We all know that scientists have been working on artificial intelligence for 30 years now. It's old news. But news clips have been reporting that progress in the field has made great strides and have shown robots that greet you and carry on a simple question and answer exchange. The military has demonstrated its own success with drones (primitive, but first-step AI) in both a battle and surveillance mode. They run remotely and are controlled to a certain degree, but they also can think for themselves when taking camera shots or adjusting missile ranges and margins of error, or make recommendations to fine-tune any commands they think aren't entirely accurate.
Everyone knows that the day is coming when machines will think for themselves. And we know we will get there step by step. So when Apple held its news conference two days ago, step one for the commercial use of very early AI was seen. My goodness, now the apps on a phone can communicate with each other. Apple called it a "kit." They had two that they announced. The home kit takes a voice command, "I am going to sleep for the night," and turns off the lights in the house or turns off the ones you want off and leaves on the ones you want on. It also adjusts the thermostat, sets the coffee pot to turn on at a particular time in the morning, sets alarms, turns on night lights in halls and/or bathrooms, and activates the alarm system, shuts off or changes the setting of ceiling fans, and about anything else that is electronic in nature. That is all coordinated by a voice command.
Oh, it will get increasingly more sophisticated from here, but this is an impressive first step. I wonder what a person would have had to know to make this kit come together. You would have to know how devices communicate with each other. You would have to know how to bundle them. In old computer terms you would say you have to know how to make the information into a macro. You would have to tie the macro to oral language. You would have to know how to parse speech into the particular syllables that spark the catalyst for the macro to cause all the settings, adjustments, and activations to take place. In other words, you would have to know how technology works, how code works, how algorithms work, how spoken language is keyed to electronic signals, etc.
Would a student in an average school today even understand the first thing about the concept of a kit? They would be reading stories and adding, doing a little averaging, working with fractions, writing an essay or two. Ha! They would know how to work in a job for the 1980s well enough. Can anyone see that the syntax of coding has replaced stories and essays, that sets and algorithm use have displaced averaging and fractions, that the dreaded science fair project is really the kind of logic one needs to have as a rule, not as a project so uninteresting that kids won't do it and their parents try to help them save face? Tell me how important the facts of Westward Expansion are or the Treaty of Versailles in a world where the boundaries of space are pushed outside of our solar system and instant communication happens between people 24/7? The cell phone is a major tool so the apps and now the kits that control a person's environment seem a little more important than learning how a speech course, for example, painfully and slowly reviews the rudiments of face-to-face interaction for occasions that might not even exist in about another quarter-century.
If Apple's announcement didn't get the attention of those in charge of children's learning, then truly they are dinosaurs seeing the meteor streaking across the atmosphere within seconds of wiping them out never to return as one of Earth's life forms again. I trust there are those out there who understand adaptation and make some bold moves. The world is not in books. It's in real time. We'll get more of the past if we continue to prepare people by studying it and filling the ranks with those who know it. 3D copiers, 3D imaging, holographic transmission and viewing are already in use. Tablets (the electronic kind) for two-year-olds contain cameras for pictures and software to photoshop them. That's the new child's play.
Holy Mackerel!!! The Earth has gone around the sun 900 times already since the Medieval Ages, 238 times since the Yankees and Red Coats fought, 70 times since World War II, and even 34 times since the advent of the personal computer in commercial markets.
Again Brontosaurus. Just saying...
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