Artificial Intelligence, 2021: Towhead of Cottonwoods

"Golden Leaves of Cottonwood Trees,"

Photo Credit: Ryan Mollnow, USFWS Mountain-Prairie 2004. Derivative: cropped by dkp. License CC-by 2.0. 

This is just a layman's observation. I think Facebook's forays into the weaselly world of artificial intelligence is more advanced than Duckduckgo's. I was reading Huckleberry Finn and was reminded to wonder why a blond is called a "towhead."  Cottonwoods were mentioned, and I began to think of local (North Georgia) scrub brush, to envision something similar. Would a white towhead be like a field of sandy dropgrass? a stand of white-flowered jasmine bushes? flowering pears? a thicket of katawba trees, maybe? So I searched "cottonwood trees." Oddly, the trees were not white at all. They ranged from a soft, bushy green to a brilliant yellow-orange color. The term "towhead" brought up beaucoups of little blond boys. I couldn't quite make the connection, going by the trees I had seen; strawberry blonds, maybe, or little redheads. But white-blond children? Why the metaphor? 

It took quite a few more searches (and several articles perused) for more clues, that finally provided me something of an answer. With the last set of terms, the image search result gave up a set of pictures showing full-blown cottonwoods going to seed. Finally, the fuzzy, white "summer snow" I sought: 

*cottonwoods

*cottonwood trees

*towhead

*river towhead

*towhead with cottonwoods 

*cottonwood trees in seasons

*cottonwood trees in all stages

*cottonwood trees white 

*cottonwood trees full blown seed

*cottonwood poplar thicket summer fuzz white

*ohio summer snow cottonwood seed

I haven't tried Google, but I know that Facebook would have categorized my thoughts immediately. One mention of the word "towhead," and I would see memes of blond kids, ads pushing Mark Twain books, pictures of islands, documentaries about riverboats, and travel ads for Missouri and Mississippi River destinations. Facebook reads my mind.