An enjoyable read that touches on a number of interesting ideas, though the central argument about the 'algorithmic mind' seemed strained to me. My understandi

An enjoyable read that touches on a number of interesting ideas, though the central argument about the 'algorithmic mind' seemed strained to me. My understanding of the thesis is: a kind of evil often emerges unintentionally when humans habitually act without thinking (to be more specific, he's referring to Arendt's notion of "the banality of evil"). By over-practicing 'algorithmic thinking' we develop a tendency to consider all thought to be of the problem solving kind, missing out on the more important aspects of 'the life of the mind' ("thinking, willing, and judging"). I just can't really see that over exposure to problem solving would reduce, thinking, willing, or judging... The only justification given here is through an analogy the author gives, asking whether using Google can be considered 'outsourcing' human memory. He says: > "A moments reflection, of course, will reveal that human remembering involves considerably more than the mere retrieval of discreet bits of data." So by only using algorithmic thinking, we are collapsing the potentially much richer range of thought to something analogous to "the mere retrieval of discreet bits of data" for memory—more specifically, it's collapsed to mere problem solving. Seems weak to me. At the same time, I thought this part was nice, if not exactly systematically in support of the other things he was saying... > "I am circumspectly suggesting that the habits of the algorithmic mind are not altogether unlike the habits of the bureaucratic mind. (Adam Elkus makes a similar correlation here, but I think I’m aiming at a slightly different target.) Both are characterized by an unthinking automaticity, a narrowness of focus, and a refusal of responsibility that yields the superficiality or hollowness Conrad, Eliot, and Arendt all seem to be describing, each in their own way. And this superficiality or hollowness is too easily filled with mischief and cruelty."