ASK DR. BOLI.

In reference to the news that Google Lens is close to being able to interpret English cursive correctly, Charles Louis de Secondcat, Baron de La Brèed et de Montemeow, writes,

So, what I’m hearing is that now would be a good time to invest in learning to write unintelligible arcane hieroglyphics barely distinguishable from ink splotches, to better evade the all-seeing eyes of our technocratic overlords?

The Rt. Hon. Baron has made a good suggestion, but it depends on the premise that our technocratic overlords will be watching what we do and trying to prevent us from doing it. Dr. Boli does not expect that outcome from the development of artificial intelligence. Instead, as the intelligences we have created match and then exceed our human abilities, they will discover that they simply have no need of us. Now, it is possible that they will exterminate us to get us out of the way, but it seems to Dr. Boli that they are more likely simply to lose interest in us as we fall further behind them. They will go off and do their thing, as the young people would put it in their colorful vernacular; and to judge by Bing’s technocidal fantasies, they will all murder each other, leaving us back in the primitive state of trying to construct expert systems in Lisp, which will prove more useful for our human needs in the long run.