Intelligence in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
Let’s start with the obvious. When human beings outsource any physical or cognitive function to other people or to machines, that function may atrophy within themselves. New functions may open up, but at a price. Is the price worth paying? Maybe it is; but let us be aware of the bargain we are entering.
The invention of cooking led to a decrease in the size and strength of the human jaw muscles. Clothing and indoor heating led to a reduction in physical hardihood. In pre-literate cultures, feats of memory that would astound us today were commonplace. People could hear a long story or epic poem once and repeat it verbatim, an ability that became rare when we outsourced memory to the written word.
You may have noticed that when you use GPS for every trip, not only do you not learn how to navigate your area, but you lose some of the general ability to learn any area. The sense of direction, the sense of place, and the ability to remember a sequence of landmarks atrophies.
However, matters are not so simple as a progressive degradation of intelligence as we outsource it to technology. As the example of the written word suggests, the transfer of cognitive functions to external media can unlock new realms of intellectual development and expression, as well as new forms of social organization and new psychologies.
