A.I. or artificial intelligence is on many people’s mind and lips recently. A.I. is a huge verbal umbrella the way “heath care” covers dieticians to brain surgeons and “educators” cover Marine drill sergeants to kindergarten teachers in the Bloomingdale School. “Artificial intelligence” may sounds to many scary, a threat, a take over of humanity. It’s not (Yet anyway. But perhaps we can have more natural common sense before all this artificial intelligence, but I digress). Sometimes very complicated problems seem to require super-duper science. Yes, but not always despite the problem being complexed and daunting. A.I. is not a panacea that will solve “all” problems. It only works (currently) in clearly circumscribed and limited venues.

Last night I showed my kid a simple algorithm (fancy shmancy word for “The Rules of the Game”) I came up with earlier for a simple robot (or human) to always find their way out of a maze. Just two rules gets you out from the start point: 1) once you enter make just left hand turns at any junction, other wise just follow the left wall. 2) Any spot you have passed by earlier, mark an “X” and never reenter (since this is the second time you passed this spot, never pass over it again). If you follow these two simple rules, you will find your way out of the maze and often much faster then by trial and error. No “A.I.” involved. Try it. It’s fun. PS: you can do right-hand turns instead if you don’t watch NASCAR; just stay consistent. Building a robot that does this (A great math /computer science project for middle school or high school) is super simple and easy. A few hours tops.

Do you remember seeing on a nature show the tight balls of fish swimming in the ocean and they seem to move with precision all together? How do they coordinate? Who is conducting such an intricate 3D ballet? No one. Just two simple rules: 1) Follow the fish in front of you. 2) Keep one fish length away (or whatever the distance is) from any fish in front, to the sides, above and below you. People in the army remember “dress right dress.” The same algorithm for the balls of flying birds we some time see in the sky. No A.I. needed. No “higher math.” No “self aware computer systems.” No “Skynet humanity killing” computer science.

If I could bring Albert Einstein back to life here and now (cue the transporter sound from the 1960s “Star Trek”) and he plays Tic-Toc-Toe with my kid they would most likely be draws every time (my kid is good at it). How is this possible? Einstein is the smartest guy to ever walk the Earth! Simple: The algorithm(s) are simple and A.I. would be of no advantage in this case. Tic Tac Toe, like A.I., lives and works in a very small universe. Each universe (either play chess, compete on a trivia show, guide a missile or car, etc.) is separate and cloistered. There is no “General A.I.” (yet … thank God …).

My point is when certain people in the media just mumbling about an “A.I. gap with China” or whoever, keep in mind A.I. is a very limited tool and works (for the time being) only in narrowly defined environments that are closed. The IBM computer that beat Ken Jennings some years ago can not tell me if the novel I wrote is crap or not. An A.I. set up that is good on a trivia game show will not help you pick a stock on the NASDEQ or tell you if the person you are dating is a “keeper” (That would have been a big help years ago … never mind … lets not go there …). So, in my opinion, A.I. works in narrowly defined situations like missile evasion guidance systems, face recognition, fingerprint matching, cancer cell detection, SETI, etc. The “A.I. Gap with China” is like the “Mine Shaft Gap with the Russians” in “Dr. Strangelove.” Take the “Gap” with a grain of salt.

Just some thoughts and … where is Major Kong??

(Ira Weinberg lives in Saranac Lake)