The Mother of Invention
I once sat on a plane at Phoenix airport waiting to return home at the end of a business trip. The pilot announced that our flight was delayed due to a problem with the flaps, a detail which qualified as TMI (i.e., “too much information”) judging from the anxiety it caused among the passengers. Those […]
A Random Walk with AI
My wife and I recently joined some of the last homeowners to contribute to the $11 billion robot vacuum industry. Since I am usually the one who does the vacuuming, I liked the idea of completing this chore with the simple push of a button. It was an exciting day when I took our new […]
For Those Who Think Machines Think They Can Think
Thinking has always been an ethereal thing. It is the most private of human activities, and while the expression “I know what you’re thinking” is part of the lingua culturae, it is a bold-faced lie. Notwithstanding crypto-keys and blockchains, the only truly protected storage place in the universe – at least for now – is […]
Turing the Country
When you call an 800 number for technical support these days, there are basically two probable scenarios. In the first, you get a guy with a heavy Indian accent who introduces himself as George, is annoyingly polite, and leads you through a canned flowchart of question-answer decision points that even a machine could manage. The […]
