[I yield to Mr. Nature–just too worn-out to cover any more news today.]
Jambo, Mr. Nature here, with more of God’s stuff for you to enjoy.
Here we have an octopus who takes advantage of low tide to creep out of the water and crawl around the land, hunting tasty crabs. These are intelligent and versatile animals, and we’re still a ways from knowing what they’re capable of doing. I heard of an octopus playing Strat-O-Matic baseball, but I’m not inclined to believe it.
So what are you gonna be when you grow up–if you ever do grow up, and don’t just stay in collidge pounding Play-Doh for the rest of your life?
Well, hey-hey! Become a robot psychologist! That would be someone who tries to understand what computers and other “Artificial Intelligences” are thinking, presuming they think at all (https://www.wsj.com/articles/career-of-the-future-robot-psychologist-1499605203).
The Wall Street Journal reports that engineers designing AI seem to be losing their handle on it. Could it be that no one remembers that “Artificial Intelligence” is only a simulation of intelligence, and not the real thing? You know–like Strat-O-Matic is a nice simulation of baseball, minus the pine tar. But it’s not really baseball. You should be able to figure that out when Babe Ruth comes up to bat.
From the outside looking in, it looks like computers even now are not as good as they used to be. Can an Artificial Intelligence go mad? Or will it only simulate madness? And just how badly do we want these machines, these robots, driving our cars and prescribing medical treatments for us?
But that’s the price you pay if you want man to be the Creator instead of God.
Don’t worry–it’s not about cats lying, running for public office and then betraying the cats who voted for them. Cats will never learn to imitate the finer points of fallen humanity.
But they can imitate certain things they see us do. My cat Henry used to try to horn in when I was playing Strat-O-Matic Baseball; but his idea of the game was to flip the little plastic men to the floor and bat them under the bookcase, and I couldn’t have that. You should have heard the back-talk he’d give me.
Anyway, let’s unwind. Join me in enjoying these cats.