The other day I was importing some photos and videos from my Dad’s iPad onto his Mac computer. The import error-ed out at some point and for a while I couldn’t find the files on either the computer or iPad. Finally I found them in a folder called 2011 which was odd since many of these photos had been shot last week.

Anyway, it was an absurd experience since it shouldn’t be that hard to find files that were recently added to a computer. It seems to me there should just be a natural language interface for this sort of thing – some help app where you can basically type in, “Where are the files I just added to the machine?” Or you could ask other questions in a natural language way like “Show me all files with the word “donkey” in them.” At this point in time this seems like something computers should be able to do.

In fact, if computers are as smart as their proponents say they are, we should be able to ask more advanced questions. “What is the true spiritual nature of the universe?” “Do all the conscious beings in the universe contribute to some greater universal consciousness?” “What is the precise nature of being?” Why the fuck aren’t computers answering those questions!