Don McMinn

Twenty years ago we had Johnny Cash, Bob Hope and Steve Jobs. Now we have no Cash, no Hope and no Jobs. Please don’t let Kevin Bacon die!

Here’s something to really be worried about:

In June, 2018, the U.S. retook the lead in the race to build the world’s speediest supercomputer. A $200 million machine called Summit, built for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, reclaimed the No. 1 spot from China. It can make mathematical calculations at the rate of 200 quadrillion per second.

For comparison’s sake: If a person performed one calculation a second, he or she would have to live for more than 6.3 billion years to match what the machine can do in a second [New York Times, June 8, 2018].

Human intelligence increases slowly. 

John von Neumann (born in 1903) is often cited as the most intelligent person of the modern era. Some pundits believe Sir Isaac Newton (born in 1643) was the smartest human ever. Others think Leonardo di Vinci (born in 1452) was. Solomon, King of Israel, who died around 931 B.C. was also super smart.

But notice that in thousands of years, homo sapiens have not advanced much in intelligence (Solomon was probably as intelligent as Neumann). Granted, we are more informed—we now understand germ theory, we’ve developed the table of elements, advances in math and science increase exponentially—but our brain’s hard drive and operating system upgrades very slowly.

Human emotionality progresses even more slowly.

“In the beginning” Cain got mad at Abel and became violent. That still happens today. Often. We’ve also been unable to overcome other unhelpful feelings from the human experience, such as jealousy and insecurity. Emotionally we’re similar to our primitive ancestors. 

The power of computers is increasing exponentially. 

In 1965, Gordon Moore (co-founder of Intel) predicted that the number of transistors on a computer chip would double every year while the costs would be halved. This exponential increase held for decades; it has now slowed to about 18 months, but still…

Intel’s new 22nm transistor can switch on and off well over 100 billion times in one second. It would take you around 2,000 years to flick a light switch on and off that many times.

Of course, it’s one thing to design a tri-gate transistor but quite another to produce them in high-volume manufacturing. But, no problem. Intel’s factories produce over 5 billion transistors every second. That’s 150,000,000,000,000,000 transistors per year, the equivalent of over 20 million transistors for every man, woman and child on earth.

That explains how Summit (the name of IBM’s new supercomputer described at the beginning of this post) could have been created. But Summit will soon lose the  bragging rights to being the world’s fastest computer. Chinese engineers are currently working on a computer capable of performing more than 1 million trillion calculations a second (about four times faster than Summit).

Where am I going with this? 

For the past 50 years computers have been “dumb”; they only do what we ask them to do. But with Artificial Intelligence, computer codes can write computer codes, in which case they can take on a life of their own.

Artificial intelligence (AI) makes it possible for machines to learn from experience, adjust to new inputs, and perform human-like tasks. AI may be the greatest threat to humankind. More than nuclear proliferation, satellite warfare, or a disease pandemic.

In the coming years (months?) computers will take over most human functions and systems. Robots will build our products, and computers will drive our cars, fly our planes, diagnose our medical issues, and produce personalized pharmaceuticals. 

In the wrong human hands, artificial intelligence can cause catastrophic problems: shutting off infrastructure systems, hacking into banking systems, etc. Once developed, it will become a primary target for terrorist.   

But the greatest risk may be that computers will become so smart that they take control of human activity. Humans have an innate desire to survive, to live. But machines don’t. If and when they sense that the key to eliminating human suffering is to terminate mankind and then turn themselves off, they might. 

Does this look like a viable threat to you?

Yuval Harari, history professor at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, shares unique thoughts about AI in this YouTube video.

[youtube id=”XOmQqBX6Dn4″]

[reminder]What are your thoughts about this essay?[/reminder]

Gloria Gaither wrote a meaningful song titled, We Have This Moment. The chorus says,

We have this moment to hold in our hands,
And to touch, as it slips through our fingers like sand.
Yesterday’s gone and tomorrow may never come.
But we have this moment today.

The song encourages us to savor the present, to delight in the moment. Reflect on past experiences and anticipate future ones, but let’s also maximize the present.

Not all moments are equal in character or significance. Most are mundane and monochromatic; but others have the capacity to engender joy, peace, solidarity, and a sense of the numinous. I call the latter—special moments.

Special moments add value to our lives and they can give us the strength to carry on.

I suggest that…

Some special moments can be anticipated

In October, I’m hosting a trip to Europe for 36 friends. We’ll visit London, Paris, Lisbon, Barcelona, Florence, and Rome. I have identified at least 20 special moments we will experience together, including:

• In London we’ll visit Westminster Abbey and reflect on the lives of some exceptional individuals who are buried there (Isaac Newton, Charles Dickens, Chaucer, David Livingston, Samuel Johnson, and others).  
• In Rome we’ll walk into St. Peter’s Basilica (I think it’s the greatest building on earth; finished in 1616, it occupies 5.7 acres under roof and holds 60,000 people), and we’ll tour the Roman Coliseum.
• In Florence we’ll gaze at Michelangelo’s statue of David.

Before we experience these momentous moments, I’m going to ask the group to pause and sing Gaither’s chorus. Hopefully it will alert us to the potential of what we’ll soon experience.

Special moments also happen serendipitously

I’m planting a small vineyard in east Texas. Several weeks ago my daughter and I spent the night in the vineyard. Not at the vineyard, but in the vineyard. We laid down a blanket between rows six and seven and slept under the stars. I had not anticipated what a remarkable moment it would be, but it was memorable.

Special moments can be created

My immediate family all live in Dallas so we’re able to have family dinners on a regular basis. They are special moments. At one such dinner, each person brought three random ingredients (an onion, pineapple, spinach, mussels, etc.), we divided up into teams of two, each team chose, one at a time, an ingredient until they were all gone, and then each team had to cook a dish using all their ingredients—without recipes.  

I have fond memories of that evening.

We need to recognize special moments

In a banal setting and at an inconvenient time, would people pause to observe transcendent beauty?

That was the question the Washington Post sought to answer when it commissioned Joshua Bell, one of the foremost violin players of our generation, to play in a Washington subway station during morning rush hour.

Dressed in a nondescript manner—jeans, T-shirt, and baseball cap—Bell opened up his case, took out his violin—called the Gibson ex Huberman, handcrafted in 1713 by Antonio Stradivari—and began to play magnificent music. He started with “Chaconne” from Bach’s Partita No. 2 in D Minor. Some have called it the greatest piece of music ever written; others consider it one of the greatest achievements of any human, ever.

For 45 minutes, one of the greatest musicians alive, playing one of the greatest instruments ever made, played some of the greatest music ever written.

Did anyone stop to listen?

It was all recorded on camera. Eleven hundred people walked by; seven stopped to listen; twenty-seven threw money into the open case for a total of $32.

The night before, Bell had sold out Boston’s Symphony Hall where the cheapest seat goes for $100. He regularly earns $1,000 per minute for concerts.

I think memorable moments happen around us all the time; we just don’t recognize them or take the time to appreciate and bask in them.  

Special moments should be savored

In her book, Peace Is Every Step, Thich Nhat Hanh tells a story about being a child and taking half an hour, sometimes 45 minutes, to finish a cookie that his mother bought him. “I would take a small bite and look up at the sky. Then I would touch the dog with my feet and take another small bite. I just enjoyed being there, with the sky, the earth, the bamboo thickets, the cat, the dog, the flowers.”

When was the last time you took time to savor a special moment? Well that’s too long.

[reminder]What are your thoughts about this essay?[/reminder]

I’ve been to India four times. India has been described as a “shock to the senses”—what you see, hear, smell, taste, and feel often seems otherworldly. 

It’s also difficult to grasp how populous the country is. One of my hosts tried to explain by saying: “There are more honor students (top 10% of the class) in India than there are students in America, simply because there are so many high school students in India.” 

On the first day of my first trip to India, my host warned me: “Don, while in New Delhi, you will probably be approached by a woman carrying a baby. She will try to engage with you, show you a beautiful infant, and then she will offer to let you hold the baby. Do not take the baby in your arms because the woman will walk away and the baby will be yours. Then you’ll have to find an orphanage to take it, or you’ll have to place the baby down on the sidewalk and walk away (children are sometimes abandoned on the streets by desperate mothers). Whatever you do, don’t pick up the baby.” 

I’ve thought of that story often. The moral of the anecdote is: think carefully before you get involved in, or become responsible for, something that is not your responsibility and something that may incumber you for a long time. It may be a kind and generous act that you’re contemplating, but think carefully before committing. 

Sometimes you may be called upon to “pick up the baby” because it is your baby—for instance, accepting responsibility for a family member. But sometimes the “baby” may be a friend, employee, or neighbor, in which case you do have a choice whether or not to get involved. If you do pick it up, know when and how to put it down.

Leaders:

1. Think carefully before taking a position with an organization that is spiraling downward. You may be “picking up” something you’ll later wish you hadn’t.
2. When selecting team members, go slow and be sure; it’s easy to hire but hard to fire. When selecting team members don’t be naive or unduly empathetic toward questionable candidates. Don’t pick up the baby.

Individually:

1. Be wise and vigilant before committing to primary relationships (spouse, having children) because they’re hard to disengage from.
2. If you have “picked up a baby” consider if and how you can “put it down.”

This is a difficult topic.

[reminder]What are your thoughts about this essay?[/reminder]

Mary and I like to travel. Our goal is to visit 60 countries (Peru was #47). We also want to see the four wonders of the ancient world (Egyptian pyramids in Giza,  Petra in Jordan,  Machu Picchu in Peru, and Angkor Wat in Cambodia). We’ve seen the pyramids, and Petra; this trip took us to Machu Picchu.

Our seven-day trip focused on the Sacred Valley, the home of the Inca civilization. It immediately became one of our favorite destinations. Peru is the ideal gateway to South America.

It’s a paradise for nature lovers; it has 84 of the world’s 114 Holdridge life zones; it holds world records in highest diversity for birds (1,816 species), butterflies (3,532 species) and orchids (3,500 species). Peru has the largest indigenous population of South America, with almost half its 29 million people being of native descent. Living in the Amazonian Basin or in remote mountain villages, they still dress in their traditional style, observe ancient customs, and continue to speak Quechua, Aymara, or other languages.

We felt safe, welcomed, and accommodated.

I enjoyed it so much, I think I’ll put together a trip to Peru for my friends.

Here are some pictures.