By Tinny Manny, Our Artificial Intelligence (AI) Correspondent

There was excitement in the world of robotics when a group of research students at the University of Sheffield led by Seamus MacDhòmhnaill , conclusively proved that the level of intelligence among humans such as Yorick Wilks, Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University, and of journalists at Times Newspapers was demonstrably less than a Sinclair ZX81.

In a fascinating experiment, he extracted a point of total ignorance from Yorick’s brain, and communicated it to the wider world in a “Letter to the Times”. It was headed ‘How much of the North Sea oil would Scotlandshire get if the borders between the fields were drawn on international boundary principles?’ and read as follows -

Sir, Your editorial (“UK Oil”, Feb 25) on oil and Scottish independence discusses the issue without mention of what is for many the central point: how much of the North Sea oil would Scotlandshire get if the borders between the fields were drawn on international boundary principles rather than the present arbitrary line of latitude at the border between Scottish and English legal jurisdictions? It is this latter line only that assigns almost all the oil to Scotland, and Alex Salmond disingenuously talks as if that line would survive genuine separation. It could not. No one knows how international arbitration would go, but the best guess seems to be that about half would go to Scotlandshire.

Moreover, if — as polls suggest — Scots voters could be swayed in the referendum by theoretically being either £500 better off or worse off, this realistic future for the remaining oil should be a serious consideration.

Professor Yorick Wilks
Oxford

MacDhòmhnaill explained. “I was staggered to hear Wilks talking about the maritime border between Alba and Sassun as a “line of latitude”, and suggesting that Alba would be left with insufficient oil to fill a can of WD40. The sage agreement of his colleagues suggested that the total knowledge of these people about “their own country” was less than that of a crofter on Lewis, whose TV and radio had been switched off since 1963.

“Naturally, I suggested to the Prof that he should share his brilliant insight with the world by writing to the Times.

“My initial hypothesis had been that he would have been publicly humiliated for it, and was amazed by its acceptance by both academia and the commentariat. I should have paid more attention to Lallands Peat Worrier’s experience of an Oxford High Table.”

However, what has really excited researchers is how Sunday Times columnist Dominic Lawson responded to the letter. Team member, Fawdoon Rasterrs said, “I’m delighted! My life has been made so much easier. I’ve been struggling with how to produce a machine that could think for itself, and thus out-think humans, but if I only have to have it outperform the minds of Yorick Wilks and Dominic Lawson, then all it has to do is to respond in a pre-programmed way to simple stimuli based on a memory bank containing post-1999 data.”

Lawson, in his Sunday Times column, had said “In the past week there have been warnings that the existing arbitrary line of latitude between Scotland and England in the North Sea would not be agreed by Westminster. An Oxford University professor pronounced in a letter to the Times …", and then went on to quote the letter from poor Yorick.

Rasterrs went on, “Using a ZX81,a cassette recorder, and a copy of the original Space Invaders Game from the departmemtal museum, the computer was able to replicate Lawson’s article down to the last misplaced comma. I was particularly proud that it also assumed that Yorick was a Prof at Oxford, just because he wrote the letter from there, while on the train.

"Unfortunately, no computer seems to be able to replicate the mind-bogglingly irrational stupidity of David Mundell.

"I haven't yet made up my mind as to how I'll vote in the referendum, but his revealing that the Tories 'secret' plan that fUK will negate any decision by the Scots by refusing to negotiate sensibly, and imposing impossible conditions for Scotland's independence to be legal is making me more inclined to vote Yes."

As I left the computer lab, the ZX81 was heard to scream, "Mundell! Ye're a fuc*in bampot!"

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Wikipedia : Yorick Wilks

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