Are Humans Smarter than Computers?

When we use a search engine like Google, we can be awed by the speed at which results are sent. We can do this search in Singapore when we are on a bus or train or out for a morning walk. All we need is a good mobile phone with a Wi-Fi connection to the Internet.
I wondered how I could quickly get so much information on many subjects from the Internet. If we do some research, we will find that it has much to do with memories – how they are stored, retrieved, and connected to us. Storing memories outside our brain is something we have been doing for thousands of years. We are perhaps the only animal capable of doing this. It could be a drawing, painting, or writing on the wall, in books or photographs, or many other devices like our ATM card or digital memory card. When we need the information, all we must do is look at the books or paintings or use a card reader.The problem is that when we want access to the information, we can’t find where we stored it. On the Internet, all information from all kinds of sources is stored and easily retrieved by anyone with access to the Internet. So, while it might appear that we are just interacting with our mobile phones, we are interacting with millions of storage devices worldwide. There is no way one person can have more information that is stored and quickly retrievable than what is available on the Internet.

Artificial intelligence appears to be much faster and more comprehensive regarding memory capabilities than humans. I sent the photo above to about 25 friends and asked them to guess what the bird was doing. Many of my friends are bird watchers. I received eight replies. Here are the replies:
A. The bird is resting (2 replies)
B. New routine for break-dance
C. The photo is upside down (2 replies)
D. The bird thinks that it is a comic
E. The bird is bated to hold eggs falling from the nest
F. The bird appears to be clinging to a branch while its wings are spread. It might be trying to regain its balance again after a fight. The bird seems to be trying to stabilise itself, clinging to a branch because of a fight.
G. Last resting place
There were nine submissions; it was judged that F gave the best answer. Here are two photographs taken just before and two after the photo on the first page.“F” was the best answer based on the before and after pictures and the uncropped photo above. “The bird appears to be clinging to a branch while its wings are spread. It might be trying to regain its balance again after a fight. The bird seems to be trying to stabilise itself, clinging to a branch because of a fight.”

Amazingly, such an accurate answer can be given based only on a shot, part of which was cropped. It is more impressive to know that an artificial intelligence application on my mobile phone provided this answer. It made me wonder—are computers smarter than humans? There are many things that humans can do that computers can’t.
For example, computers cannot generate a fictitious story based on an image. I thought.
Coincidentally, a birding friend sent me a photo of a sandpiper that he had. It was just taken in Turkey.

I told my friend that it looked as though an arrow had pierced the bird. This was not so. It was just a stick in the background that created the impression. I wondered what artificial intelligence would think of this and decided to see the AI response on my phone based on the title “The arrow pierced the bird, but it survived.” Here is the response I got within two minutes from Chat GPT:

The feathered creature, once soaring high, now tumbled through the air, its wings faltering as pain seared through its body. It landed roughly on the forest floor, surrounded by towering trees and the silence of nature, broken only by its laboured breathing.
For a moment, the world stood still. The arrow’s shaft jutted from its side, a cruel reminder of life’s fragility. But as the moments passed, the bird’s eyes remained open, its chest rising and falling with determination. It wasn’t ready to succumb to the darkness.
Instinct took over. The bird, though wounded, began to move. Its claws dug into the dirt as it dragged itself forward; each inch gained a testament to its will to live. It knew the forest well, every tree, every hiding place, every source of water. It struggled toward a familiar stream, hoping the cool water would bring some relief.
Days passed, and the bird remained hidden from predators, conserving its strength. The arrow was still lodged in its body, but it had managed to avoid infection. It was no longer a creature of the skies, but it had adapted to its new reality. It survived by scavenging, using its beak to dig through the earth for insects and seeds.
Slowly, very slowly, the bird began to heal. The wound around the arrow started to close, and though it would never fly as high or as fast as it once did, the bird had a new resolve. It was no longer the carefree creature it had been before the arrow struck. Now, it was a survivor, battle-scarred but unbroken.
The forest remained its home, but now, it walked among the trees with a newfound purpose. Every step was a victory, every day a testament to its resilience. An arrow had pierced the bird, but it lived on, symbolising enduring strength.

What an exciting story. It was so well written, I thought. But a computer won’t be able to sit with me in a restaurant on Queen’s Road, crack a few jokes and have a good time drinking chilled young coconut water.
I’m not sure who said computers cannot crack jokes but drink coconut water.