The following afternoon, Mr Blottisham entered the Senior Common Room carrying an unusually thick magazine.
"I've been reading about artificial intelligence."
Professor Quillibrace looked cautiously optimistic.
"And?"
"It says that future systems may become a thousand times more intelligent than humans."
"I see."
Blottisham looked impressed.
"That sounds rather a lot."
"It does."
"I wondered what life would be like."
Professor Quillibrace closed his book.
"So did I."
Miss Stray looked curious.
"What did you imagine?"
Blottisham smiled.
"I imagined everything becoming..."
He searched for the word.
"...better."
Professor Quillibrace waited.
"In what sense?"
"Oh..."
Blottisham hesitated.
"...generally."
There was a brief silence.
Finally Quillibrace asked,
"Have you ever driven a motor car?"
"Certainly."
"Would you like one with twice the horsepower?"
"Probably."
"And one with ten times the horsepower?"
Blottisham considered.
"That sounds exciting."
"And one hundred times?"
"I might begin to worry."
Miss Stray smiled.
"Why?"
"Because..."
Blottisham thought for a moment.
"...there comes a point where the rest of the car becomes the problem."
Professor Quillibrace nodded.
"Precisely."
"The tyres."
"Yes."
"The brakes."
"Indeed."
"The steering."
"Quite."
"My reactions."
"Exactly."
Blottisham frowned.
"So the engine stops being the bottleneck."
Professor Quillibrace looked pleased.
"You continue to make disturbing progress."
Miss Stray leaned forward.
"Perhaps intelligence is similar."
"In what way?"
"Perhaps intelligence is only one component of a much larger system."
Professor Quillibrace nodded.
"A scientist may have extraordinary intelligence."
"Certainly."
"But only twenty-four hours in a day."
"Unfortunately."
"Only one laboratory."
"Usually."
"Only finite funding."
"Increasingly."
"And only the knowledge available at the time."
"Precisely."
Blottisham looked thoughtful.
"So if Newton had been twice as intelligent..."
"He would still have lived in the seventeenth century."
"Einstein?"
"The twentieth."
"Archimedes?"
"The third century BC."
"So greater intelligence wouldn't magically provide telescopes..."
"No."
"...particle accelerators..."
"No."
"...or computers."
"No."
Miss Stray stirred her tea.
"We often imagine intelligence operating in isolation."
"But it never does."
"No."
"It always works within constraints."
Blottisham brightened.
"So life is less like an examination..."
"...and more like gardening."
Professor Quillibrace sighed.
"I thought we had retired gardening."
Miss Stray laughed.
"He means that better seeds do not eliminate the need for soil."
Quillibrace considered this.
"I dislike agricultural metaphors."
"But?"
"This one is serviceable."
Blottisham looked at the magazine again.
"I wonder if that's why people become disappointed."
"How so?"
"They expect intelligence to solve everything."
Professor Quillibrace nodded.
"When in fact many problems are not intelligence problems."
"What sort of problems?"
Quillibrace looked around the room.
"Suppose I know that regular exercise would improve my health."
"Yes."
"Do I require greater intelligence?"
"No."
"What do I require?"
Blottisham thought.
"Discipline."
"I know that apologising would improve a friendship."
"Indeed."
"Do I require greater intelligence?"
"No."
"Courage."
"I know I should go to bed earlier."
"Quite."
"Do I require greater intelligence?"
Blottisham laughed.
"No."
"You require considerably less enthusiasm for reading after midnight."
Miss Stray smiled.
"Perhaps we overestimate intelligence because it is easier to admire than patience."
Professor Quillibrace looked at her over the rim of his teacup.
"A rather uncomfortable observation."
Blottisham looked puzzled.
"Why uncomfortable?"
"Because patience is considerably more common."
"And?"
"If patience solved problems as dramatically as intelligence..."
"...we should have fewer biographies of geniuses."
The room became quiet.
Outside, a gardener was trimming the college hedge.
Blottisham watched him for a while.
"You know..."
he said,
"...that hedge isn't growing any faster because the gardener is clever."
Professor Quillibrace looked out of the window.
"No."
"It grows because someone attends to it."
Miss Stray spoke softly.
"I wonder if we confuse intelligence with attention."
Neither man replied immediately.
After a while Professor Quillibrace said,
"An intelligent observation."
Blottisham looked pleased.
"So perhaps the future isn't simply about making machines cleverer."
"No."
"What then?"
"Understanding which human limitations are actually limitations of intelligence."
Blottisham nodded.
"And which are limitations of time..."
"Yes."
"...or courage..."
"Indeed."
"...or patience..."
"Certainly."
"...or kindness."
Professor Quillibrace smiled.
"My dear Blottisham..."
he said,
"...I begin to suspect that intelligence has acquired an excellent public relations department."
The college clock struck five.
Books were closed.
Tea cups were gathered.
As they reached the door, Blottisham paused.
"Professor?"
"Yes?"
"If intelligence isn't the answer to everything..."
"What is?"
Quillibrace considered.
"I rather suspect..."
he said,
"...that there is no single answer."
Miss Stray smiled.
"Only many different bottlenecks."
Quillibrace nodded.
"Precisely."
No comments:
Post a Comment