THEY’RE TAKING OVER! The number of Artificial Intelligence brains in Hong Kong has overtaken the number of human brains (assuming one brain per human, which may not be a safe assumption).
The city has 7 million people and 17 million mobile phones (by far the highest ratio in the world) and about 12 million of those are hi-tech ones, so we’re talking Siri and her AI counterparts.
Siri (see pic) is WAY smarter than most people I know, especially the tourist who asked me “if Hong Kong had a Chinatown”, or the one who wanted to know “what time the Noon Day Gun was fired”.
The fact that there are more phones than people can only mean that they are also being used by other forms of sentient life, such as household pets, patches of toe-fungus and campaigners for New Territories rural district rights.
The latest statistics from the Office of the Communications Authority might be seen as bad news for universal suffrage, in that they establish that humans are now minority residents of Hong Kong.
But it might turn out all right.
Wouldn’t you vote for Siri in preference to some of those pro-Beijing guys? I mean, at least she’s human and has a sense of humour.
A FEW MINUTES before this writer stood up to give the graduation speech at Hong Kong Adventist Academy last week, the Master of Ceremonies addressed the audience:
“Does anyone need translation into Putonghua because you don’t understand English? In which case you won’t understand this announcement? If so, we have headphones and simultaneous translation available.”
He asked the question twice over, in English only.
There were no takers. I wonder why?
IT’S SO HOT I saw a Mongkok hawker control officer chasing a street-hawker and they were both walking.
AT LEAST IT’S not as bad as Singapore. This columnist spent a few scorching hot days there recently. “Does the weather here ever change?” I asked a friend’s kid. She replied: “I don’t know; I’m only five.”
HOW DO YOU get pro-democracy Hong Kongers away to leave a protest site? Tell black people there’s free food there, Jasper Tsang told a private meeting (as reported in an HKFP exclusive).
As a dark-skinned person with African friends, can I just say that it all depends on the kind of free food, Mr Tsang. If it’s not truffled peppercorn tenderloin with Chateauneuf-de-Pape, we ain’t moving. (We may grant you a short visit for sole meunière, properly prepared.)
A SQUAD OF CLEANERS has been hired to keep the Hunghom waterfront free of garbage—and they all have the wonderfully appropriate-sounding name Dussmann on their jackets (see pic).
I love “aptonyms”. The Vickers family of the UK includes two church vicars, which is appropriate, although one of them was named Randy Vickers, which was off-target, although appealing to headline-writers.
Also inappropriate is the name of South Korean athlete Kim Yoo-suk. The pole vaulter is always worth watching at competitions, particularly when the audience chants his name: Kim Yoo-suk! Kim Yoo-suk!
THIS IS THE latest shocking Whatsapp conversation from Legco President Jasper Tsang Yok-sing in an exclusive report from the dark side of my imagination.
PRO-BEIJINGERS: What do we do now, Jazz-baby?
JASPER: Stop texting me! I’m pretending to be impartial!
PRO-BEIJINGERS: Oops, sorry. Does that mean you’re not coming to the “dance on democracy’s grave” party?
JASPER: No! I gotta lay low!
PRO-BEIJINGERS: Damn, I just remembered: we put your face on the poster and the invitations.
JASPER: Really? Did you get my best side?
KEEP THE FAITH: Read HKFP every day, and share with friends. Talk soon.
