iGod by Nicholas Carr

iGod, written by Nicholas Carr, portrays the power of technology and its greater knowledge compared to the human mind. In the beginning of the essay, Carr writes about the Google founders and their goal: “to have the entire world’s knowledge connected directly to our minds.” They desire something that surpasses the mind of any human being. The intended audience that Carr writes for are people similar to the experts he talks about within his paper- people who have a common interest for computers and the human mind. He also broadens the audience when stating, “our generation”, and the future generations that are to come with a lot more advanced technology. He states that the solution to the generation is to not limit our information, but rather increase our intelligence through artificial intelligence. The author successfully grabs the reader’s attention by providing examples from experts, which also builds his credibility. For example, Carr writes about a physicist from Princeton, historian of technology, George Dyson, MIT professors, and Google workers, specifically, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. However, I felt my mind drifting after the third page of the essay because claims sounded repetitive, and my interest is just not in technology. But, Carr re-grabbed my attention when he said, “an artificial brain that was smarter than your brain.” The next question was very interesting too. He asked, “And what o our brains? As we come to rely ever more heavily on the Internet’s vast store-house of information as an extension of or even substitute for our own memory, will it change the way we think?” The claims that pertain to the human mind, and the possible effects on us is more engaging to the reader compared to the facts. Carr’s purpose of his writing is to inform his audience of what is to come, and the expansion of knowledge humans can have as a result of higher level search engines and technology. However, I feel that there is a big counterargument to this topic: people do not want to be controlled by their creation. Carr says it himself, “Rather than the machine working for us, we work for the machine.” This is what worries many people, but Carr does a successful job to think about the future of technology and what it offers.