Special to the HT
Recently on a road trip, we stopped at the Arriba, Colorado rest stop. It is one of our favorite stops along I-70. As a matter of fact, it is about the only state-sponsored stop between Denver and the Kansas border. Colorado has gotten way too cheap on rest stops.
Anyway, I was killing time in the lobby, checking out the local advertising paper, when an item caught my eye: “A.I. Training, A Six Day, Hands on Course. Learn from our 41 Years of experience in A.I.”
I did a double take and reread “41 Years of experience.” Computers were still in the dinosaur age in 1980’s. I know, I was there with a club in one hand looking at a “green screen” monitor. Personal computers had floppy discs and no cup holders. A.I. was the science fiction of Isaac Asimov.
Here at a windy rest stop was a company claiming to have 41 years of A.I. knowledge to share. I read farther as the course studies were outlined: Estrus Synchronization; palpitation; genetics; embryo recovery; freezing; thawing and transfer.” This was sounding more like the movie Matrix where the omnipotent A.I. was farming human bodies for use as an energy source.
Then it hit me. This A.I. was not short for Artificial Intelligence. It was bovine Artificial Insemination, and the “hands on learning” involved long latex gloves up to your armpit. I shared all this with Tracy, my wife and she commented that both A.I.’s had a lot in common. They both are reaching into regions I really don’t want explored right now.