"The human brain is just an outdated computer that needs a faster processor and a bigger hard drive."
— Carr, Nicholas (b. 1959)
Author
Work Title
Date
July-August, 2008
Metaphor
"The human brain is just an outdated computer that needs a faster processor and a bigger hard drive."
Metaphor in Context
Still, their easy assumption that we’d all "be better off" if our brains were supplemented, or even replaced, by an artificial intelligence is unsettling. It suggests a belief that intelligence is the output of a mechanical process, a series of discrete steps that can be isolated, measured, and optimized. In Google's world, the world we enter when we go online, there’s little place for the fuzziness of contemplation. Ambiguity is not an opening for insight but a bug to be fixed. The human brain is just an outdated computer that needs a faster processor and a bigger hard drive.
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Nicholas Carr, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" The Atlantic (July/August, 2008). <Link to theatlantic.com>
Date of Entry
04/08/2015
