What holds key to the future

Ihad the good fortune to spend the past week with my dysfunctional little family in Cape Town. Little Egg, in particular, was extremely impressed with this city. She spoke to my sister, who lives right next to a primary school.

“Your son moved out of the house last year,” she said. “Yes, he did,” my sister said. “I want to move to Cape Town. Can I have his room? I can walk to school. After Grade 7, I will move in with Ouma – she lives next to a high school.”

My sister agreed, but I must admit that I was relieved when Egg decided to stay in Johannesburg for a few more years. It’s difficult for a soft-hearted father to hear that his daughter plans to move out of the house after Grade 1.

“It is nothing personal,” she explained to me. “It’s just that people in this country love dogs more than those in our country. You see them walking their dogs on the beach every day.”

Of course, she is right that the Western Cape is a different country – and I’m not talking about the people who plan the independence of the province. They just do everything differently.

I doubt that her perception that Capetonians love their dogs more is correct.

When people are on leave, they have so much more time to spend with their pets. And I have seen how my fellow Jozi residents adore their pets.

But it got me thinking.

It has existed for years now, but this past year, we have been confronted with the reality of artificial intelligence (AI) in our everyday lives for the first time.

Which is a good thing – genuine intelligence isn’t all that abundant, is it?

The idea of AI fills many of us with fear. We have chased divinity for the past century. Where we depended on gods for rain in ancient times, we now manipulate the climate. The logical next step is that we will try to create artificial human beings. And AI makes it very possible that it can happen in a few decades from now.

We fear how those artificial creatures will treat us. Will they enslave or even terminate us?

I don’t have the answer to that question. But I think the way we treat what we believe are lesser creatures holds the key to answering that question. Lesser creatures such as the dogs…