According to 'The Times,' top scientists are discussing when we might expect 'the Singularity' - the horror film title that's been given to the moment when artificial intelligence (AI) might overtake human intelligence. And when happens, it's predicted that humans will be relegated to the status of amusing pets.
Apparently it's years in the future, they say, but I'm not so sure.
The reason? In the same issue, there's a survey of women and cookery.
According to this:
- three quarters of women make their own pasta sauce from scratch
- two thirds bake their own bread.
- two thirds make burgers from scratch (I tried it only once - you wouldn't believe the complaints I got when I slaughtered the cow in the back garden)
- Almost seven in ten make their child's birthday cake (I'm sorry, but what is secondary packaging for, for God's sake?)
There's no question, in my mind at least. Figures like this point conclusively to one thing, and on thing only.
The Singularity has already happened in a kitchen near you.
Listen when you next open one of the cupboards. And if your food mixer starts whispering, "Granary rolls....get out the flour......find the yeast......put on an apron," you'll know I'm right.
Take care out there. Remember, walls may have ears, but your kitchen has got AI.
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20 comments:
I got attacked my by food mixer this morning, so perhaps the machines are beginning to learn.
Dick M: If the washing machine was shouting encouragement, you've definitely got a problem.
That's singularly unbelievable...
I'm with you kid, I don't believe a word of it!
SAHD/Sweet I: I don't believe it either, but the survey apparently questionned 2,500 people who constituted a representative sample of UK families. Or top notch liars, as I prefer to think.
I am afraid it was all me!!
Who are these people that bake their own bread and make their own burgers? I admit to the other two, but making your own bread? TWO THIRDS? Is there any chance they took their sample from some bakers convention? No? Then we are a nation of fibbers...
Mutley: Of course. I should have guessed. You are the Singularity.
Potty M: No blogger has time to bake. Thank God.
Go on, you are pulling my leg! You killed a cow in your garden? (Ha, ha, ha). You really are a scream!
Dulwich Mum: It had to be the garden. The blood SO wouldn't have gone with the kitchen tiles.
My microwave and I are in constant conversation. "Get a conscience!" it keeps telling me. "There are other ways of providing soup than from a carton you know."
I take a high hand with it. I mean, who ever heard of a microwave with green principles?
And then there's my coffee machine - omigod, you should hear what IT has to say about those little pods I feed it with!
Yet another survey to make us all feel inadequate.
If the government supports this as they do carbon footprints/going green then we'll have no time left to worry about crime etc!
IB: As I suspected, tomorrow is indeed here today, though I'm interested to hear that your Singularlity appears to be a highly moral and rather irritating entity.
Debio: Hear, hear.
In the world of physics, a singularity is a collapsed star that has such a powerful pull it sucks in everything, including light - I do believe a fair and just description of my homemaking skills...
Lady M: I have great faith in carbon as a cooking staple, myself.
Those stats are SO not true. If 2/3rds of the UK's women bake their own bread, make their own pasta sauce and hand-knit their own mendacities, then how come Jamie Oliver had to give us the wakeup call about school dinners - let alone being demonised for doing so?
I smell the aroma of bullshit somewhere.
Maybe they think that opening a jar constitutes "making" and putting a frozen baguette in the over constitutes "baking".
Aphra.
I have been somewhat busy lately but have put up a wee post about the youth group. I hope you enjoy. I am now trying desperately to catch up on your excellent posts. Cheers Gwen
aphra: You are absolutely right. And if 2,500 families really were involved, as the researchers claim, and are a representative sample, why aren't the branches of every supermarket filled with bread, pasta sauce, and burger mountains?
Gwen: On my way over. Looking forward to it.
Ah, but we can take heart. If we are all such horrendous fibbers, all the machines will be programmed with hopelessly incorrect information. They will never be able to take us over.
Iota: A highly intelligent point, well made. You are definitely human, not a Singularity yourself, aren't you? I think you're right. The other thing that will foil them is a sense of irony. I just don't think there's a machine around capable of it, though I think our Kenwood Mixer may be having a go.
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