A different prespective to Life

Every year, those of us who graduated from our medical school in a particular year set meet in different parts of the world for reunions, and occasionally we have an international reunion. This year's meeting was in Toronto, Canada, and I was asked to give a virtual presentation. I have given presentations at previous reunions and usually try to make them light, enjoyable and memorable. I intended to do the same this year, especially since I spoke about AI and its dangers at a previous meeting. However, as I prepared this presentation, something had changed. The people developing AI, including senior executives and researchers in the technology industry, were increasingly issuing warnings. Various whistleblowers, almost as if on cue, raised concerns about AI's dangers and called for strict, enforceable regulations and safeguards. Many of us might dismiss this as the usual scaremongering that accompanies technological advances. But this time, one cannot help wondering whether th...

  Mike Judge wrote, produced, and directed Idiocracy , a 2006 science-fiction comedy that was meant to be an absurd satire of what America might look like 500 years in the future. The premise is deliberately outrageous. Natural selection, combined with changing reproductive patterns, supposedly causes intelligence to decline. Humans no longer have significant natural predators, while the more intelligent and highly educated increasingly have fewer children. Meanwhile, the less intelligent reproduce in enormous numbers. The film begins with  Joe Bauers,  played by Luke Wilson, an American soldier described as "remarkably average" in virtually every category; he works as a librarian in the USA Army. He is unmarried, has no children, is an only child, and both his parents are dead. As a result, he is considered an ideal candidate for the Human Hibernation Experiment. The Army cannot find a suitable female participant, so it turns to the private sector and recruits Rita,...