Google is Making us Stupid - Essay Example

How much of what we know now do we get from Google? How often have we avoided the traditional methods of doing stuff and simply looked it up? While this may seem like a means of making light work, one is compelled to think of how little people want to exert themselves since Google and similar search engines came to existence. When a student is asked to write an article about the problems encountered in their school, they may rush to Google since they have assured it is the authority on everything.

While may have information on a considerable number of subjects it would never be in a better position to understand your own environment. The hypothetical student ends up writing an easy about problems faced in another place and time and it loses all semblance of personal touch. It would seem that people have simply switched off their brains and let Google do all the thinking. The fact is that it may be deficient or it may lead them to links with unreliable content does not bother most of the people today.

According to the two founders of Google Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the ultimate search engine is one that understands what one wants. They go ahead to state that this can be achieved by artificial intelligence arguing out that had one a brain connected to all the information they wanted it would be the perfect information system (Carr 1). However, the writer is vehemently opposed to this and with a good reason. Imagine if all human were to replace parts, then gradually all their brains with a computer.

They would be able to surf the web instantaneously, and information could flow unhindered. Business deals could be opened and closed without leaving the comfort of your living room. The others fear are not new, even Socrates, when writing was first invented was skeptical saying it would cause people to lose much of their memories (Carr 1). In case the current written works mysteriously disappear and the computer databases collapse, it is unlikely that we would salvage much of our knowledge from our memories.

Yet the scholars of the past memorized Homers work and passed them on without writing, and today anyone capable of doing that would be perceived as a genius. The world and all its citizens would be fully reliant on the internet. Indeed one would be able to chat with friends on facebook or make calls without a phone (Laza 1). Conversely, all the risks found it the internet, and there is no doubt they would have increased in intensity alongside technology as it has in retrospect. As aforementioned, if wiring of the human brain with artificial one would indeed be possible, the risks that would occur are terrifying beyond belief.

For once, assuming that humans would interact with their minds, not their PCs, computer virus would not just be something that crashes your computer. It would mess with ones brain and possible part them from your senses. Terrorist would have a new avenue for plying their trade. They would do this by inflating the brains of leaders, and other powerful people causing them to engage in self-destructive activities. Indeed the intent as it is today is highly unsafe and not the best place to get privacy.

There would be no doubt as systems for controlling this in the same way that the internet search engines like Google have administrators. As such, these people would not only have power over the system of minds but even the individual minds.