While I Was Eating Shrimp Dumplings...

Read an article the other day in The New York Times by a reporter named Teddy Rosenbluth, who I presume is a real person. Though in these days of A.I., you never know.

It's about Zou and Pak, a couple of scientists at Stanford, who oversaw a team of robots ("co-scientists," they called them) that did remarkable work to create a new vaciine to battle Covid.

And the reason their work was so remarkable is cause...well, let's let the NYT tell you. Take it away, Teddy...

"The lab of A.I. agents had hundreds of conversations to brainstorm, unburdened by the distractions that typically bog human researchers down, like eating or sleeping."

Here's hoping Teddy was being ironic there, but I can't say for certain...

"They often duplicated themselves and discussed the same topic in five different conversations simultaneously, each of which lasted only a few seconds."

Oh, to carry on a conversation without actually listening to what the person you're talking to has to say...

"As he watched the A.I. agents debate with one another, Dr. Pak, a human scientist who specializes in the kind of research the bots were doing, fought the urge to give them pointers.

“`Take a step back,'” his research partner, James Zou, told him. “`See what they can do.'”

And what did they do, Teddy?

"Within a few days, the results were in: dozens of novel proteins that would theoretically bind to new Covid variants. Testing showed two of them actually worked — created at a fraction of the time and cost it would take a lab of humans.

“`It was shocking,`” said Dr. Pak.

Not sure why Pak seems so excited--those robots might be putting him out of a job. Sorry, Teddy--please continue...

"Dr. Zou’s team at Stanford University is working to develop a future where the technology is doing more than just carry out a researcher’s bidding. He envisions fleets of A.I. agents that work as `co-scientists,` rapidly accelerating the drug discovery process by independently generating hypotheses and running experiments on the computer with the oversight of a human researcher."

I like how Doc Zou got Teddy to stick in that line about oversight by "a human researcher"--a job that may one day be his. If he's the lucky human.

Me ‘n Dave back in the day…

After reading the article, I thought about how Zou and Pak's robots spent their last 48 hours in comparison to a human I'll call...me.

I'm sure they were more efficient. They didn't, for instance...

Drive to Evanston to get carry-out from the dumpling house at Emerson and Ridge.

And then they didn't endlessly talk about the unbelievably delicious shrimp dumplings. 

I mean, those suckers really are good!

And then they didn't waste two hours watching The Accountant 2. Which even I must admit is a waste of time.

And then they didn't spend another two hours watching the Bears lose a heartbreaker in the rain to the Vikings. And then fret for the rest of the day about the condition of Caleb's injured hamstring.

Only to jump for joy when news broke that the injury wasn't as bad as feared.

And then laugh at a meme sent by Mueze, which shows Caleb's face superimposed onto Trump's neck. Like he, Caleb, was like Trump, after that assassination attempt in Pennsylvania.

A meme that was undoubtedly created by an A.I. cousin of the Covid-crunching robots in Zou and Pak's lab. Under the supervision of a "human researcher," of course.

And they didn't go bowling. And talk about the Bulls while watching the Giants. 

Or eat cereal at one in the morning, while reading Vertical Run, a fast-paced thriller written in 1995. How did I miss it in real time?

Or exchange emails with Dave, a dear high-school friend, about the good old days, when we walked our dogs to the park and talked about whatever it is that 17-year-olds talked about in 1973.

And then they didn't look out the window at the rain that was steadily falling and wonder--how did the years fly by so quickly?

No, those robots did none of that. But I did. And if I don't watch out, Zou and Pak will come up with a robot to run the Ben Joravsky Show empire, such as it is.

And I'll be put out to pasture, like all the other humans. Except the lucky ones hired by the robots to be their researchers.