Category: Media

Stop and think

Anthropomorphism is more than the world of “Alice in Wonderland”. A talking rabbit is not the least bit strange fictional tale. Our minds happily accept this as a normal part of storytelling. The anthropomorphic qualities of an animal, or an object is not so easy to explain. But we do it all the time. That is thinking of non-human objects as human in a mystical transformative way.

A teddy bear is an object. One eye, fur, fluff and stuffing however shabby. It’s an object but the teddy bear I had when I was 6-years old is something more. It has a personality. Having travelled with me, over the decades, it’s not an object to be thrown away without a thought.

Like others, I do the same with animals. Not always. Occasionally, I go to the bottom of the garden where it adjoins a grassy field. I may talk to the cows. That’s if they are grazing up against the fence. Now, I know those Dexter cows have no idea what I’m saying but that’s unimportant.

Personal computers haven’t been in our lives as long as teddy bears and animals. From the unwieldy plastic boxes that filled our desks they have transformed into tablets, lap-tops and super smart phones. These devices can be sources of great utility or, on bad days, incredible annoyance. Fliting with both times saving or time destroying.

It’s likely that a machine’s anthropomorphic qualities come out when we are most frustrated. That instantly takes me to the scene from the BBC’s Fawlty Towers[1]. It’s a memorable comic scene. It’s Basil Fawlty’s frustration peeks when his car breaks down at the most inconvenient moment possible. He gives his car a damn good trashing. The car doesn’t flinch or runaway.

Who hasn’t sworn at a computer? I’d label you untrustworthy if you answered – never. I’ve done it more times than I can remember, as if my computer could feel my annoyance. An inanimate black box, full of integrated circuits, memory chips, circuit boards, components, connectors, and multi-coloured wires.

One aspect of computing, that I can state without fear of contradiction. They don’t care. Not one bit. How can they? Caring is a human reaction.

By the way, in 1975, Basil Fawlty’s Austin 1100 Countryman (Estate) car had negligible electronics even if it was probably the car’s electrics at the root of his overwhelming frustration.

I’ve lead you down this path because the thought I have in mind is – will AI make a difference?

We humans are highly influenced by the nature of tasks. Having to read a simple advertising slogan is a million miles from learning from a dense book packed with complex detail.

It’s easy to forget that a computer has no opinion on the tasks that it’s given. Big or small. Awkward or easy. There may be ten lines of code to execute, or a thousand or millions.

My question is – are we anthropomorphising AI? When I read some articles about the future there’s a suggestion that computer code has become like the talking rabbit. It’s more than a synthetic voice composed from trillions on electrical ones and noughts. Blind we become to the reality of billions of machine instructions being crunched. Invisible is the reality of the billions of semiconductor junctions working at unfathomable speeds.

Using jazzy description like; “super intelligence” gives machines a mythical god like status. This is way off the mark in 2026. Powerful computing is truly amazing. AI is developing at an astonishing speed. That said, it’s an exceedingly long way from being anything like us. It’s true I may not be able to say the same in 2046, but we are not there now. What we can say confidently is that nature has had a head start of billions of years. And conscious creatures are vast orders of magnitude more complex than silicon-based electronics.

[1] https://youtu.be/78b67l_yxUc

Two worlds

So, Hogarth’s print of Gin Lane[1] is revived as a template for UK Conservative Party policy. It’s a classical appeal to class prejudice. In their eyes there are the deserving and undeserving poor. And it’s easy to spot the difference.

A lower class of people have a long list of vices whist another has fortitude in the face of hardship. One drinks, gambles and brawls in the streets whilst the other will do a hard day’s work for a penny and not complain. To top it all the Conservative Party’s rush to travel back 275 years isn’t based on any principles or in-depth study. It’s merely because they are being politically out paced by the Reform Party.

UK politics is peculiar in so many respects. It may be less surprising when considering the annals of history of these islands.

Hogarth didn’t castigate those who drank alcohol as being the ultimate sinners. He drew a positive picture of those who drank beer[2]. Putting that beverage at the heart of an industrious and harmonious society.

As if the mark his place as the polar opposite to the right-wing hustle above, UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham is reported to be wanting to lift the drinking ban at football matches. Hooliganism was once the blight of English football. That brought about a ban on drinking alcohol in the stands at football matches. Now, 40-years on those concerns are faded.

In a popular move, it has been pointed out that drinking beer at a massive rock concert in a football stadium is treated entirely different from a match day gathering.

Here’s two sides of an English coin. Both with deep roots in our history. One to do with ingrained prejudices and the other to do with freedom and liberty. Both with an eye to future electoral popularity.

I expect there’s a cascade of draft proposals to introduce or scrap measures ready to flow out of policy makers lap-tops over the next couple of years. Differentiation is a key motivator. The struggle to stay in the top tier of pollical relevance continues. At the same time a sense of general discontent rumbles away.

Political competition is good, for the most part. Where it falls down is the attention it takes away from solving real problems by practical means. Hogarth’s prints can be interpreted as provoking thought about how divisive opposites can be. The truth being somewhere in the middle.

As discontent rumbles away it seems sad that politicians are running away from the pragmatic aspects of problem solving. Yes, effective governance can be dull. It can take time. It doesn’t always capture headlines. But what is it we really want? A good side show or a better society?

[1] https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/work-of-art/gin-lane-1

[2] https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/work-of-art/beer-street-1

It’s that season

It’s a time of seasons change. Autumn is upon us. Or Fall, if you like. I’m in the Northern Hemisphere so we have just passed the Autumnal Equinox. That means 12 hours from sunrise to sunset. A time of transition. In prospect are shorter days and longer nights.

Looking out of my kitchen window the display of trees, off in the distance are starting to become a colourful array of different tones. Long lost is the crisp greenness of Spring. Nature is tunned into the cyclic dance that our planet performs. It’s not just mellow tones that characterise this month. It’s mellow moods too. A sense of summer being lost to the records of history. No longer a subject of everyday talk. Now in a long record of hot dry seasons pointing the way to more to come. Its impact remains as we wait for winter rains to refill the aquafers of the surrounding hills.

Autumn comes as the ground remains hard. Dry and difficult to dig. Some trees look eager to shed their leaves. Sadly, some are in their death throws. Southern England takes on a faintly Mediterranean cloak. Climate change heralds a shift that is painted in the landscape.

In England, this is a political season too. It’s an occasion for political parties to assemble their supporters in seaside towns and major cities. To make grand speeches and toast electoral successes. To sidestep mistakes and forget exiles and defectors.

So, just as nature is undergoing a transition, national politics tries to do the same. There’s an analogy here. It’s the unpredictability of the size of the shift from one state to another. Change is predicable. What’s not is the range, either as subtle realignment or a starquake like shock. I suppose that’s why the News media take the time to report conferences. Nothing nicer than a rumbustious argument about beliefs or a sharp rebuke of an irritating campaigner. Political party managers strain every sinew to project a sense continuity with freshness and vitality. Often the truth is far from that curated image of harmony and common purpose.

What I’m asserting is that this season no different if a socialist, nationalist, popularist, liberal, libertarian, or conservative (all with no capitals). Or any mix of these competing ideas. Anarchists and totalitarians are a little different.

Leader’s speeches are atypical conference highlights. These are intended to encapsulate the ambitions and achievements of a political party. They address woes about threats too. Rarely, if ever do they talk of weaknesses.

I listened to the complete speech of the Leader of the Liberal Democrats. It’s good to see that these political events are broadcast for everyone to watch. Our democracy depends on people being informed. Seeing events as they unfold.

Sir Ed Davey is a capable politician. His longevity in the business is testament to that fact. He’s been a national political party leader for 7 years. Out staying many other party leaders in the UK.

As leaf fall happens so the response to a speech can be written before the speech is given. Opponents have branded his efforts as the dead walking. Tough talking is portrayed as overreach. Some even find his sincere manner as embarrassing.

For me, he’s good at what he does. Trouble is that what he does is part of a legacy. He tends to always sound the same. If I look a couple of years ahead at a future UK General Election, then something new is needed for the Liberal Democrats. Now, there could be a snap election. In which case Ed Davey is ideally placed to build on past achievements. So, there’s the real gamble.

Unraveling Future Risks

Much talk of the end of times doesn’t make for the end of times[1]. It’s true to say that commentators have taken time on their keyboards to ponder on the apocalypse. It isn’t the first time the subject has occupied the public mind. I could say that the four horsemen of the apocalypse have been around since biblical times. They have, and now there’s a couple more of them riding around the globe.

In my lifetime, the atomic age, the jet age, being wiped out by bombs and a following nuclear winter was brightly coloured there on the chart of probability. Far too high up that chart. Then the Cold War ended and a period of moderate sensibility seemed to exist. That didn’t last long. Chewing over the masses of accumulated planetary climate data created another headache. This time, but at a slower pace, climate change became one of the horsemen. No doubt the popularity of apocalyptic science fiction and science reality comes from a deep insecurity. A realisation that the evolution of space and time is way beyond human control.

Playing my vinyl that’s been sitting in a box for too many years, I’m listening to one of my favourite David Bowie tracks. “Five Years[2]” is the ultimate apocalyptic disaster song. It asks the listener to imagine the News coming over that we’ve only 5-years left on Earth. What would happen in such a situation? Would we all scream and run around like chickens with no heads?

Now I must ask, is that a good lead into one or two words about Artificial Intelligence (AI)? Those working on this technology seem to be getting nervous about that technology which they have cherished, developed and promoted. Let’s first say that AI is not new. When I graduated, in the 1980s, it was one of those esoteric subjects that was only for those wanting to do a PhD in an obscure part of the world. Not more than 20-years ago, given that aviation research was part of my remit, academics lobbied me because they thought a complex neural network should be able to predict the next major accident in aviation. That is fed with enough safety data. They may have been ahead of their time.

What has surprised a lot of people is the speed with which industry has gone from academic research to live digital systems that exhibit astonishing abilities. Access wide open too.

I don’t know if there’s a Moore’s Law[3] for AI. There doesn’t need to be one. The observation is that every week there’s News of even more powerful technology being made available. The disruptors are disrupting themselves before the rest of us have a clue what’s happening. As David Bowie would sing: “my brain hurts a lot.” Here’s what I think is problematic.

One. Concentrated Ownership. This innovation, and its potential power are in the hands of few people and States. Specialised expertise and infrastructure are prized intellectual property.

Two. Forecasting Dilemma. Projections are fuzzy, to say the least. Who can be believed? A simple curve on a graph doesn’t cut it. Step transitions are more than likely.

Three. Sleeping Sentinels. Regulatory lag is normal. Rules and regulators take time to mature. It’s just that, in this case, this lag may be disastrous. And some prefer to sleep.

Four. Legacy Thinking. Imagining AI’s future to be a version of past progress is woefully inadequate. It’s a new game when machines exceed human intelligence.

I do not believe that the world will end in five years but it maybe unrecognisable from today’s world. AI will create as many problems as it solves. Surely the powers that be need to step back and think about how the next decade will pan out. 

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/02/jd-vance-god-podcast-end-times

[2] https://youtu.be/8gPSGrpIlkc

[3] https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/moores-law

Money vs. Integrity in Elections

Money and politics. There’s a combination that goes together like clouds and rain. It’s difficult to conceive of one without the other. Money doesn’t guarantee success, but it does tip the balance in the favour of those who have it. If a political party is out of sync with the voters, then piling on the pounds will barely tip the scales. Same is true if a candidate’s credibility is in the pan. What money does in the run up to elections is summed up in three points.

One. It is used to influence the climate of opinion. Journalists are a fickle bunch. Raining issues down on them and pushing hard gets lots of coverage. Having a team of fresh thinkers drafting speeches and doing research (hard graft) means arguments can be placed for maximum impact. Volunteers can be superb. Trouble is there’s never enough of them to go around.

Two. Professionalising campaigns. British politics, at a local level, is renowned for its amateurism. In so many ways that’s a wonderful situation. Petty reveries, few ancient but dedicated leafleteers, committee rooms with dry rot, out of date records of voting intentions, a dream, never fulfilled, that a bigwig’s visit is just around the corner, all that and more. Money does afford the recruitment of motivated campaign managers and organisers who know how to get a message out and follow-up on voters’ concerns.

Three. Pure swagger. Saying that a new candidate will never win here, is not from around here or is an accidental choice of a struggling local committee, they can all be pushed aside. Money allows even the most desperate, disorganised, dishevelled individual to be bigged-up. Confident candidates, with adoring supporters run the full distance, whatever the inevitable knocks. Money is great for maintaining momentum and papering over the cracks.

It’s interesting to note that none of the above means that a constituency gets a better Members of Parliament at the end of the process. However, if all the candidates on the ballot have access to some of the above then local voters do get a wider choice.

On the basis that no political party will ever win all the seats in the House of Commons, targeting has become the number one strategy. Only expend resources where they may best produce positive results. That can be 300-400 parliamentary constituencies, all with their idiosyncratic issues and 70,000 voters poised to put a cross in a box. A third of them will not bother with the entire process.

So, what’s the problem with money? Well, that depends what you hold in your heart about liberal democracy. Afterall the ideals of democracy are played out in a fraction of the 200 or so, sovereign countries across the globe.

My view is that all citizens should be eligible to put themselves forward for election to a political post. The pool should be as wide as possible. Naturally, there are a few exceptions, jail being one of the more notable. In standing for election there should be a reasonable level playing field. Ideally, it’s effort, ideas and talent that should win the day. Not piles of cash or undue influence.

For the voters, it’s come as you are. I lament when hearing of candidates trying to change minds on the doorstep with nothing but a metaphorical pea shooter and tendency to take the moral high ground. There are difficult issues to address. Where vast amounts of money can be destructive is where they used to shift the climate of opinion onto subject that are far away from the ones that really count. The major topics of education, health, employment, tax, and spending should never be marginalised. I’d even add transport to that list.

Vast sums thrown about by wealthy people distort that level playing field. That’s not right.

Ideologies and Education

Listening to a new Labour Education Minister say, for all intents and purposes, that Gove[1] caused young people classed as NEETs (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) isn’t what might be called objective thinking.

Education and training in the UK have long been a victim of the classical political ding-dong. Right leaning politicians support elitism (masquerading as aspiration). Left leaning politicians support egalitarianism (within class hierarchies). Both claim to celebrate achievement, merit and social mobility. I say “claim” because the outcomes of their polices are often so different from their utterings.

It’s not too difficult to understand why. Historic social prejudices run deep. They remain embedded in our institutions. Public and private. Comedians Cleese, Barker and Corbett star in a BBC sketch of 66 years ago[2] that sums-up stubborn in-grained British attitudes. As a 66-year-old this doesn’t sit well with me.

Although the public are gradually freeing themselves from an addiction to political creeds, the current cohort of elected members and the media moguls still perpetuate a dated world of stereotypes. From Classical Greece to now, the phrase “everything changes, but nothing changes” still has its place.

Here’s a view that might be different. On a day when examination results are published, much of what has been said this morning is about education pushing young people out into the world. Like products coming off the end of a production line. Ready to be integrated into society. Both from political right and left this is horribly mechanistic.

If something isn’t working, it’s the fault of the implementation of policies, processes and procedures dreamed up by past Ministers.

What about looking at the subject from the other end of the telescope. Our society isn’t going away. Whatever the successes or failures, in 66-years from now, that’s 2092, people will be writing articles about education and training. The good and bad.

Within the lives of this generation of young people the rivers of change will flow ever faster. Instead of pushing young people out into the world, let’s imagine the factors that will pull them into different life outcomes. What will success or failure look like in their time between leaving school and retirement. Assuming such a condition as retirement continues to exist.

[This is where Gove got it mighty wrong. Retro education policies born of imperial public-school thinking contained no vision of the future.]

To thrive in let’s say, the period between 2026 and 2066, adaptability and resilience will surely be needed. Attitude comes into the equation too. A “can do” mentality will be an asset. There’s no need to downplay achievement, merit and social mobility. More a need to supress the pigeonholes and categories that hold people back. The forces that demotivate.

Our classical two faced political ding-dong does a lot of harm.

[1]UK Education Secretary (2010–2014): Led reforms, including the expansion of the academies and changes in what’s taught in schools.

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00hhrwl

Political Farce: Clacton’s By-Election

Solar eclipse, Perseid meteor shower and planets in alignment happening at the same time, it could be an omen. Well, maybe not. A by-election has just taken place in an English seaside town. Not exactly a ripple in the fabric of space-time.

A Member of Parliament (MP) who was under an intense spotlight for alleged misbehaviours, decided to step-down from the Parliamentary seat he had won at the last General Election. Then he decided to stand for re-election in a by-election that was called after his resignation.

Yes, political acts like this could go on at infinitum. It’s like that classic picture of a snake eating its own tail. In the event, the larger political parties in the UK looked at this strange situation and concluded that standing a candidate in this by-election would only add to the media show that the former MP probably wished to promote.

Now, you could say that this choice of standing aside was potentially disrespectful to the electorate in this English constituency. There’s a case for that political argument, if it wasn’t for the primary cause of the by-election in the first place.

The political complexion of this seaside Parliamentary constituency is well known. It sits in an area where the British political right often does exceedingly well. The underlying reasons for this fact are strange to me. Years of voting for right-wing candidates never seems to improve the lot of the constituents of that part of the world. But vote that way they do.

Anyway, whatever the tactical political play the cards fell the way that the former MP wanted. Grumbling about the “establishment” political parties shunning him is not a new platform, even if the results of the byelection give him an opportunity to say so.

There’re several takeaways from this strange episode.

One. Imagine doing this and still claiming to be a potentially good manager the economy. The cost of putting on a by-election of choice is not trivial. Local authority bank accounts are not briming with surplus cash.

Two. Disrespect for the electorate cuts both ways. Having a job, giving up a job, and then taking up the same job again is doing nothing to improve life of people in that part of the country. In fact, lot of people all over Britain may now have a less than favourable view.

Three. The “new” MP remains in jeopardy. The House of Commons Standards Committee investigation continues, and so another byelection is a real prospect. If the outcome of the investigation is suspension for ten or more sitting days, a recall is triggered.

Four. The Reform Party has lost even more of its reputation and spent much money campaigning against a man who wears a bin on his head. Add to that, Binface will have secured his reputation as the number one alternative (comic) candidate in future elections.

Five. The argument that this episode was a stunt aimed at distracting people from other matters will not die because of the results of the by-election. Yes, a humiliating electoral defeat was avoided only next time the process may not be so simple.

Clacton’s by-election day will get written-up in the book that nerdy electoral fanatics keep on a dusty shelf. A political tactic of delaying what some people say is inevitably has a point but it’s immensely wasteful and does nothing whatsoever to address most people’s cost-of-living concerns of the moment.

Moments of Decision

It’s the time of year. Young people pass through a gateway. Exam results hit the streets. Through life there are moments of decision. Life is not linear or proportionate. Swaths of time will pass when nothing much happens. Then bang. There’s a moment of decision.

Certainly, education has a role to play in preparing people for those moments. This is where the race for superior exam performance statistics fails. It’s great for someone to struggle through and ace one subject. It’s great for a person of moderate ability to excel out of the blue. It’s great when a naturally talented individual gets more than their expected grades. The difficulty arises when people, consequently, are not prepared to know what to do.

Conflicting advice shovelled out by a fickle media isn’t the bast source on offer. Politicians juggling with volumes of statistic, a barrage of recommendations and a pile of prejudices struggle to find a line to maintain.

Is going to university important? Now, there’s a question mark that’s doing the rounds.

It’s true, I should not, on any account, judge the current situation as if it was the same as my experience of 50-years ago. 1976 was a world away from where we are in 2026. That said there are some fundamentals that stick.

At the deepest level there’s the reason universities exit at all. Let’s face it they are not an invention of the modern world. There’s a reason special places of learning were established in every human civilisation. It’s that basic hierarchy of needs. Once food and shelter are commonplace humanity gets around to asking endless questions about the world and the universe.

Is going to university important? I find the question strange in so many ways. Fine there’s a small number of institutions that don’t offer the ideals of university life or an uplift in future opportunities. However, the vast majority provide the next steps that a maturing adult needs. It may lead to a specialisation or a jumping-off point to a radically different destination.

A hardy perennial that keeps cropping up is this war of the vocational verses the academic. It’s a persistent theme.

Mechanics that fix semi-autonomous electric vehicles may not need a degree in oceanography. Researchers in the art of renaissance architecture may not need to know how to lay bricks. Engineers developing farm machinery may not need a qualification in linguistics. Need is not all.

What this presents is a false conflict. In my mind, people with a diversity of experiences are going to be much better equipped to deal with the future than those who tramline. Thus, the “hard hat verses gradation cap” is the most moronic of slogans. It’s the ultimate visualisation of the tramline. It paints a picture of a fork in the road (or rail).

I started by writing that there are moments of decision. The point I want to make is that the decision of university or not university shouldn’t be based solely on career aspiration or finances or popular fashion. Believe it or not it’s possible to read medieval illiterate and be a gifted welder. To be fascinated by the Greeks and Romans and fly a plane. To enjoy construction work and play a musical instrument to a high level. Motivation and passion are the key.

Please let’s think more widely about lifelong learning. Let’s build systems that enable lifelong learning.

Britain Needs a Written Constitution

Who cares? That’s what a lot of people might say. I mean look at our everyday problems. A cost-of-living crisis, crumbling infrastructure, conflicts in the world, turbulence of identity politics and a host of live issue that would take the whole page to list.

Lord Sumption, a crusty establishment lawyer debates with Baroness Chakrabarti, a lefty advocate and lawyer. Both capable and seasoned debaters with respectably different backgrounds. Listening to one I might say; that’s a sound reasoning. Listening to the other I might say; exceptionally good point. Thus, I my view remains the same whatever their debate.

So, for a brief few minutes this morning the subject of a written British constitution hit the airwaves. I can’t break the habit of listening to the Today programme on the BBC Radio 4.

Firstly, to explain. The UK, and its parliamentary way of doing business, is unlike our cousins across the other side of the Atlantic. They are now celebrating a nation’s coming into being, 250 years ago. The foundation stone and a launch into nationhood was a written constitution.

We have done thing differently in the UK. It’s not so easy to trace our constitution back to a moment of birth. Naturally, I will cite one document that has influenced both nations. The Magna Carta’s importance[1] is recognised across the globe. Not only by its influence on modern constitutions but what it says about the rule of law.

[Last year, was the 800th anniversary of the sealing of one version of the Magna Carta].

As an infant a school trip we made was to Runnymede. My teachers clearly wanted to plant an idea in our heads long before we would have any appreciation of what it meant.

[That primary school trip included a visit to the Rufus Stone[2]. A place where I wandered off and got lost in the New Forest but that’s a story for another time].

What I’d say to both Sumption and Chakrabarti is that the subject you debate is fundamentally important. However, it’s easy to get hung up on the word – constitution. As if there’s only two models of such a key construct. To put it basically, one we make it up as we go along and the other, we write rules on tablets of stone.

An argument for leaving things well alone is the flexibility that the traditional make it up as we go along approach can offer. Parliament being sovereign, without question. Even when it’s foolish and unrepresentative. To counter this supremacy of the executive is the dangers of fragility and vulnerability that can be exploited by an errant leader, despot or tyrant.

An argument for change, one I favour, is that our medieval system holds the country back and its not as if we don’t recognise the importance of solemn written commitments. Every Act of Parliament is as such. In fact, Acts can be enabling. So, why can’t a written constitution be an enabling document. It doesn’t have to be overly constraining or practically unamendable.

The problem lies not with agreements in favour of a written constitution; it’s more a problem of how on earth can British society take up this challenge when its mind is on so many day-to-day trials and tribulations. It’s a modern dilemma.

We have a partially broken system that’s unsuited to the coming decades, but we don’t know how to fix it. To fix it, everyone needs to engage.

[1] https://www.magnacartatrust.org/home

[2] https://new-forest-national-park.com/the-rufus-stone/

Rise of AI: A Double-Edged Sword

Spotting AI generated articles is a hobby that is designed to be a minority pursuit. There will, no doubt, come a time when the writings of a human and that of a machine will become indistinguishable. I don’t think we are there – yet. Headlines like “Aircraft flies through heavy rain” are either a bored human scribbler or a machine with time on its hands.

The early promoters of the INTERNET imagined a great library of existing material becoming easily and freely accessible to anyone and everyone. It was to be an enlightened development that drove the digitisation of massive amounts of information. Although, even now, it’s not too difficult to pick an obscure book or magazine off a charity shop shelf and find that there’s no reference to it on-line. True, it’s getting harder to do.

That which hasn’t made it to the digital world, like boxes of 35mm slides I inherited from my father-in-law, will sit quietly gathering dust in the attic. I hardly think this is a great loss to humanity. Although, random holiday snaps of Cornish landscapes from the 1970s might one day become fashionable. More likely they will gather another decade’s dust.

Making the INTERNET the modern equivalent of the great library of Alexandria[1] is a worthy ambition. Civilisation could be defined in a way that embraces a preservation of knowledge. What we find is that the 21st century version of the digital world has strayed from these high-minded ideas of its early promoters.

My desktop, tablet, and phone can access a universal store of fact and fiction, truth and lies. What is troubling is that the line between these is becoming increasingly blurred. The demand for instant and every changing material is insatiable. In the past, technology was the limiting factor. Now, it’s not.

Here’s a compilation of likely headlines from our machine friends. I can’t be sure and it remains possible that a human may have authored some of these eye-catching wonders.

“Astronauts face dangers during spacewalks.” “Most fascinating deserts on Earth.” “The beach that many consider to be the best on the entire planet.” “Study claims aliens may be hiding on Earth.” “They found a triangular UFO in the woods – then it vanished without a sound.”

I note from 5-minutes watching headlines change that the craft of catching our attention is the one that is most valued. The term – click-bait – was made to describe what’s going on. Whatever words can be framed to entice a potential reader/viewer to go here and not there, that has value.

Again, what’s concerning is that it will be algorithms that will master the art of catching our attention. They do. They will surpass smart thinkers and artful writers. Mainly because they instantly have a whole well of past successes to draw upon.

For sanity’s sake, I need to stop this line of thinking. The further I look the more we become destined to a dystopia that was portrayed in a movie that hit the screens before the mobile phone became ubiquitous. A 20th century fiction that made everyone sit up and think, as well as being highly entertaining, was The Matrix. Now, it called a classic.

A generation on and AI produced material is filling our screens. It’s not yet dominant. There’s a small amount of kick-back too. Not time for a rebellion. Question is – will those born now be the rebels or the captives of this digital revolution. 

[1] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Library-of-Alexandria