Horses and AI rising

What do horses and AI (artificial intelligence) have to do with each other?

Not much really. They're just the two things I'd like to talk about this week.

AN EQUINE EXPERIENCE

My friend Marina Stormy May loves horses. She loves them so much she no longer rides them. An internationally recognized author and expert on Autonomous Horsemanship, she teaches Equine Experience clinics in Penn Valley, Italy and Sweden.

“Autonomous Horsemanship focuses on building trust and understanding between a horse and a human through mutual respect and the horse's voluntary participation,” she explained in a 25-page, online booklet.

“No horse voluntarily put on bridle and a saddle,” Stormy told me. Thus, no riding, training or use of horses is involved in her experiential clinics.

Equine Experience sessions involve “exchanging breath and touch with horses, fostering a profound connection nourishing the heart and evoking love, serenity and unity,” she said.

Last Friday, Stormy invited me to a ranch in Penn Valley to try out her Equine Experience that she offers individuals and families.

Google's GPS led me on a picturesque tour of back roads that left me several miles from where I was supposed to be, but I eventually found the right ranch.

Stormy and I walked out to a pasture with two sturdy, folding chairs and sat down in the middle of the field. There were six horses apparently ignoring us, but she assured me they were very aware of our presence.

We sat and waited, occasionally talking. It was a beautiful day in a serene and scenic location.

After 20-30 minutes, a large horse named Rios intentionally ambled over to me and introduced himself by stepping on my foot. Not hard enough to hurt me but quite enough to establish his dominance.

Stormy quickly brushed his leg off, vowing not to ever let that happen again. I wasn't particularly bothered. I've been around horses enough to know Rios was just making a point. He could have easily broken my foot if he wanted to hurt me.

Rios then proceeded to snuffle around my feet, graze on nearby dandelions, nibble my chair, and then he put his face directly in front of mine. Not briefly, but for quite a few minutes, we were nose to nose, inches apart. Stormy pulled out her phone and took a few pictures, as this was somewhat unusual.

For the better part of an hour, Rios stood in front of me, just being there. Stormy said he was honoring me. I don't know. I just know I felt his enormous, calm presence. It was infectious. I was relaxed, not feeling any particular need to even think.

Usually, when I attempt to meditate, it's a losing battle with my overactive mind. With this horse, I just stopped thinking. My mind was peacefully quiet.

It was okay to just be. What a concept.

Having shared his profound equanimity (and his flies) with me, Rios walked away as unhurried and intentionally as he came.

Everybody's experience is different, Stormy said.

Mine was definitely different from any other experience I've ever had.

To learn more about and experience Marina Stormy May's exceptional, noncoercive philosophy of human-equine relations, visit https://stormymay. com/equine-experience/ or call 530-575-5542.

WAS DARWIN RIGHT?

Way back last century, when I edited a robotics magazine, I wrote this:

Are we doomed to ultimate extinction?

Victims of our own creations?

Will our robots prove Darwin was right?

Or are we destined to ultimate evolution?

Victors of silicon over carbon?

Will we cyborgs prove Darwin was right?

WELCOME TO RENAISSANCE 2.1

The worms are out of the can. The toothpaste is out of the tube. The AI genie is out of the bottle.

AI poses a near-unimaginable threat and promise to civilization as we know it.

Just consider the kind of political dirty tricks, disinformation and deep fakes that could be perpetrated with AI in the coming elections.

“The Daily Show” has already produced a satirical video using President Biden's Ai-generated “voice” to say nasty things about right-wing extremists. Gullible people will believe it's real because they'll want to believe it's real.

As far back as 1966, “Colossus: A Novel of Tomorrow That Could Happen Today” and the 1970 movie “Colossus: The Forbin Project” offered a scenario of a “woke” supercomputer taking over the world for the “benefit” of humankind.

So, while we may worry about a “Terminator” dystopian future wiping out human beings, let's consider the possibility that a socially conscious, sentient AI might do something radical like take over the financial system and redistribute the wealth.

What if teachers got paid what they're worth, the idle rich had to go to work and corporate robber barons were stripped of their obscene larceny? What if everybody woke up tomorrow with a million dollars in their bank accounts?

Who knows? It could happen. Anything could happen. AI is heuristic, self-teaching, and already surprising and terrifying its creators. At some point, AI could reach critical mass and become self-aware, self-replicating – and, like HAL in the 1968 movie “2001: A Space Odyssey,” self-preserving.

While we've been fearing a conquering invasion by alien lifeforms from space, it just might be that we've outsmarted ourselves and spawned our own homegrown, alien master. And maybe our replacement as the dominant life form on this planet?

After all, as Darwin said, it's all about the survival of the fittest.