08-17-2026
Humans can learn to tell the sex of a day-old chicken just by looking at its behind. They don’t know how, nor do we. I learned this a while ago. Primarily, they taught this in Japan. It was invented in the 1920s. The accuracy is about 100%. They can do over 10,000 chicks a day, these chicken sexers. Then the male chicks are culled.
In this age of different intelligences, I’m reminded that of humanity is uneven. We want to think what is difficult for us is intelligence. It’s hard to learn math. Those who can do it must be smart. Before the abacus, maybe, multiplying was. Before the calculator: solving integrals.
In this age of artificial intelligence, I’ve thought about what humans do well, what we evolved to do well. These are the things that should be last to go. These are the curves not yet winded by the jagged edge. It’s the things that come easiest to us that are actually the hardest; closing an umbrella; speaking, naturally; recognizing a frown. These things we do complexly.
Certain patterns that we shouldn’t be able to recognize, we do. That’s a certain gift, among others: a frown, the subtle contours of a day-old chicken’s behind. I had a thought: if we put someone in front of stocks all day, every day; let them predict if it will go up or down. Perhaps one could pick out the smiles and the frowns. You could make a lot of money.