Written by Jim Heffernan for the DuluthNewsTribune/9-6-25
Warner Brothers movie poster
from a 2001 movie directed
by Steven Spielberg (Wikipedia)
I’m so glad artificial intelligence has arrived on the scene. It explains a lot about my own life.
I realize now that whatever intelligence might be ascribed to me has been artificial all along. Plus, for everything there is an opposite, right? So, if there is artificial intelligence (often referred to as AI) there has to be artificial stupidity (AS). You know, like black-white, hot-cold, sick-well, etc.
What a relief that is. Whenever you feel stupid — and who doesn’t sometimes? — or do something stupid (politicians included), now you can say it’s just artificial stupidity and get on with your stupid life.
Many years ago, I wrote a column about hockey, titled “The Game of Hockey Is a Lot Like Life — Stupid.” This was back when I was a hockey dad, probably he dumbest — make that stupidest — hockey dad in the bleachers watching the games. In short, I’d never taken an interest in hockey so I knew nothing about the rules of the game when I was thrust into the vortex of youth hockey in Northern Minnesota.
Here are some excerpts from that hockey column, every paragraph of which ends with the word stupid. It starts out:
“Heaven knows I try to keep up with what’s going on when I watch hockey, but it’s a fast game, and most of the time I don’t know why the referee or linesman or other guy in a striped shirt blows the whistle, so I ask somebody and when they tell me I feel stupid.”
A couple of paragraphs later it goes on:
“It’s easy for guys who have been patrons of the game of hockey to recognize infractions of the rules, but how’s somebody like me who doesn’t know cross checking from butt ending supposed to know when they’re doing it? Then, if I ask somebody, I feel stupid.”
Here’s another quote from this old column to help me make my point:
“There are certain things I understand about hockey, but then everybody understands them because how could you miss them? Like ‘charging.’ Your kid (your kid is why you see all this hockey in the first place) goes on the road for a weekend series and you have to stay in a hotel for two nights, eating at restaurants, and you pull out your Master Card and put the weekend on it, that’s called charging, and when I do it, I feel stupid.”
I wrote most of that more than 30 years ago and I’ve been feeling stupid ever since. But hold it! We now realize it must have been artificial stupidity, the opposite of artificial intelligence.
Here’s the final paragraph from that old missive:
“Sometimes I watch the frustration the hockey players experience in chasing that little black puck around a slippery surface while being knocked around by other people just for trying to achieve a goal. I think of hockey as a metaphor for life, because the same things happen to you when you try to accomplish anything — there’s always somebody in your way to knock you off balance and stop you from reaching your goal — and when my mind wanders down those philosophical pathways I miss something on the ice like ‘hooking’ or ‘slashing’ and I ask somebody what happened and when they tell me I feel stupid.
Unfortunately, hockey isn’t the only area of life where situations can make you feel…well, you know. Like if I’m at Menards or Home Depot in my yuppie khakis and polo shirt perusing the shelves and I recognize nothing on display; what the stuff is for in the home, and even the tools to install it. Then I look down the aisle and there’s this corpulent guy in bib overalls and camo cap who is intelligently filling a shopping cart with stuff that I don’t even recognize that he’ll need for some home project. I realize that the only things I do recognize in the whole place are cooking grills and toilet paper, and I feel stupid.
And don’t get me started on bird baths. We have had birth baths at our homes over the years, including today where one is located along a sidewalk leading to the street. I walk by it every day and I have never seen a bird taking a bath in it. And in past yards where we’ve put out bird baths, I never saw any birds bathing either, and I wonder why we put out good hard-earned money for bird baths that never get used, or even care about birds’ bathing habits, and I feel stupid.
Finally (and it’s about time), how about this? I’m sent to the grocery store and told to get sweet potatoes and when I get home, I’m told I got yams. I realize I don’t know the difference between sweet potatoes and yams and, yup, I feel stupid.
Oh, and what about TV remotes? They are intentionally designed to make the user feel stupid. (One of the buttons on ours I fear would send the Strategic Air Command on a nuclear attack on Moscow.)
But I am relieved to know now that all this is only artificial stupidity. I hope my intelligence ain’t. (Oops, better brush up on your usage, pal. Ain’t ain’t no real word…stupid.)
Jim Heffernan is a former Duluth News Tribune news and opinion writer and continues as a columnist. He can be reached at jimheffernan@jimheffernan.org and maintains a blog at www.jimheffernan.org.
