Natural Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence

We had close relatives visiting us yesterday. The family included two brilliant girls who attended a good school in Bangalore. We baked a chocolate cake and planned something for the kids to do and have fun learning. 

However, it is difficult to surprise Bangalore kids! I told them they were going to learn about Artificial Intelligence and they were going to play with it. They liked the idea, but the older one, who was in the 5th grade at school, already knew about Artificial Intelligence. "AI," she said, adding, "Example: Alexa!" Where did this kid learn that? I found out later that the family gave them something special - a perfect learning environment at home. Both the parents work and commute long hours, but the grandparents take excellent care of them. In particular, they talk a lot to them, so the kids are very articulate.  The parents, who are techies, spend whatever time they can with the kids to ensure that the kid's curiosity is stimulated. The kids are shown selected videos from the Web. 

I had kept a camera ready with a recognizer, "Google Lens," which helps search the Web for objects you photograph. Humans are notoriously bad at recognizing and naming garden flowers. I use the "Lens" to help me keep track of flowers on our balcony. The girls took photographs of the flowers on this page and used the lens to find out their names. The lens called the yellow flower a Hawaiian Yellow Hibiscus. The second one was called a Madagascar Periwinkle. 

I would not have expected cell phones to be able to perform this kind of recognition if you had asked me ten or fifteen years ago. Even a gardening person with years of experience who works for us part-time cannot recognize flowers this reliably. He has no name for most garden flowers in any language. For instance, the third flower on this page is called a garden balsam. It is said to be a native of India. But neither our gardening expert nor I could think of its name! 

I did some learning, too. Many of the plants on our balconies have come from other countries. I searched the Web later and found out that the plant migration has been relatively recent: a few hundred years on average. The yellow hibiscus was probably taken to Hawaii by Asians who immigrated there two or three hundred years ago. 

I do not worry about my poor knowledge of flower names and families. I am worse than our part-time gardener! After all, I have my cell phone, which does a lot better than me! Why should I compete with it?

Srinivasan Ramani