JOHAN STEYN: AI is only starting out and yet to reach puberty
“What kind of work does your dad do?” My son had a few friends over and I was listening with interest to them with one ear while trying to focus on a Zoom call with the other. “He fixes computers.” I had to smile. How do you explain artificial intelligence (AI) and intelligent automation to a seven-year-old?
The next morning my son asked: “Daddy, are computers smarter than us?” We were getting ready for school and he tried to make “butterfly wings” while tying his shoelaces. What a question. Well, I thought, while tying his laces hundreds of millions of impulses were streaming in and out of his brain, from tendon bodies and muscle spindles in his extremities to his retina, otolithic organs, and semicircular channels in his head...
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