1997, I was studying A-levels. We had to pick university courses. This was the great bellyaching of the time.
How do we make life decisions with out any feel for where we want to go?
One interesting approach to this problem was to ask what other people were doing. But the usefulness of this information for deciding a possible future was limited. On one hand, these people all made good decisions. On the other hand you would be choosing what they choose, they could now become your competition, and they were competitive.
In my year, two boys, both with the same name, picked artificial intelligence to study. They even picked it at the same university.I was just imagining the headache this would cause the admissions tutor. One of these boys was very sporty. The other was quite the opposite. What they had in common was maths.
I recall thinking this would be an unsolvable problem, but that it would be a significant change problem when solved.
About that time I was watching a lot of Star Trek. As were many of my friends I was taken with the android. Data, the man-made humanoid robot. It was an interesting exploration of consciousness in artificial form.
I won an award for progress the year before, and the price was a book token. While in Meyer bookstore, my dad suggested I read a book by the title "the Emperor's new mind "by Roger Penrose. My dad was aware that Roger Penrose was the mathematical comrades in arms to know less than Stephen Hawking. So I purchased the book and tried to read it. I was 16.
This book was several hundred pages long I made two attempts to read it over the subsequent 18 months. I reached around page 120 on both attempts. At time of writing, it has gone back on the reading list.
Coming back to my peers who were going to study artificial intelligence, I thought with amusement about what the future that might hold. I was going to study mechanical engineering. Mechanical engineering is one of the industries with the earliest and oldest Institute. The head office is in the august position of being on St James's Park. It would have been on the route of the King from Buckingham Palace to Parliament and the King would have stopped there on his way to open Parliament and give a speech about industry and the year ahead. How was artificial intelligence of today (2024) comparable to that (1900s) as a future?
We had Windows 98, and were dreaming up creations on par with Commander Data. The gap was huge. Unfillable, so a carreer was not visible on the horizon in this industry.
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