Opinion: It used to be that we were all farmers. Wheat farmers. Canola farmers. Cattle farmers. Farmers of every description.
The only difference was in what we raised or grew. Then, about a hundred years ago, people started leaving the farms. They went to work in the sawmills, drove a school bus, worked for the municipality, became doctors or professionals of one kind or another.
And not just the neighbours, you and me too, it was everyone, including my father. He left the farm and became a carpenter.
Changes. Changes everywhere.
When the automobile, the car, became somewhat common in the 1920’s or so, the people of New York City were aghast.
They said that cars would kill everyone. I guess they wanted to keep the horse manure on their streets instead of welcoming cars. In case you didn’t know, New York used to be one huge pile of horse manure.
And what else could it be when the horses moved so much slower than cars, and it took them so much longer to get anywhere? What else could it be?
Now we have artificial intelligence (AI).
Same thing. We don’t know whether we should be mad or glad.
A couple of cousins from Spokane, a generation younger than I am, wanted to take a trip to see some of their roots in central Alberta recently. But, of course, they needed a seeing-eye dog, preferably older than themselves, to be the tour guide.
And I was picked. Not only did I meet those qualifications, but I had grown up, at least partially, in that area. I knew where all the cemeteries were, and our family members who were in them.
Much of it was pretty ordinary, but one of the places we stopped at was a farmstead of one of my great-uncles. A place that became a family shrine to me because we visited there a lot when I was a little guy. The memories came flooding back. It was more fun for me than it was for the cousins.
Not only did we get to stop at the place, but the fellow who owns it now came driving in on his John Deere tractor and took us inside the house, now mostly unused.
I had a story or two, and the one they liked best, including the farmer, was the one from about 1951 when we were there for some family gathering, and there was a bit of music being played. And sung. A group of about six people, both men and women, had gathered in one corner and were belting out a still then popular song, ‘Mocking Bird Hill.’
And just about the time they got to the chorus with the line ‘Tra La La, twiddle dee dee it gives me a thrill,’ a mouse ran out of the hallway, just barely in front of the group of singers. Nobody paid any attention.
I was the only one who was afraid of the stupid mouse, farmers live with them all the time. But that house, that living room, that song and that mouse became etched in my brain and are still there. And I got to relive it one day last week after seventy years of not being in that room.
But it wasn’t just the mouse and the song that I remember.
I also remember the two huge barns that were just across from the living room window. And the wind generator, which gave the house electricity, some of the time. And the hired men who got more credit for doing their work outside than the hired girls seemed to get inside for working non-stop around the cookstove and washing a never-ending lineup of dirty dishes by hand.
And today we have artificial intelligence.
And we still have John Deere, the same John Deere that the farmer wheeled into his old farmyard a couple of weeks ago.
And I read in a media story today that John Deere is going to make its tractors and mowers, and harvesters able, with a little help from artificial intelligence, to drive themselves. And if AI can do that, what else can it do? And should we be mad or glad?
We should be glad.
Because over the lifetimes of farming, automobiles, songs, brave little mice and dirty dishes that we’ve all had, there are still troubles. We still have cancer in our midst, we have macular degeneration, we have car and airplane accidents. And work we don’t want to do. Is there more? The list never ends.
Now, certainly, most of us don’t know much about artificial intelligence. But if a neighbour asks you, forty years from now, if you would like to go to Europe with them for the day, just a thirty-five minute trip, and back the same day, would you really want to go back to eight hours travel to Paris?
Indeed, we wouldn’t.
Artificial intelligence isn’t the destination; it’s just a tool to move us ahead, and we need to embrace it. It won’t be the last big thing; there are many behind us, and there’ll be more after AI.
Duane Crandall is a retired newspaper publisher, having owned and operated The Golden Star from 1982 – 1987, and the Golden News from 1992 – 2003. He also served as MLA for Columbia River-Revelstoke from 1986 – 1991.
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