I get the value proposition of Google Search, just like I get the value proposition of Velcro shoes and microwave dinners. The problem is not with the face value of these technologies, but with their assumptions and implications. In spite of Silicon Valley rhetoric, these technologies do not empower and liberate their users but make them dependent on them. The more you outsource your thinking to algorithms, the more vulnerable you are to being controlled by them.
Haha, if my mother needs to navigate to a URL, she opens Google, types the URL there, then clicks the topmost result (not kidding ;-)
I completely agree that we are on a slippery slope when it comes to technology that tries to be so smart that we don't have to think for ourselves anymore. I sincerely fear for the future of society if I see how easily people are already influenced and cognitively limited by their dependence on technology. We are turning into a society where expending effort to learn and understand things has to come from purely intrinsic motivation, which means a very significant cross-section of society will never acquire basic skills and intelligence we've taken for granted for ages. Imagine the day there will be no Google to help them out, for whatever reason...
Edit: One analogy that comes to mind, which is sort of a pet peeve of mine and is (IMO) side-ways related to the perils of making things 'too convenient' for people, is giving people 'too many options' to choose. I see a parallel between giving people 'choice and options', and 'making things convenient' by removing the need to think for yourself. Everybody agrees that choice is good, and everybody likes convenience. But if you treat these almost as religion, you get 1001 kinds of toilet paper which are probably all shitty (pun intended), instead of three choices that are actually different. The same goes for convenience. Too much convenience will have unintended side-effects.
