Google at 20: How a Search Engine Became a Literal Extension of Our Minds

The world's largest search engine and its related services are eroding mental privacy and our ability to think freely

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We are losing our minds to Google. After 20 years, Google’s products have become integrated into our everyday lives, altering the very structure of our cognitive architecture, and our minds have expanded out into cyberspace as a consequence.

This is not science fiction, but an implication of what’s known as the “extended mind thesis,” a widely accepted view in philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience.