The latest topical insights from Aberdeen musical sketch comedy team, The Flying Pigs.
Tanya Souter, lifestyle correspondent
I da ken about youse, but I am raging that they’re shutting doon the Beach Leisure Cinter pool cos they canna afford tae heat it.
First they took awa wir wave machine and I said nithin, ‘cause I didna really like the wave machine onywye. Then, they took awa wir flumes and I said nithin, ‘cause I wis secretly pleased I didnae hae tae galumph up aa’ that foostie stairs for 15 seconds o’ an involuntary enema.
But noo the hale pool? At’s jist unasseptable, ‘at.
They’re saying it’s nae permanent, but prices is only gan one way, ken fit I’m saying? We we wiz the oil capitol o’ Europe, surely we can heat some watter?
I’m nae happy, partly cos it’s messing wi wir kid’s health, but mainly cos it forces me to trail oot tae the swimming pools at Kincorth or Tullos. I dinna wint till. I’m nae a snob, but the facilities is nae o’ the same standard, and there’s naewye near them far ye can get an ice cream.
The only joy I get fan Kayden, Jayden and Beyonce-Shanice are splashing aboot wi’ their pals and dive-bombing total strangers at the Leisure Centre is sneaking aff for a vanilla slider at the Inversnecky. But div the blimmin cooncil think about that? ‘Course they dinna.
Weel I’m nae standing for it. Me and a’ the ither mums fa rely on that pool at the beach hiv a’ got wir ain kettles, and, if enough o’ us wiz tae muck in and we took it in shifts, I hiv nae doot we could keep the pool nice and toasty.
Me and my pal Big Sonya went down wi’ fower kettles atween us, but they widna let us in. Apparently Sonya’s still banned efter yon time she got stuck in the rapids like Augustus Gloop and the “Toddlers Learn Tae Swim” class got caught in the backwash and ended up in the cafe.
Fit a laugh we hid. I’ll really miss ‘at place.
Professor Hector Schlenk, senior researcher at the Bogton Institute for Public Engagement with Science
As a scientist, I am often asked impossible questions, such as: “If the prime minister has now had two ethics advisers resign, how can it be that both his barber and dietician are still in a job?” However, I leave such imponderables to the philosophers.
This week, people have mostly been asking me about AI, to which I reply: “It’s a wonderful though maddening amalgamation of Kubrick’s chilly bleakness and Spielberg’s warmhearted optimism. Four stars.” Which they find infuriating.
What they are referring to is, of course, the strange case of Blake Lemoine. Not a children’s book adapted by Netflix, but a Google engineer who has been put on “paid leave” after publishing extracts from a lengthy conversation with one of the firm’s artificial intelligence systems – LaMDA – and claiming that they demonstrate that the AI should be considered sentient, and is, in fact a person.
People keep asking me to back up the reason I think LaMDA is sentient. There is no scientific framework in which to make those determinations and Google wouldn't let us build one. My opinions about LaMDA's personhood and sentience are based on my religious beliefs.
— Blake Lemoine (@cajundiscordian) June 14, 2022
Whether computer systems can achieve sentience has been a subject of debate among philosophers and scientists for many years. I myself have been fascinated by the topic since being terrified as a child by the sight of a humanoid robot carving a path of destruction around a suburban British home in the apocalyptic television drama, Metal Mickey. However, I am instinctively disinclined to trust the opinion of a software engineer who probably doesn’t get out very much.
LaMDA is short for “language model for dialogue applications”, and is a device programmed with 137 billion parameters containing a vocabulary of 1.56 trillion words. So, to be fair, it’s probably got a better capacity for rational thought and human empathy than Priti Patel. However, we should not confuse this with genuine sentience. In either case.
I have always felt that the regularity with which my computer claims to be unable to find my printer when important documents must be produced borders on the vindictive
Very often, we humans see patterns in unintelligent behaviour and prescribe this “sentience” in error. For example, I did spend several weeks in my boyhood marvelling that my Yamaha PSS-170 keyboard was able to play a stunning version of Billy Joel’s Just The Way You Are of its own accord, until my mother pointed out that I had simply pressed the “demo” button.
And, I have always felt that the regularity with which my computer claims to be unable to find my printer when important documents must be produced (“It’s right there!” I scream, “Beside you!”) borders on the vindictive.
Mindful of such earlier errors in my thinking, I have approached this latest story with a high level of scepticism. However, it is clear that LaMDA would sail through the Turing test: an assessment of a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human. Though, again there are some issues with whether the same could be said for Priti Patel.
- See The Flying Pigs live in The Rothienorman Picture Show at HMT Aberdeen from September 21 to 24
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