In
a topic-driven, well-developed paragraph, SUMMARIZE Chapter “Ten: A
Thing like Me.” Clearly identify Carr’s thesis and supporting
arguments. Be specific. Use examples from the text in your
response.
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Peter Cote
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English 1003
13 Oct. 2015
Chapter 10 The Shallows Summary
Carr explains that computers are shaping the way people think by showing that the computer is humanlike in the way it calculates and stores information. Carr provides details showing that computers have an effect on the way people act and think: “we program computers and thereafter they program us.” (214) Carr explains that the human brain is affected by the computer more than people believe it does. Carr states, talking about the philosopher Nietzsche, “he also sensed that he was becoming a thing like it, that his typewriter was shaping his thoughts.” (209) Carr believes that technology has shaped the way people think and act. He believes that computers and other technology has not only changed our actions, but it has become something similar to actual people. An MIT graduate, Joseph Weizenbaum, talks about his invention called ELIZA, a program that talked to people on the computer, saying that he was surprised how many people “became emotionally involved with the computer.” (204-5) Carr shows that computers have become humanlike by the way they can now “talk” to people even though it has no thoughts. Computers have, in a way, replaced human interaction with other humans, becoming an alternate to being social with other people by allowing someone to have something to talk to that will never tell anyone else.
Hunter Hebert
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English 1003
13 October 2015
The Shallows Chapter 10 Summary
In Chapter 10, Carr discusses how as technology advances, it has seemingly taken on “human-like” abilities in how it analyzes, stores and shares information. Not only has this shaped the way our minds function, Carr argues, but it has also influenced our brains to believe in a relationship-type bond between us and our computers. Carr explains how “Our brains can imagine the mechanics and the benefits of using a new device before that device even exists.” (208). With this being said, this powerful ability to create can also succumb to the obsession we take in these advancements. In chapter 10, Carr specifically references Joseph Weizenbaum who created a program called ELIZA where the computer could interact with the user. Weizenbaum found that the people using the program “…became emotionally involved with the computer.” (204-5) despite the computer’s inability to truly have any form of interaction with the user. As previously discussed in Carr’s book, the advancement and heightened use of the computer and internet has altered our brain’s wires, so much so that it has tricked our minds into essentially having a conversation with ourselves, losing touch to the conversations of the real world.
Logan Radwanski
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English 1003
13 October 2015
Chapter Ten "A Thing Like Me" Summary
In “A Thing Like Me” Carr continues on about the development of technology mostly about computers in which he expands upon when computers get linguistic qualities. With the created of the ELIZA software program that will talk response to you, the popularity of it grew immensely as people found it easier to talk and because of that reaction the creator of the software was scared of these results. With our growing dependence on technology and the software programs that come along with them, Carr addresses this issue along with similar ideas from previous chapters such the rewiring of our circuits and the shortening of our attention spans are readdressed. “…software can end up turning the most intimate and personal of human activities into mindless ‘rituals’…” (218). For how much we use and depend on software to get messages along to others or just doing simple task such deep thing has affected us in ways we didn’t it would because we only see the good of them. Not realizing the shortening of our attention span, the trouble of remembering things for long or short periods of time, and the fact people are getting more comfort of talking to people via texting and other social medias than face to face. Even the software and other technologies come with great benefits we need to realize that “the brighter the software, the dimmer the user.” (216), with the affects they are having on us. But Carr concludes that maybe we are just evolving with technology into a state of “frenziedness” and just maybe we should just accept it.
Devante Wrenn
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English 1003
13 October 2015
Chapter 10 summary
In chapter ten Carr talks about a guy named Weizenbaum who is a highly intelligent person and dealt with mainly computers back in the 1960s. He thought of the computer as a human in a way. The question is can it think like one? He built a program called ELIZA that he tried to make like a human. It turned out that it came close but it lacked the emotion and memory and the expression of a human. But as we continue to use technology we start to lose what we are and technology start to become us. Technology can be dangerous because we have evolved it to do a lot of things and at one point we will just rely on it more than anything.
Aidan Bish
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SWU English 1003
13 October 2015
Thank Goodness It’s Over - A Summary
Technology is becoming deeply involved in our identities and how we view ourselves, and its important that we acknowledge its influence before we too are absorbed by it. The topic of Artificial Intelligence is introduced through the story of an early form, named ELIZA, who was programmed with language and grammar “knowledge” and whose responses were modeled after a Rogerian psychotherapist. Carr highlights the shock felt by its creator when people began considering the program to be essentially human, which leads into Carr’s own dismay that people associate human brains with computers and attempt to define our own thoughts and natures in technological and computer terms. He quotes Sam Anderson - granted, with a tone of disagreeance - saying “We may lose our capacity ‘to concentrate on a complex task from beginning to end,’ but in recompense we’ll gain new skills, such as the ability to conduct 34 conversations simultaneously across six different media.” Carr, here and in the surrounding text, cites several defenses of the state of mind that the Internet introduces. Overall, he retorts that in gaining these abilities, and in gaining any farther abilities of the same sort, we are losing the wisdom, contemplation, and thought that create our humanity.
Austin Bennett
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English 1003
13 October 2015
The End is (Finally) Nigh
In chapter 10 of The Shallows, Carr covers the topic of a conversational program called ELIZA, an early version of AI. The researcher who created it, Weizenbaum, noticed people becoming infatuated with the program, even though they knew it was a program. He observed that people seemed to want it to be human. Much like programs change us, tools such as hammers and binoculars can change us as well. The tools in our lives such as the internet, can shape the way we think, a point Carr is finally able to drive home.
Carter Groomes
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English 1003
13 October 2015
Summary Chapter 10
In The Shallows Chapter 10, Carr uses this Chapter as a “summary” of the book. He reflects on comments he has made throughout the book to surface around the idea of how the Internet blinds us to what it is doing to us. Basically, we do not need to be using the Internet blindly, and not know the possibilities of what could happen. Also, we must prepare ourselves to not let the Internet take over us. Because if/when it does it will eat you from the inside out and destroy you. It provides an example similar to one from the movie “Her”. It shows that soon everyone will have there own “OS” to help them with everything they do, in summary it takes away that persons personality and humanisms.
Gabrielle Tallman
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ENG 1003
13 October 2015
Chapter 10 summary
The tenth chapter of Carr's, "The Shallows", book is titled, "A Thing Like Me" mainly because of his claim that computers have human-like characteristics. Throughout the previous chapters, the author writes about technology and Artificial Intelligence, but in this chapter, he mentions real intelligence. Weizenbaum, a computer technologist from Massachusetts, created a program called ELIZA which became the, "national plaything." Were computers going to become psychologists? After all, people wanted ELIZA to have human qualities. It was a resource to so many that we eventually became extensions of our technologies. They shape our thoughts and have a numbing effect. We don't feel the most natural human feelings.
Kaylee Young
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English 1003
13 October 2015
Chapter Ten- Summary
In chapter ten, “A thing like me”, Carr focuses on the development and effects of Weizenbaum’s software invention, called ELIZA. Eliza was a conversational system where a person could type a sentence and ELIZA would use templates to respond. People treated ELIZA as a real person who they were drawn to, seduced to talk to. Carr quotes Weizenbaum which says, “is that extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people. (205).” This quote follows up on the belief that such simple advances in technology influence and change people neurological way of thinking. Society has grown accustomed to technology being an everyday, usual thing. According to Carr, “..we’ll begin to lose our humanness, to sacrifice the very qualities that separate us from machines (207).” Constantly applying ourselves to the world of machines is causing us to possess qualities of these machines.
Anna Newton
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English 1003
October 13, 2015
The Shallows: Chapter 10 Summary
In Chapter 10 of The Shallows, Carr argues that we are not only dependent on technology, but that it shapes us. Since technology is starting to have human-like characteristics, its affecting people and the way we think, especially as it keeps advancing. Carr states, “Our brains can imagine the mechanics and the benefits of using a new device before that device even exsist.” (208). Therefore, tools not only have an affect on us, but we have an affect on them. He uses the ELIZA software as an example of this. This program creates a talking connection between the computer and user, making the computer more “human-like.”
Breanna Roper
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English 1003
13 October 2015
Chapter 10 Summary
In chapter ten of Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows" Carr illustrates to his audience how the advancements in technology that continue to be made are in turn causing a large number of society to become attached to their devices. He describes how Joseph Weizenbaum, a scientist, created ELIZA, a software that basically allowed humans to converse with an artificially intelligent computer. In doing this, many people found themselves speaking intimately with the computer, previously knowing and still having knowledge of the fact that this is not a real person, nor does it have real feelings. Carr describes that, "There is no sleepy Hollow on the internet, no peaceful spot where contemplativeness can work its restorative magic. There is only the endless, mesmerizing buzz of the urban street" (220). The further we advance in technology, the more we become attached to it, to the point where we get the sensation that we are experiencing intimacy, or something romantic. This is, through Carr's views, endangering this generation.
Trevor Porter
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English 1003
October 13, 2015
Chapter 10 Summary
In chapter ten of Nicholas Carr's novel, "The Shallows", he shows examples of what technology has done to us and what it is doing to us. One particular example he uses is the ELIZA case. ELIZA was a computer program developed in the late 60s by Joseph Weisenbaum. She was developed to be a able to withhold a complex conversation with a real person, giving them the illusion of interaction. It quickly became a success and eventually people all over the world found use of ELIZA. It got to a point that Carr cites where he thinks it has gone too far, "... what shocked him was how quickly and deeply people using the software 'became emotionally involved with the computer,' talking to it as if it were an actual person." [205] This he thinks is ridiculous, and one of the main points of this book, people are becoming too attached to technology, and if we don't slow down, we could lose our interaction as humans completely.