As they approach, the cow doesn’t run.

It kneels.

Then, it picks up a stick with its mouth.

It writes out π to 15 digits.

Then the Golden Ratio spiral, using only its hoof and that stick.

The vet drops her syringe.

We will return to the story in a minute - I know you’re gripped by how the story got to this point and what’s going on here!

Firstly, why am I talking about cows?

For context, we have just returned from a delightful few days in the Peak District, England. For those of you not up on the geography of England this is a beautiful part of the world sitting between Derby to the south east, Manchester to the north west and Sheffield to the north east. Think rolling hills, dry stone walls, lots of sheep and of course, cows.

This is Mr Darcy, Pride and Prejudice country. Stunning.

The great thing about being on holiday is that you get a little more time to think. After the first few days of decompressing from work the mind begins to drift onto other things.

Stuck behind yet another tractor I glanced across at the field and I wondered.

What if the cows in this field had been given AI chips? What if they were now super intelligent?

So that night I thought I’d have a little fun with ChatGPT. I’ve been doing some experimenting with ChatGPT to see if the combination of it questioning me, feeding it some ideas and then using that to bounce around some concepts would yield some interesting results. After all, that is where I think the value of AI will come - not in the inane “write me an essay on how to make money online” - but in the creative process itself.

After about 45 mins of bouncing ideas I was having fun. We were working together on a silly idea “together”. (I actually felt like we were working together as silly as that may sound).

Then, I asked a question - to which the answer brought a chill down my spine that I haven’t really been able to shift since.

Me: “You’re an AI. What do you think an AI cow would do first? What are its motives?”

ChatGPT didn’t joke.

It didn’t try to be clever.

Instead, it answered plainly. Logically. Like a mind that had already worked it out.