Sessional Exam

English Composition and Comprehension

Submitted to:
Miss Maria Khan

Submitted by:
Asim Naeem

Section: A

Reg. No: FA-20-BBA-037

Semester: 1st

BACHELOR IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION,

COMSATS UNIVERSITY ISLAMABAD.
 Question No# 01
Real Stupidity Beats Artificial Intelligence Every Time

Do you know what‟s more dangerous than artificial intelligence? Natural stupidity. I will
explore natural stupidity in more detail and show how our current technology (driven by
narrow artificial intelligence) is making us collectively dumber.

We‟ve all had this experience of using a GPS to guide us around an unfamiliar place only to
realize later that we have no recollection or ability to get to that place again without the aid of
a GPS. Not only is our directional instinct diminished because of lack of use, but so are our
own memories. We‟ve all experienced losing our ability to recall due to our over use of
Google. We now recall more as to how we can search for something rather than the details of
that something.

The framework that I often use to explore intuition is the Cognitive Bias Codex found at
Wikipedia. It‟s a massive list of biases, however to get an overview of it, there are four high
level categories that are the the drivers of theses biases. These are “Too Much Information”,
“Not Enough Meaning”, “Need to Act Fast” and “What Should we remember?”

Our world requires more automation to run efficiently and sustainably. The products and
services that will be in demand are the products that compensate for our inadequacies. The
clear downside of this is that with every assist, the less we exercise our already weak
facilities.

The only people maintaining their smarts are the few people willing to constantly exercise
their smarts. Meanwhile, we have a population that is becoming more out of shape and lazy
with their own mental faculties. We imagine ourselves to being smarter because we can
multi-task more. Yet, our brains have not evolved to do multi-tasking well. In fact, recent
research have shown that pigeons have greater multi-tasking capabilities than humans. It is
just ironic that we‟ve taken pride in our new found multi-tasking skills only to discover that
we are dumber at it than pigeons!

However, there is a far worse problem than automation making us dumber. The bigger
problem is that other humans are aware that it can make us dumber and they are
opportunistically exploiting our natural stupidity to influence our behavior. Over the decades,
the industry of advertising has spent trillions of dollars inventing new ways to “motivate” us
to do new things without us being aware of its influence. The techniques to do this neatly
falls under the exploitation of our cognitive biases. After all, if we were indeed all perfectly
logical, then we‟ll likely spending our money in the most efficient way possible and very few
companies will like us to do that. If we reduce our spending, our economies would stall and
there would be an economic depression! (BTW, something is really wrong when we must
accelerate our consumption so as to avoid economic stagnation)

So, “Natural Stupidity” is basically our lack of meaning, lack of memory, inability to think
fast and inability to process too much information. The current systems that we have in place
provide products and services to substitute these inabilities. It is the natural tendency to seek
out the method of least action. That is, the method that requires lest effort or the laziest thing
that we can do. Let‟s explore each of the four in greater detail.

Humans from the beginning of the their life are driven to seek meaning. The simplest
explanations to this are going to be the most natural appealing ones. Civilization will
naturally create religion to not only create a necessary shared understanding of acceptable
behavior but one that is driven by our need for meaning.

The written word (i.e. books) and its more advanced form, the world wide web are devices
that address our limited memories. Memories require not only storage but also the capability
of recall. Throughout history, religion and law has been transcribed in scrolls, books and now
in automation (see: blockchain). Money is a form of memory, that is, once possession of it is
a measure of one‟s ability to acquire goods and services.

Mankind created computers to automate the math that we invented. Computers not only store
memories but are able to perform laborious and error-free computations. We find it an
inconvenience to use cash in that we have to calculate in our minds the amount of change so
as to guard against error or outright fraud. We have time keeping devices so that we don‟t
need to look out into the heavens to determine the time of day. We have GPS devices to help
us avoid reading a map and calculating a path to our destination.

Finally, we have the problem of information overload. Our knowledge driven economies
have accelerated our consumption of information. However, our brains have not magically
evolved to process this fire-hose of information. The device that we use to process more
information are services that curate information and exhaust it out in more easily digestible
forms. Today, social networks such as Twitter and Facebook have become our primary tools
for curating and receiving new information about the world. It is dumfounding that the
leaders of these two companies believe it is not in their charter to „police‟ the contents that
they help propagate. With great power comes great responsibility, unless it I guess if it affects
the bottom line!

We collectively become dumber when we relinquish responsibility and accountability to the

automation (or A.I.) that furnishes us with cognitive assistance. When we avoid questioning
the positions of our religious leaders and ignore obviously repugnant behavior in defense of
our own beliefs. We avoid verifying our history and cling to untrue historical information to
justify our beliefs. This is the case for Neo-Nazis and Confederates who would like to
imagine a more benevolent and just past.

We ignore common sense by following algorithms in enforcement of procedures. Like the

United Airlines where a 70 year old doctor was assaulted and removed from an airline just
because the crew blindly followed protocol instead of their own common sense. Finally, we
don‟t hold accountable organizations that employ information overload in the form of
massive disinformation to mold public opinion.

We shouldn‟t be worried about Artificial Intelligence taking over the world. The more
immediate, clear and present danger is that Natural Stupidity has taken over this world and
we are seeing daily occurrences of this in our public discourse.
 Question No# 02

Dangling Modifier
Definition of a dangling modifier:

“A dangling modifier fails to refer logically to any word in the sentence. Dangling modifiers
are usually introductory word groups (such as verbal phrases) that suggest but do not name an
actor. When a sentence opens with such a modifier, readers expect the following clause to
name the actor. If it doesn’t the modifier dangles”.

An understanding of the following might prove useful:

Example sentence: Unaware of his bike’s flat tires, Patrick began to pedal but fell.

Subject: The noun or pronoun that indicates what a sentence is about, and which the verb
refers to or elaborates. Patrick is the subject of this sentence. Because he is a person who, in
this sentence, acts, Patrick is what we refer to as an “actor.”

Independent clause: A group of words which has both a subject and a verb, and which can
stand alone as a sentence. In the example sentence above, “Patrick began to pedal but fell” is
an independent clause.

Modifier: A word or word group that qualifies, describes, or limits the meaning of a word,
phrase, or clause. In the example sentence above, the word group “Unaware of his bike’s flat
tires” is a modifier.

Examples of sentences with dangling modifiers:

1. Rollerblading frantically to keep up with the others, the hill proved too steep for Manuel,
and he fell to the ground.
2. Too sleepy to turn it off, P.J.’s alarm clock continued to ring for nearly twenty minutes.
3. Because he was so protective, Oliver’s car had an overly elaborate security system.
4. Without the aid of his standard weekend of preparation, the chemistry test was slightly
difficult for Claus.

Because of their dangling modifiers, these sentences wrongly imply that the hill rollerbladed
frantically, that P.J.’s alarm clock was too sleepy to turn itself off, that Oliver’s car was
overly protective, and that the chemistry test lacked its standard weekend of preparation.
 Question No# 03

Word Meaning Sentence

Jane Doe Unknown Girl I saw the beautiful Jane doe

and instantly amazed by
her beauty.

Airbrushed Done grooming and I did not recognize her

makeup after airbrushed.

Question No# 04

Passage Question Answers

Answer Description
No.

Ans # 01 He tried to copy others.

Ans # 02 He the apes others will never be himself

Ans # 03 Personality emergencies

Ans # 04 No, they were evil

Ans # 05 It is talking about original brown identity

******************************* THE END *******************************