The New God

To the Editor:

I’m so happy that Julie Fulkerson’s “Learning to Say No” ran in the AI issue [September Senior News, page 6].

My first reaction to Peter Pennekamp’s “Cooking with Frankenstein” [page 4] was something like this: “I first dipped my toe into heroin a couple of years ago and now I shoot up every day. Detox is difficult.”

All this AI noise reminds me of a joke my dad told me in the 1950s. You’ve got to remember that in the 1950s, computers were giant things with vacuum tubes and tape on reels — or maybe you don’t remember at all, but trust me.

Dad’s joke: Finally, in the desert in Arizona, a huge computer was completed, bigger than any computer ever constructed. I mean, it was in a building that covered a square mile! Scientists from all over the world were duly excited to ask it all the questions they had been working on for years. But first the big question, “Is there a God?”

“Now there is,” the computer answered.

Carol Moné, Trinidad