When you hear stories like these, it becomes obvious that innovations for the more privileged, like Google Glass and automated cars are, for the moment, just toys. There are countless underserved regions and peoples still not benefiting from more basic innovations. As the rest of the planet continues to gain Internet access, things will improve, but for all the money Google is investing in the developing world, the company is not powerful enough to be the world's custodian, a point skirted by Schmidt during the audience Q&A when a grey-haired academic asked: Is access to technology actually making us stupider?

"We can't disagree over facts," Schmidt said, reasoning that access to those facts, being reproducible and proven, will help us all.

Facts are essential to a free and informed society, but when every answer is but a touch or click away, the cultural argument is, 'How could it not foster a generation and culture of laziness?' There's a back and forth debate in tech circles whether the Internet makes our lives easier, and the use of search engines like Google are at the heart of the question. So polarizing are views that people can't even agree on the state of innovation. Some say information overload is in fact complicating our lives, while others champion the wealth of knowledge online; though Cohen and Schmidt did not touch on such topics during their talk.