A Drop in the Bucket

lt was 1954. Opa and Oma came to visit us in Caracas, Venezuela, from the Netherlands. We went on a vacation trip to the Andes mountains with oma. Opa, a visiting professor from the University of Utrecht, went to the Veterinary University in Maracai. His field focussed on big farm animals; mostly cows and horses. I still remember our trip to the Andes, where we stayed just east of the big Lago de Maracaibo, where they drill for oil. Venezuela lacked sufficient refinery capacity, so a significant amount was sent to refineries on the Dutch West Indies islands of Aruba and Curaçao. In the Andes, we stayed in a cottage, much like in the Swiss Alps. We went on horses into the valley on a steep trail one day. My face showed tense in an old photograph! The trip was very impressive, driving southward and back east through the llanos to Caracas. 

My opa had an enormous influence on my career choice of agriculture and animal husbandry. I remember little of visiting the university, but he always went on his bicycle, even after he purchased their first car when he was in his late fifties. The car was for trips and convenience as needed. The university had their own vehicles for business trips. When we came on furlough from Surabaya, or later, Caracas, we always stayed at opa and oma's on the Oudwijkerlaan 37 in Utrecht. I inherited my mother's old room in the attic. Back then, every bedroom had a sink that could freeze over in winter during extended periods of frost. Looking out the window, I spotted men carrying bags of coal and storing them in a brick bin. To reach the maintenance shack in the backyard, they covered the hallway, kitchen, and created a path through the house from the front. The brick bin opened along the bottom to fill the coal shuttle and take it to the cellar under the kitchen where the coal heater was. 

                                                          Opa (on the left) and colleagues inspecting a milk cow

Inseminating cows involved leading the steer to the pasture until after WW II. The university developed a method for artificial insemination. By doing this, there was no need to transport the steer back and forth. Additionally, when there were multiple cows in the pasture, the farmer could choose the exact cow that required insemination from a specific steer. They kept accurate records so they could identify the offspring later. In short: A.I. artificial insemination. Today, they still perform artificial insemination in that manner, but the current generation consumes milk from a plastic or carton container. Unless they are in the livestock business, they have no idea what A.I. means. 

Moving forward 60 years and A.I. gets a different meaning. The focus shifted from creating artificial life to intelligence. Artificial intelligence is the science of making machines that can think like humans. It has the ability to perform "smart" actions. AI aims to perform tasks like pattern recognition, decision-making, and human-like judgment. (Sep 16, 2021 Wikipedia) 

Although experts list AI's ability to free people from repetitive and mundane tasks as a positive, some believe this benefit comes with a downside: a loss of skills in people. (Jun 16, 2023 Wikipedia) 

Alan Turing published his work “Computer Machinery and Intelligence” which became The Turing Test, which experts used to measure computer intelligence. Someone coined the term "artificial intelligence" and it became popular. 

(Mar 24, 2023 Wikipedia)

So, there you have it! Yet, people are afraid of it. It is a fast-growing technology. Like everything else, people can use it for good and bad purposes.