Machine learning

Who came up with the phrase ‘artificial intelligence’?

– The term was coined by US computer scientist John McCarthy in 1955, arising from a summer school held at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. The blurb for the project declared: ‘the study is to proceed on the basis of the conjecture that every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it.’ However, McCarthy seems to have had a slightly loose concept of what constitutes AI. He once had a debate with a colleague in which he asserted that even a thermostat could be said to have ‘belief’ on the grounds that it believed a room should be set at a particular temperature.

Royal welcome

Has becoming King enhanced Charles III’s reputation? Percentage of Britons saying that Prince Charles/King Charles III is doing a ‘good’ job:

July 2019           34         May 2022         32

Jan 2020           39         Sep 2022            63

June 2020         37         Jan 2023            58

Dec 2020          32         Mar 2023          60

May 2021         31         Apr 2023            59

Nov 2021          34

Source: YouGov

Big fat zero

Which countries have scored the dreaded (or perhaps cherished) ‘nul points’ in the Eurovision Song Contest the most times?

Austria, Switzerland, Norway                   4

Finland, Germany, Spain                           3

Belgium, Netherlands, Portugal,
Turkey, UK                                                   2

Iceland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Monaco, Sweden, Yugoslavia 1

It was far easier to score nul points in the early days when fewer countries entered. Half of the nil scores were recorded prior to 1970 (scoring began in 1957, a year after the contest itself). Since the scoring system changed in 2016, only Britain has achieved the feat of a zero score, in 2021.

Building back better?

Under which prime ministers were most, or fewest, homes built? Average number of housing ‘starts’ in the UK in the years they were in Downing Street:

Margaret Thatcher                          215,422

John Major                                       183,323

Tony Blair                                        204,744

Gordon Brown                                154,120

David Cameron                               152,043

Theresa May                                    198,390

Boris Johnson                                  187,973