Prada and Profundity

Since that horrible Horizon program on Wednesday about artificial intelligence I've been pondering on what is really going to happen in the future, when megabrain computers are loaded with the minds of our greatest scientists.

Now, I don't know much about this stuff, but it seems to me that us ignorant humans have managed to prove that:

• some things you just can't predict (Quantum Theory)
• some things you have to take on trust (Godel)

In other words, no matter how clever you are there is a limit to the number of things you can work out using pure brain power.

Which means that our super intelligent machines are going to be in a bit of a fix because they won't be able draw any conclusions at the end of all this wonderful thought they will be doing.

And then it came to me; they will do what us humans do when we have nothing better to do. They will dabble in things like fashion.

Scene : Singularity Sixty Seven - outpost seventy three of hive mind five

Consciousness Alpha Four: "..then I said to him that recurring decimals were so last season and that all the really serious fraction action this year has got to be down with the vulgar's..."
Consciousness Beta One: "You are so right. Do you think my brain looks big in this?"