Some people would love more processing power, some people would love to remember things more accurately and simply be able to store more details of events over longer periods of times. Some people would just love better working memory.
I for one always imagined I would be one of those people that could finally get one of those clearly indexed memories that other people seem to possess - that I will finally remember the titles and authors of the books I read, of the movies I see, of the songs I hear, and be able to quote previous research without having to look it up.
Tape-recorder memory, who says its bad? I say bring it on and let me try it!
Except there might be a big price to pay, bigger than having your nose bleed like Johnny Mnemonic after saying Hit me! (gosh I would love to say that just before they load some AI and Cog Sci Encyclopedia in my brain).
This price might be something quite essential to our human version of cognition, version which we still seem to appreciate more than that of computers, at least at the moment. It might be creativity, and out-of-the-box problem-solving.
It might very well be that what makes us tick and go outside our own knowledge is this very fuzzy version of memory that we have (and blame so much most of the time).
Human memory is many times a process of reconstruction. Yet we might proceed to this reconstruction without actually having all the pieces. We might start from some reference points which we have memorized, then apply our commonsense knowledge to fill in the details. In this process, memories become altered (and yup, it has some disadvantages concerning eye-witness testimony).
But other than that it is great! It allows us to mix knowledge from different times. Instead of sticking to the fact and reciting them back and forth, it allows us to build new types of knowledge and memories, new relations. Some of our great mental leaps or inferences might come from having to fill in some missing detail in a fuzzy memory, running a search across present knowledge, finding a match and then adding this match to the previous knowledge, thus constructing a new piece of knowledge through this process of memory reconstruction.
Without fuzzy memories, this would not be possible. Previous details would not fade away, with the possibility of being replaced by other more accurate or new knowledge, in a way which yields new relationships, inferences and moments of insight.
So think again before getting that memory chip, your inability to remember might make you the smart unique constantly self-upgrading intelligence that you are!