Hank, my grandson, and I were talking to Siri, this week. Hank asked her some good questions and a lot of non sense inquiries which she ducks like a politician. I left him with my IPad for a while and when I returned he wanted me to hear what he “taught SIRI”. “Siri what is my name?’ Hank asked. “Your name is Mike but you asked me to call you Hank.” To this day Siri still answers that question the way Hank instructed. Artificial intelligence has come a long way since the Indian philosophers of the Charvaka teachings dating back to 1500 BC. Lokayata as it is also known is the school of Indian materialism. Charvaka holds direct perception, empiricism and conditional inference as proper sources of knowledge. “Eat, drink and be merry for you have but one life to live” is one translated ancient quote. This fascination with machine thinking and artificial beings appear is Greek myths such as the golden robots of Hephaestus and continue on in today’s reality and science fiction. The idea of an artificial brain began in the late 1940s. Seems that neurons in the brain fire on a series of on and off pulses and Alan Turing’s theory of computation was digitally based. Access to the digital computer was the precursor to so many advancements, at a 1956 Dartmouth conference AI gained its name, its mission, its first success, and its early leaders. That meeting is considered the birth of AI. Ask Siri who invented her and she will tell you “like it says on the box, I was designed by Apple in California.” Ask Siri how old she is and first she says “45,000 years in the Ninth Dimension” and next “I don’t know what difference that makes.” What a special friend that will patiently answer any question with a bit of attitude and humor.
Siri has an IQ of 23.9 a bit less than half of Google’s AI at 55.5. There is an annual contest that measures questions answered correctly and ability to understand the query on a year over year basis on the same 800 inquiries. Google’s virtual assistant wins in both categories. As amazing as the progress has been in developing a thinking machine, the average IQ of an 18 year old human is just below 100. At least for now, the human mind remains the ultimate in earthly intelligence. I am concerned that we will start letting our brains atrophy as artificial intelligence continues to progress. At a conference this week entitled the Age of Agility, we were reminded about the rapid changes over the past 50 years and those that we can anticipate heading our way. The jobs of tomorrow will require higher skill levels, in fact at the mid level of skill range in today’s market nearly 19% of available jobs are not filled due to a lack of training. The number one job category in 24 states today is truck driver. OTTO, a fully automated 18 wheeler, delivered the first commercial load from Denver to Colorado Springs, fitting, it was a load of beer. I am guessing there are many long haul drivers who need to begin upgrading their skills for the next wave of automation.
We have friends who live in New Bern, now being devastated by Hurricane Florence. Hopefully, we can put all of our combined efforts toward helping those who lives are being altered by this “great storm.”
Mike