iGod

iGod

Nicholas Carr writes an article about a very real fear of the American people and people around the world. To get a grasp on what this question, one needs to look on the next to last page of the article where Carr adds a list of multiple questions. The questions involve the future of technology and artificial intelligence. Questions like: “Will it alter the way we conceive ourselves and our relationship to the world?” Thoughts like this swirl around the population which create fear among the population, which makes improving technology tougher. Even though artificial intelligence is a tough topic to wrap your head around, Carr adds analogies and other stories to help the reader better understand it. An example of this is when he talks about the supercomputer off of 2001: A Space Odyssey. He uses the mishaps of that supercomputer and ensure that something like that wouldn’t happen in today’s world. All of this helps the reader understand what scientists’ end goal may be, and provide some sort of comfort to the less intelligent. He references books like “The Religion of Technology,” and “Machines Who Think,” to help build his article’s credibility. Even to someone who knows nothing about the topic, titles like that make iGod seem more reputable. So, he appeals to pathos by creating understandable references, and he appeals to ethos by referencing relevant articles, but how does he appeal to logos? With a topic like the future of technology, just the material itself can appeal to logos. Consumers that aren’t well versed in the topic may read this and not understand, or be scared, but the combination of ethos and pathos help form an appeal to logos. They do this by making the article more human-like, which provides it with some logic. Carr writes later in the article about the computers and how they aren’t as dangerous as some people may think, which helps the appeal to logos. Saying things like, “Computers have been getting better and better at providing answers- but only to questions that programmers are able to ask.” This single quote both documents the progression of technology, but also helps lessen the fear of the reader.