Al鈥檚 AI ailment
AI spells trouble for all the Alanas, Alannas, Alannahs, Alainnas, Alans, Alains, Allans, Allens, Alens, Alins, Aluns and other persons whose names begin with the letter pair 鈥淎 then L鈥� or the pair 鈥淎 then I鈥�. The eye-ell typography equivalence problem ails them all.
Alan (Al) McWilliam tells Feedback about his personal distress from reading about artificial intelligence: 鈥淚 would like to draw your attention to a concerning issue where, in the majority of typefaces, the abbreviation for artificial intelligence (AI) looks alarmingly like the shortened version of my (and many others鈥�) name, Al. Imagine my trepidation opening the 29 July issue [of 快猫短视频] with the title 鈥楲iving with Al鈥�! The issue includes 鈥榃hat Al can do to make your life easier鈥�, 鈥榃hy Al is about to transform the economy鈥� and 鈥�The biggest scientific challenges that Al is already tackling鈥�. Finally, the most concerning: 鈥�Can Al ever become conscious?鈥樷赌�
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AI researchers often discuss 鈥渢he consciousness problem鈥� 鈥� the philosophical difficulty of agreeing whether artificial intelligence is conscious or ever can be. (This adds to philosophers鈥� long-time delight in down-the-rabbit-hole arguing about the meaning of the word consciousness). Feedback notes only that comic book writers once gloried in filling speech balloons with ejaculations that echoed this same problem: 鈥淎IEEEEE!鈥�
Pulling teeth
If you first take 33 teeth 鈥� each removed from its original home inside some human mouth 鈥� then stain every one with coffee, then, finally, on each tooth apply either a 鈥渃harcoal-based tooth whitening dentifrice鈥� or a 鈥渘on-charcoal-based whitening dentifrice鈥� to try to remove the coffee stains, you will discover something.
Aldridge Fernandes and Rupali Agnihotri, both at the Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India, did those things. They discovered, they say, that 鈥渁 charcoal-based tooth-whitener does not make a tooth appreciably whiter than a non-charcoal-based tooth-whitener鈥�.
If you choose to do the same experiment 鈥� to see if your discovery matches theirs 鈥� go find details of their procedure in a paper called 鈥溾��, in the Canadian Journal of Dental Hygiene.
Thirty-three isn鈥檛 such a large number of teeth. More could surely be obtained, from other donors. Much remains to be discovered, perhaps 鈥� perhaps.
Sweet treat
A piece of i-candy 鈥� intellectual candy 鈥� is the first thing you will see when you read a paper called 鈥溾��. Written by a team in India and Serbia, it appears in the International Journal of Corrosion and Scale Inhibition.
The very first sentence says: 鈥淏eautiful objects are symmetrical in nature.鈥� For some artists, for some philosophers, for some theoretical physicists, that may seem an eternal basic truth. For anyone else, especially anyone who has a sweet tooth, that statement may be an act of seduction-by-茅clairs-milky-candy.
Engineering research can involve highly specific actions, and the aftermath thereof. Such is the case here. We are told that in the experiment, the 鈥淕old 18K鈥� alloy becomes 鈥渋mmersed in artificial saliva in the absence and presence of 500 ppm of 茅clairs milky candy鈥�.
After telling us about the immersions and some subsequent measurements and calculations, the authors get to the basics of What Really Happened. 鈥淚t is inferred,鈥� they state, 鈥渢hat the corrosion resistance of Gold 18K alloy in artificial saliva increases in the presence of 茅clairs milky candy.鈥� This happy news leads them to advise that 鈥減eople clipped with orthodontic wire made of Gold 18K alloy need not hesitate to take 茅clairs milky candy orally鈥�.
Why did these researchers undertake this experiment? Grace smiles from their explanation: 鈥淯nfortunately, by God鈥檚 grace, some people do not have regularly arranged teeth. To regularize the growth of teeth, people need the help of dentists.鈥� Some of those dentists affix orthodontic wire made of 18-carat gold alloy to some of those teeth. Inexorably, some tooth owners do not resist eating 茅clairs milky candy or other tasty, sugary, milk-fatty treats. Also inexorably, as we see here, some researchers do not resist measuring the resultant corrosion resistance.
Lambe to Slaughter
Nominative determinism sometimes leads to poignant explorations. Pam Ross alerted Feedback to the existence of , who does research on sheep breeding. Lambe鈥檚 latest publication explores a potential future happy phase of life for lambs: motherhood. But the report鈥檚 title also obliquely mentions a grim alternative fate: dinner. Lambe鈥檚 study is called 鈥溾��.
An equally awkward mix of yin and yang greeted readers of the magazine New Zealand Meat and Wool in 1977. A report there called 鈥溾�� was written by a human named R.D. Slaughter.
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