AI is right: winter time is better than summer time

In the ‘Q&AI’ section in which a question is asked to the artificial intelligence, the chatbot indicates that winter time is better than summer time. “It’s true,” says biologist Marijke Gordijn.

When the chatbot is faced with the eternal dilemma of whether summer time or winter time is best for us, it gives a clear answer:

And it’s true, says Curtain, a chronobiologist at the University of Groningen. “We often think we live by our watch, but that’s not the case,” she says. “We follow our biological clock. That’s 100,000 cells in your brain, and they determine the optimal time to fall asleep and wake up.

At 09:45 light

For this clock to work properly, we need light in the morning, says Ms. Curtain. “If we switch to daylight saving time, it will be light later in the morning and stay light longer in the evening. That means your clock has to move to a later time.

Read also | Egypt wants to save energy: move forward one hour

Now, that’s not too bad in the summer, says Curtain, but suppose we were to apply DST in the winter as well, it certainly wouldn’t do us any good. “On December 21, it wouldn’t be daylight before 9:45 a.m..” So daylight saving time all year round would not be a good idea.

Summer seems nicer

According to Curtain, intuition also plays a role. ‘Summer seems much nicer. If you say you can sit outside for an extra hour in the evening, everyone will say yes!

“Or watch this radio show, which started at 6 a.m. this morning. In fact, it already started at 5 a.m. in standard winter time. Only we secretly put the clock forward one hour. According to biology, this is one of the reasons why we can’t get rid of daylight saving time, despite the fact that it has been talked about for a long time and even the AI ​​is in favor of it.