural human abilities and interactions.

Another study by Mr. Merzenich, Professor of University of California in San Francisco found out that the brain is adaptable to whatever situation it is put in, therefore it can adapt to our technology habit which could be deadly to our intellectual lives. In other words, the individual “become signal processing units, quickly shepherding disjointed bits of info and then out of short term memory (Nicholas Carr).” Patricia Greenfield, a leading developmental psychologist, discovered that the “internet strengthened visual-spatial intelligence”. But for what cost, but a “new weakness in higher-order cognitive processes,” which included critical thinking, imagination and abstract vocabulary (Nicholas Carr).

In my lifetime, which spans the not so awe-inspiring numerical value of thirty-one-years, I have witnessed enough cultural change to detect a shift in the way most humans think. With the onset of technological interventions completing most of our thinking for us, the phrase “Google it” as the end all—be all to knowledge, expanding to the digression of caveman linguistics with the use of emoticons and texting-language, lower level of self-expression being verbalized, to the visual dynamics of gender itself becoming androgynous—we have certainly evolved in the last fifteen-years. In what direction is unsure. One might feel that given the historical recount of the universe, we would have learned our lesson by now within the evolutionary sense of intelligence and learned behaviors. Cumulatively, this data certainly begs the question: is human intelligence evolving? Are we really getting smarter or do we just think we are? Let us consider the data.

In 21st century America many people rely on cell phones and computers more than ever. Companies such as Apple and Google have been on top of the technology industry for years. As we approach a new era of technology we see no limit of what can be accomplished. But these advancements also brings consequences. One might ask, how was it possible that technology has revolutionized the era we live, not only that but the question of our intelligence is brought up frequently and if we have forgotten old traditions such as reading a map or our interaction with people.

According to Steve Ballmer, I quote “The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn 't think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential.” End of quote. Although research has shown that technology is the enemy of human progress; over the years, technology has created faster communication, shortcuts in working, improved medical advances, and aided in relaxation.