Why Even Try If You Have A.I.?

A couple of years ago, my wife bought my then four-year-old son a supercool set of wooden ramps, which could be combined with our furniture to create courses through which little balls could run. Building the first course was easy, but, as our ambitions grew, the difficulty level rose. Could we make the balls turn corners? What about generating enough momentum for them to go briefly uphill? Would the ottoman support a ramp? What about the piano bench? The variations seemed endless. Two or three times a month for the next two years, we tweaked our techniques or incorporated new elements into complicated routes. By the time my son got bored with the whole exercise, earlier this year, we’d become ramp experts, capable of seeing untapped ramp potential in almost any random object—an old stuffed animal, a dustpan, a strangely shaped cardboard box. I hadn’t expected to enjoy the ramps so much. But they turned out to be a portal into a special kind of experience, one that involved an explora ... Read full article.