Nicholas Carr: Superbloom or Social Doom? The Tech Rewiring of Our Minds and Humanity

What does it mean to stay fully human in the age of AI?

Host Curtis Chang sits down with Pulitzer Prize finalist and acclaimed technology critic Nicholas Carr to explore how AI, social media, and digital life are reshaping human attention, identity, education, and spiritual formation. Carr warns that technologies promising efficiency often erode the embodied presence, deep thinking, struggle, and meaningful friction that make us fully human. Together, Curtis and Nicholas uncover surprising common ground in the urgent work of preserving human dignity in the age of artificial intelligence.

00:37 – Introduction to Nicholas Carr and His work

03:52 – What Is Technology’s Social Impact

04:03 – Disembodied Communication and Negative Emotions

05:27 – What It Means to Be Truly Human

11:32 – Information vs. Formation

14:38 – Why Is AI So Unsettling?

18:54 – Stop Rushing the Adoption of AI in Education

22:02 – AI and the Erosion of the Self

25:08 – An Institutional Response to AI

27:36 – Forming the Next Generation

31:10 – Countercultural Imperatives for Leaders

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Mentioned in This Episode:

• Nicholas Carr’s The Atlantic article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”
• Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
• Nicholas Carr’s Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart
• Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation
• Vatican document on AI, Antiqua et Nova
• The Christian Scholars’ Conference at Pepperdine University

More From Nicholas Carr:

• Nicholas Carr’s website
• Nicholas Carr’s Substack: New Cartographies
• Nichoals Carr’s blog: Rough Type

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The Good Faith Podcast is a production of a 501(c)(3) nonpartisan organization that does not engage in any political campaign activity to support or oppose any candidate for public office. Any views and opinions expressed by any guests on this program are solely those of the individuals and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of Good Faith.