Nicholas Carr's article, "Is Google Making Us Stupider", explores many notions that I have toyed with in the company of my Tech-Savvy friends; his reference to HAL, the creepy AI, being all too prudent.  Maybe I am of a generation too young to notice the mental shift that Carr cites among many including himself, but I am of the opinion that technology is merely an aid to our imperfection.  Of course this ease of access to information will cause our thought process to change, but as the author notes, so too did written language and the printing press.  So what's wrong with accepting that our imperfect, ever-changing brains can be the beneficiaries of a "more perfect" system?  After all, humans have striven for perfection since we first came to understand our own shortcomings.  I see this ability to quickly gather and analyze information as by far one of the greatest achievements of the net, though it is scary to think that WE are the anomaly in the system.