The COVID Chronicles – 5

…e to recognise their lack of ability. Dunning summed it up as “If you’re incompetent, you can’t know you’re incompetent … The skills you need to produce a right answer are exactly the skills you need to recognize what a right answer is.” It follows that intelligent people have the ability to question whether they have the right answer. Those who do NOT ask themselves whether they have the right answer are susceptible to having their self-overestim… Continue reading

A Piece of Cake – 5

…Buster do in the middle of the night when I get a fever, start coughing, become incoherent and my breathing becomes laboured? And what’s more, Beth, it is not actually Buster that is doing the computing, but a network of millions of similar computers. They all have access to vast servers and are constantly in connection all learning from each other. I think it’s quite possible that they are capable of coming up with the best answers to dilemmas li… Continue reading

A Piece of Cake – 9

…h! Hello, Doctor Patel. Sorry, I hope I’m not interrupting.” George said, “Come in! Come in! Doctor Patel maybe doesn’t know that you intend to take after your grandfather and head for a career in medicine.” “That’s wonderful!” said Doctor Patel. “Let me know if I can help. Maybe you’d like to come down to the surgery and spend a morning with us at the coal face, so to speak?” “That would be super. Thanks, Doctor Patel.” “Just let our receptionist… Continue reading