Curly Tinkle is what is known in the computer world as a T.I.M… a Totally Ignorant Moron but he thinks all this artificial Intelligence (AI) stuff is gonna save him. Curly went to school for sixteen years studying to be a half-wit and he never quite succeeded. So I was not surprised when he told me that a fast talking salesman at a livestock trade show had sold him an artificial intelligence (AI) computer program for three thousand dollars! The only problem is that Curly’s Apple II computer is so old it won’t run the program.
The computer program is called BULL which I found appropriate. It was designed to aid a cattlemen in selecting his range bulls or herd sires. All you do is answer a set of questions regarding your parameters for buying a bull such as ratios, EPD’s and other economically important traits, enter that data into the computer and it digests this information using artificial intelligence and makes a recommendation as to which bull you should buy. Admittedly, Curly needed the help. One look at his herd bull battery would convince you of that. If you ever wondered where all the negative EPD numbers went they ended up for safe keeping in Curly Tinkle’s herd.
Curly didn’t have sufficient funds to buy a new computer that would run the AI app but he knew that I had one and that is how Curly ended up at my house in front of my computer screen.
“Before I use this thing to help me buy a new herd bull I want to test it out,” explained Curly. “You ask me the questions and I’ll give you the information about a bull I bought a couple years ago and since I know how the bull turned out, we will know if this here program is any good or not.”
It sounded like one of Curly’s rare good ideas so I began the questioning.
“What frame score is desired?” asked the computer.
Curly scrunched up his nose and asked back, “What’s bowling got to do with buying a bull?”
“No, Curly, the computer wants to know how tall the bull is.”
“Oh. Well, he came up to about here on me,” as Curly pointed to his belt buckle. Keep in mind that Curly is not a tall man.
“Let’s just enter, “Info Not Available”, I suggested. That seemed to be acceptable to Curly. “Next question. What is the desired yearling weight?”
“All I know is,” replied Curly, “I bought him as three year old and hauled him home in my half ton pick-up and I hardly knew I had a load on.”
Again I entered, “Not available,” at the character insertion point and proceeded to ask the next question. “What is the desired Milk EPD?”
Curly looked forlorn at having invested three thousand dollars on a program that didn’t know that bulls don’t give milk. I could tell that these difficult questions were addling his brain.
“What are the pelvic and scrotal measurements on your desired bull?” I asked on behalf of the computer.
Curly just looked at me like I was a pervert.
“How did the bull do on his semen test?”
“You better leave that one blank too,” said Curly sadly. “That old bull didn’t have enough energy to catch a cow in heat let alone breed her.”
“How about his calving score?”
“I didn’t even know that cattle kept score,” replied Curly.
When the computer was through playing twenty questions and we had answered “Info Not Available” to nearly every one I pressed the “RUN” button and the computer spit out its answer… “This bull buyer should consider using AI.”
Now we don’t know if the computer meant Curly should hire an AI technician to breed his cows or he should use artificial intelligence to pick a bull because he doesn’t have any of the real kind.”
