Techno Files: How Google Took the Work Out of Selling Advertising
By JAMES FALLOWS
Published: June 13, 2004
"WHEN the computer age began, some people warned that the rise of word-processing systems would mean the decline of skillful writing. The idea was that computers would make writing so automatic and easy - yeah, sure -that fine points of thought and language would be buffed away, leaving depersonalized, machinelike prose.
In retrospect, there was nothing to worry about. Books, articles and lectures are now as good, and bad, as they have ever been. One area that technology has obviously changed is personal communication, through e-mail and instant messaging. But there, its main effect has been positive, in reviving what had been the moribund idea that people, even teenagers, could stay in touch through written as well as spoken words.
The broader ways in which computers will change our modes of thought and interaction are hard to predict, so any early indicator is interesting. Electronic calculators, for instance, have already eliminated one ingredient from the traditional concept of being "smart." From the invention of arithmetic until about 1970, speed and accuracy in handling numbers were a mark of intellectual distinction. Now computational skill is a parlor trick because the most gifted human prodigy cannot keep up with the cheapest hand-held device.
A "sticky" mind, one that retains names and ideas and retrieves them on demand, has traditionally been a proxy for one kind of intelligence. But how long will that matter, as search engines grow faster and more precise? We'll know the change has come when a schoolchild with Google can knock off any "Jeopardy" champ.
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