I don’t think computational tools make us less reflective. ![]() Thanks to computers we are modeling all sorts of new information and accomplishing feats that humans could never do on their own, like mapping the genome or space travel. This is why we have designed computers, so they can do the grunt work for us and allow us to be reflective about the bigger ideas that computers can’t tackle like “what are the implications of these numbers and comparisons on our citizens, trade, economy, etc.” A human, though, finding this information and then computing it would take considerably longer. ![]() It even allows to look at the source information for its data, which as a librarian I see as very important. For example, it is able to find the GDP of China and the US from public data and then compare them side by side giving us numbers, graphs, and charts. The same is true for a tool like Wolfram Alpha. A calculator simply does these computations better and quicker than us. We do not question a calculator when it tells us 31*14=434. I am all for people being thoughtful and reflective and I agree that there may be less of that these days, unfortunately.īut saying this tool is an intellectual travesty is like saying calculators are intellectual travesties. Wolfram Alpha is a big mistake from the start. It led to disaster and it will lead to disaster again unless we can learn from it. It is ironic that it’s coming out now, at a time when the financial system is in tatters because a similar breed of quantitative ideologues (bankers) played with numbers while ignoring the reality behind them. If Wolfram Alpha became “better” to the point that it began to be relied upon for actual practical purposes, the result would be dangerous to society, culture, the environment, and the human soul. It is incredibly irresponsible and a symptom of a disease, a disease of non-thought and non-reflection. The idea of jumping from concepts to numbers without any attention to how the numbers are produced and how they can or can’t be compared is simply anti-intellectual. I will write about this later, but I will just note this for the moment: Wolfram Alpha is not just not ready for prime time.
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