As people rely more and more on technology to solve problem, the ability of humans to think for themselves will surely deteriorate.
Discuss the extent to which you agree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true and explain how these considerations shape your position.
The advance of technology, especially since the First Industrial Revolution, certainly has obviated much human labour. Nowadays, fabrics are woven by machines, corps are harvested by reapers, and long-distance travels are facilitated by modern vehicles powered by fossil fuel. All these things had to be done with enormous human labour before the 19th century. Some say that machines has triumphed in ousting human beings, or, as Marx remarked, men are now appendages of machines. My opinion is that although the above view is possibly true to a rather large extent in case of physical labour, it is most positively false with regard to mental labour, thinking. Therefore, it is unreasonable to maintain that as people’s depedence on technology increases, their ability to think would deteriorate, whose implicit rationale is that men’s intelligence would degrade if they did not use the faculty so much, which was made possible by technology.
My first attack on this rationale is simply that it is not possible for machine to replace human in thinking. Surely, the advance of technology obviates some mental work, shopkeepers use calculators to work out the bills, scientists use sophisticated computer programs to facilitate their research, etc. However, there is a key feature of this kind of labour, its lack of genuine creativity, as the only thinking a machine can do, if we can use the word ‘thinking’ at all, is excuting some codes, which are 1-and-0 in essence and are written by human beings, to yield a definite set of results when a certain set of legit variables is input; it is not capable of thinking creatively, say like a novelist does when he/she is writing a novel out of his/her experiences. Therefore, while it is true that technology has freed us from some tedious and ‘mechanical’ mental work, technology has not made it unnecessary for us to think but left us with the more challenging mental labour, creative thinking. The enormous time that shopkeepers in the past had to spend on calculating the tally may now be significantly shorten with the use of calculator, and the saved time might be spent on thinking like how to provide more attentive services to customers; the daunting algebraic and arithmetic calculations that would take an ancient astronomist weeks to finish may now be done within seconds by a computer, and the saved time might be used by a modern astronomist to devise better models of celestial bodies, which requires tremendous creative thinking. So with the advance of technology, as machines taking on more and more the stultifying mental wrok and humans having larger proportions of time to do the creative work, which is more demanding, the result should be contrary to the issue: our ability to think should increase instead of decrease.
Some may argue that the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), which now seems looming, computers will supplant humans even in creative thinking. I should admit this is a possibility that might turn true. Nonetheless, I highly doubt computers may do all the creative work for humans. One day, I imagine, an AI could become a urban planner possibly better than all humans in solving the problem of traffic jam. I cannot conceive a day when an AI could ponder upon questions concering the existence of God, the meaning of human life, etc, as these questions, according to my belief at least, have no correct answers but are matters of faiths. It is simply inconceivable that a computer can solve a question that has no correct answer. Therefore, philosophical thinking should be the impregnable bastion that human brains may hold.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-01-22 | pranav_kanth | 50 | view |
| 2020-01-17 | sefeliz | 58 | view |
| 2020-01-12 | shuocurity | 66 | view |
| 2020-01-05 | Mridul | 66 | view |
| 2019-12-31 | chrissyready | 66 | view |
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 10, Rule ID: MASS_AGREEMENT[2]
Message: Possible agreement error - use third-person verb forms for singular and mass nouns: 'argues'.
Suggestion: argues
...crease instead of decrease. Some may argue that the advent of artificial intellige...
^^^^^
Line 5, column 323, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
... One day, I imagine, an AI could become a urban planner possibly better than all ...
^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, however, if, may, nonetheless, second, so, therefore, while, at least, kind of, it is true, with regard to
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 31.0 19.5258426966 159% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 22.0 12.4196629213 177% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 14.8657303371 74% => OK
Relative clauses : 22.0 11.3162921348 194% => OK
Pronoun: 45.0 33.0505617978 136% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 77.0 58.6224719101 131% => OK
Nominalization: 12.0 12.9106741573 93% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 3056.0 2235.4752809 137% => OK
No of words: 599.0 442.535393258 135% => OK
Chars per words: 5.10183639399 5.05705443957 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.94716853372 4.55969084622 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.99758125019 2.79657885939 107% => OK
Unique words: 309.0 215.323595506 144% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.515859766277 0.4932671777 105% => OK
syllable_count: 969.3 704.065955056 138% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59117977528 101% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 12.0 6.24550561798 192% => OK
Article: 7.0 4.99550561798 140% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 3.10617977528 193% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.77640449438 169% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.38483146067 68% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 20.2370786517 94% => OK
Sentence length: 31.0 23.0359550562 135% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively long.
Sentence length SD: 129.417916959 60.3974514979 214% => The lengths of sentences changed so frequently.
Chars per sentence: 160.842105263 118.986275619 135% => OK
Words per sentence: 31.5263157895 23.4991977007 134% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.21052631579 5.21951772744 119% => OK
Paragraphs: 3.0 4.97078651685 60% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 2.0 7.80617977528 26% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 14.0 10.2758426966 136% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 2.0 5.13820224719 39% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.83258426966 62% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.188791762192 0.243740707755 77% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.054452594879 0.0831039109588 66% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0429305416007 0.0758088955206 57% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.119455035915 0.150359130593 79% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.032703728468 0.0667264976115 49% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 18.4 14.1392134831 130% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 40.01 48.8420337079 82% => OK
smog_index: 11.2 7.92365168539 141% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 15.4 12.1743820225 126% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.89 12.1639044944 106% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.34 8.38706741573 111% => OK
difficult_words: 158.0 100.480337079 157% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 11.8971910112 92% => OK
gunning_fog: 14.4 11.2143820225 128% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.7820224719 93% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Minimum four paragraphs wanted.
Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.