Historical Examinations: Was Hannibal the Original AI Innovator?
Time. She's a tough old broad. Inexorably advancing toward the heat death of the universe she is, unless you're inverting entropy like that ridiculous
Tenet
movie. But you can look through her, backward, into the past, the past of time - that which is in the past. Reflection, refraction, transmission. These are the tools to unlock ourselves.
In this new series,
Historical Examinations,
we here at AI Decisioning will examine important historical figures within the context of AI. With that in mind, let's begin with our first subject:
Hannibal.
As we all know, "AI" is a pretty broad term, ranging from
advanced programming languages
to
powerful decision tools.
But somewhere in this spectrum should lie the greatest innovation in the history of pre-common era warfare: elephants. When Hannibal crossed the Alps with elephants in the Second Punic War, he brought more horsepower to infantry movement than anyone ever had before. The goal was to use elephants, drunk and agitated, and their prodigious power to obliterate enemies. It was an unprecedented tactic.
Did Hannibal listen to the detractors? Hell no. He was a changemaker - he made his own rules. Did it slow down his troops on their march from Carthage? Sure, but so does meeting with IT - you have to do what's necessary. Did they eat constantly? Sure, but greatness requires investment - gotta spend money to make money. Were the elephants that arrived in Italy happy about how much transformation they drove? It sure was.
Hannibal: an elephantine figure in the field of AI.