On the afternoon of March 11th 1991 I telephoned a company called Analytical Instruments, of Pampisford, Cambridge, trying to sell them advertising space.
The receptionist answered "Hello. AI."
Ever since I had heard a farmworker in the 1970s refer to artificial insemination as "AI" that connotation for those letters had remained with me.
Later that afternoon I visited Riccardo’s coffee shop in London’s Goodge Street and whilst I was there their radio broadcast a news item about a growing furore over plans to have several virgins made artificially pregnant.
I laughed at the mention of this controversy, and, for some reason, mentioned to all of the people in the shop/café that earlier I had telephoned a company called AI, and explained what I had always taken those initials to stand for.
At this a man said, "That must have been Analytical Instruments, right?" I said that indeed it was and asked how he had heard of them.
He explained that he had a friend who supplied equipment to hospitals and that there were only about three companies that made the specialist type of instruments that his friend dealt with.
The only one in the U.K. was Analytical Instruments.
I had never met the gentleman before but he said that he was an employee of AMY hardware store in Goodge Street. People in the coffee shop addressed him as "Cook".
... ... ...
Btw, when I was amending this Blog at 19:15, April 24th 2024, I had playing in the background a discussion between Richard Dawkins and Michael Shermer to which I had never before listened -
It reached 1:09:00 when an audience member asked a question about potential future threats which might be posed for mankind from "AI".
That is to say 'Artificial Intelligence´. An abbreviation which was hardly in use at all in 1991.
Given the pro neo-Darwinian views of the gentlemen on stage I guess you could say that it was something which had "evolved"!
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