1) As to Carr, I kind of think that he is wrong about the ultimate effects of browsing culture, if there is such a thing. To the extent that there is a change in the way we read, we might end up with more foxes than hedgehogs, but the movement toward increased knowledge and social specialization during the last couple centuries has had its downsides. Maybe we could use a few more browsing foxes. At least they’re better than TV zombies, right?

2) As to Anderson, I think the science of extracting patterns from large data sets will probably change plenty of things in interesting ways — mostly in the business sector. Mining very large data sets does produce some interesting new forms of insight, even if journalists (especially those from Wired) do use that as a springboard to make some silly claims. Machines cannot, by definition, be smarter than people, but it does make a catchy headline to claim that they will be.