ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
This morning a notification popped up on my iPad as I was sitting here typing. It was a reminder that I have a doctor’s appointment at 10:30 and that I need to leave my house by 8:15 to get there on time. My assumption is that someone or something thinks that I am going by public transportation and knows when the buses run and what connections I have to make to get there on time (I don’t). If it (she, he) thought that I was driving the time of departure would be later and I would probably get a traffic report.
All of this is because I put the name and address of the appointment into my calendar. But who is it that is reading my calendar every day and deciding what I need to be reminded of and what I don’t?
Months ago, immediately after I received an email from United Airlines confirming my flight reservation from Asheville to Paris in a January, the information was entered into my calendar with the times and flight numbers. And periodically I receive notifications reminding me of my flight. Who is reading my email and entering information from my email into my calendar and then remembering to remind me every week or so? To know when my flight reservation are, whoever it is has to be reading all of my other email to see if there is anything else that I need to be reminded of.
And if whoever it is who is reading all my email and deciding what I need to be informed and reminded about, who else do they think needs to be informed about what is in my email and what do they think is of interest to whoever that other person is.
I got a response to a post I wrote about artificial intelligence a few days ago from Don Collins, a Friday old man’s club friend, who insists that computers can’t think. I know these reminders are a result of artificial intelligence making these decisions. But it sure sounds like low level thinking to me, just like anyone else who reminds me in my old age what I should do. And whoever he (it) is informing about my activities (if it is) is probably able to think, and scheme, pretty well.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 