Essays in Idleness

Perhaps I am not alone in thinking that what we now call artificial intelligence has been with us for a long time. My son pointed out that something that I’d flagged in “U-boob” was entirely “artificial” in this sense, and when I suggested in frustration that 95 percent of U-boobish content is unreal, he replied that soon it will be 95 percent of the Internet. I should mention that this son is well-versed in computer electronics, and not entirely naïve.

Very well: but how does this differ from pure “information”? There are people who would quantify this, as in “77.8 percent of statistical estimates are entirely made up,” but that’s what governments are for. They can report this with a straight face, and pass laws against the “disinformation’ and “misinformation” that denies it.

This perhaps is a new feature, begun slightly before the expansion of statistical agencies made it possible, for that majority of people who do not think, or who think that it is safer to obey as they did through the Wuhan Batflu. It is best, when the liberal authorities have come to a temporary conclusion, to keep one’s head down. I know that I, with the help of a stroke and hallucinogenic medication a few years ago, simply shut up.

But a question remains whether artificial intelligence is more destructive of general intelligence now than in the past. I was considering this while reading An History of the Earth & Animated Nature, by Oliver Goldsmith, one of my favourite books of reference.

From this I leant that in Lapland, the squirrels migrate from one location to another, unimpeded by broad rivers and lakes. When they encounter these, they retreat into the neighbouring forest, each for a piece of bark to waft them over. Thus they boldly commit, fanning the air with their tails. But while the banks are mostly tranquil, the broads may be more turbulent, and there is danger that the little squirrel navy may sink from a gust of wind.

This is good luck for the Laplanders, however, who eat squirrel flesh when it is washed ashore, and sell their skins for a shilling the dozen.