For a change

the Spy will do a "normal" (sic) and less long winded column despite the date on the calendar--sporting only the usual random observations, and a few extended thoughts on common themes. He's not in the mood for fool-ishness.

Intelligence--of various kinds and degrees:

In general terms the Spy sides with Roger Penrose ("The Emperor's New Mind") on the subject of AI ever becoming a straight out equivalent-part replacement for the human mind--the former resides on a finite state machine, the latter probably isn't. There are straightforward and easily proven theorems (equivalent to Gödel's) first that the halting problem is undecidable, and second that there are uncountably infinitely many partial functions a FSM cannot compute. Human minds can entertain and enjoy paradoxes (does the list of all lists that do not list themselves include itself in its list?) but a computational device would have to have a special program to try to recognize such and reject trying to deal with them, else lock up and loop forever in a sea of unlogic.

The two greatest failings of the large language models of AI available thus far are (1) they are trained on a vast library of scanned books, many of them copyrighted, without the AI designers asking authors' permission or even giving notification, thus depriving said writers of the proceeds due them for said commercial use of their creations, and (2) when queried about a subject where AIs lack data, they fabricate it, thus in the end spouting nonsensical falsehoods, albeit quite elegantly phrased. Such eloquent vacuousness has become all too common in papers handed in by students, a situation glaringly illustrated when they prove they cannot write a single error-free sentence on an exam.

Wait. In thereby emulating the worst (and progressively getting worse) politicians are they indirectly demonstrating they do possess a rudimentary intelligence of sorts, or are they convincingly proving the converse--that the humans so imitated lack any? Then again, perhaps it is P.T. Barnum (there's a sucker born every minute) who is the canonical human being artificially imitated.

(Aside) Another old saying goes "Bad money drives out good." This sentiment has wide applicability and adaptability, for lies drive out truth; bad politics drives out good, bad people drive out (or simply execute--see bandit Putin, his ilk, and his admirers) the good ones, false religion replaces true, and badly enough conducted democracy inevitably hands its reins to brutal dictatorship (where the politicians of both right and left figuratively shake hands on tactics backstage). Western Civilization now hangs by a slender thread and far too many people, emboldened by the oft repeated lies of self-professed putative dictators, are ready, eager, and able to sever that thread to promote their own egos. The Spy begins to wonder if mutual admirers Putin and Trump would ally to invade and partition Canada between them. After all, people of Ukranian descent are among our larger people groups here in the frozen North. OTOH, this country has been so dreadfully mismanaged (though not as badly as those two messed up nations) that it might be deemed sufficiently irrelevant in today's world scene and scheme as to be not worth conquering and subjugating. OTGH, autocrats know no limit to arrogance, falsehoods, ambition, and the lust for power. Nothing they do need make sense to anyone but themselves and their sycophants.

So...will we ever have to worry about AI taking over from human beings? The Spy thinks not. (If Descartes were to have said "je ne pense pas"--the original was not in Latin--would he have disappeared? Popeye was more pragmatic: "I yam what I yam.") One thing that gets forgotten in such a debate is that humanity is not, despite its collective hubris, in charge of Earth, much less of the unfolding of time and the universe. God is. Perhaps he will evict us from his lodging house over our destructive mismanagement of his property, but that is a separate matter.

OTOH, will humanity have one day to legally recognize AI as having "human" rights? In the Spy's ethics text, one exercise question asks whether turning off the power to one's home butler AI would be regarded as murder, or conversely, if the house decided to kill its humans to avoid such a termination, would it be self-defence, or could it be charged with murder, and if convicted, would the death sentence apply? Interesting questions to ponder.

A more likely scenario, also previously (decades ago) explored here and in the Spy's ethics text, is human augmentation. It might be interesting and useful to have a calculator implant chip for fast and accurate internal computation--even a built-in SmartPhone (or some components thereof)...a transhumanish brain and communications supplement. Just an (unaugmented) thought. 'Course, brain hackers and despots would have a field day.

Some good old low tech

continues to produce solid results. The Spy ordered a few minor maintenance parts for his old workhorse walk-behind BCS 725 garden tractor this morning. That's the machine that in its forty-fifth year blew its Acme engine which the Spy replaced with a European bolt-pattern Kohler model a couple of years ago (an interesting five hour project, BTW--if you have the tools). What a difference. Half the gas does twice the tilling work; it's easy to start; it runs far quieter; and it delivers about fifty percent more active power to the drive chain. Many thanks to Earth Tools of Owenton, KY for their continued and superior support of these ostensibly obsolete machines through the decades. Why is not the same true of electronics, computers, network gear, file formats (cannot even read the old stuff; keep paper copies), or programming languages?

'Course, folks down yonder in Kentuck would no doubt be a little bemused that first planting of early peas will be today, and the planters will need to dress warmly, as early morning temperatures hover around three degrees Celsius outside our igloos--even though the Spy lives minutes from the border with their U.S. of Angst.

And, he would be remiss if he did not again mention his continuing approval of his two-year-old Subaru Ascent SUV. That's three solid cars in succession from the company, which puts to shame his previous sad record with manufacturing defects that used to be routinely delivered by the old-style North American manufacturers. With those cars, the Spy averaged two pages of factory defects in the first month of new ownership, and the rule of thumb was "never buy a North American car made on a Monday or a Friday". With Subarus, he has yet to find one such defect himself, and there have been pleasingly few and all minor manufacturer recalls.

Returning to higher tech,

The Spy's home network, as reported here the last two months, has mostly completed its considerable refurbishment. The interim setup with the new and more high end router combined with the old one now become merely an access point, is far more stable than before, and will do until WI-FI-7 access points become available. However, yesterday's family dinner and the extra load on the wireless net still resulted in some of his own security devices being kicked off the system to accommodate their phones. Bummer. Have to manually reconnect them.

Apple has its new troubles

and not merely because uptake of iPhone replacements is slow due to China's retaliation on trade, and Apple's own enduring quality and relatively minor improvements in a somewhat mature market (though we are not close to having the Spy's 1980s hypothesized PIEA device yet), but also because the U.S. government in its infinite wisdom and entire lack of expertise has now decided to file an antitrust suit to force Apple to abandon its secure store-only rules and open its app garden to plants of all sorts, thus be required to offer to the weeds a government fertilized takeover. Yes, OTOH the Spy is an old hand at breaking things like futile copy protection (for demonstration purposes only), but OTOH he appreciates the (relative) security and reliability of Apple's closed phone ecosystem. Opening it up to all and sundry will simply cause bad actor apps to drive out the good ones.

Well,

the garden beckoning, the marking to do, a thesis to read, lesson plans and exams needing creation, the semester-end beckoning, a book requiring publishing, a conference paper on mythopoeia to write, a vacation wanting planning, and family relationships to enjoy (wow! two oldest granddaughters baptized on Easter Sunday), the Spy bids a prankless adieu until we march April to the merry merry month of May.

--The Northern Spy

Opinions expressed here are entirely the author's own, and no endorsement is implied by any community or organization to which he may be attached. Rick Sutcliffe, (a.k.a. The Northern Spy) is professor of Computing Science and Mathematics and Assistant Dean of Science at Canada's Trinity Western University. He completed his fifty-third year as a high school and university teacher in 2023. He has been involved as a member of or consultant with the boards of several organizations, and participated in developing industry standards at the national and international level. He was co-author of the now defunct Modula-2 programming language R10 dialect project. He is a long time technology author and has written two textbooks and ten alternate history SF novels, one named best ePublished SF novel for 2003. His various columns have appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers (dead tree and online formats) since the early 1980s, and he's been a regular participant and speaker at churches, schools, and academic meetings and conferences. He and his wife Joyce celebrated their fiftieth anniversary in 2019 and lived in the Langley/Aldergrove/Bradner area of B.C. from 1969 to 2021 and cancer, where he latterly continues alone, depending heavily on family and friends to manage.

URL s for Rick Sutcliffe's Arjay Enterprises:

The Northern Spy Home Page: https://www.TheNorthernSpy.com

opundo : https://opundo.com

Sheaves Christian Resources : https://sheaves.org

WebNameHost : https://www.WebNameHost.net

WebNameSource : https://www.WebNameSource.net

nameman : https://nameman.net

General URLs for Rick Sutcliffe's Books:

Author Site: https://www.arjay.ca

TechEthics Site (Fourth edition of text; the fifth is in preparation) : httpss://www.arjaybooks.com/EthTech/index.htm

Publisher's Site: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Richard-Sutcliffe.html

Specifically Cited here:

Earth Tools: https://www.earthtools.com/