Way-aye, Robot!

Stephen Hawking. He’s not so clever… he just Googles everything on that laptop. Just lately he’s been delving into science fiction, suggesting that if we ever create true artificial intelligence it will learn how to advance itself way faster than humans can possibly evolve and then take over the world. Hasn’t he been paying attention? The way things are going, human dumbing-down is already well on the way to making the average toaster more intelligent than the average school-leaver.  The end of the human race, Stephen? It might be a mercy.

We already live in a world where ever more stupid individuals have access to technology so far advanced as to resemble magic and certainly beyond their ability to explain it. I can’t be alone in wondering whether this is entirely healthy. Some people should only be allowed a stick with which to poke cow pats and even access to that ought to be strictly rationed – there is only so much fun a single person can absorb in one day. (For the benefit of townies I should explain that cow pats are not the cheery tactile gestures of bovine companions you may have imagined.)

Almost ten years ago Charlie Brooker and Chris Morris had the Nathan Barley character Dan Ashcroft repeat “The idiots are winning” in a ridiculously heightened world where every utterance of the nouveau cool, the famous-for-no-reason, could be turned into dirty gold by selling stupidity to morons like ice to the Eskimos. I watched that show with mirth tempered by a certain foreboding; now I watch the real world and try to see even the tiniest scrap of difference.

Serious shit is going the same way; science is dispensed in easily swallowed but ultimately indigestible chunks by ever more vacuous, eye-friendly presenters. Pain-free aspiration is packaged up and sold to the eager with never a mention of the true price, or sacrifice, of success. And then there is politics. Visible politics is a stage show whereby unappetising villains are paraded to the tune of public derision in a sham of representative democracy; pantomime members booed from the ballot box into oblivion or ignominy while invisible strings act on behalf of the puppet masters.

The idiots have won!

And even as we watch we happily shovel in yet another mouthful of horse shit to complement the bully-bully bullshit we already swallowed. So a bit of me hopes Stephen Hawking is right and we get these new robot masters of the universe. Just before the human race becomes extinct we may experience, finally, a brief glimpse of that carefree world of leisure and plenty that technology has been promising for at least the last couple of hundred years. In the meantime, budge over and pass me that stick; I have shit to stir.

Dying Breed

I'm not having a baby, royal or otherwise and I'm not famous for anything else, nor do I want to be on the telly embarrassing myself as a talentless wannabe or a Jeremy Kyle freak show exhibit. I'm not black, yellow, ginger or pikey. I've never been diagnosed with ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, colour-blindness, laziness or any other 'special' need. I've never required extra tuition, classroom assistance or help with my homework, neither have I ever been taken to a safari park on public funds.

I've worked all my life, paid my taxes, never seen a tax credit or a 'benefit' and I don't need legislation to make me behave decently towards others. If my car fails to start, I set off for work early enough that I can walk or catch a bus. If I'm ever late it is always my own fault (I'm never late) and I always meet deadlines.

If I am carrying a spare tyre it is because I eat too much and only I can reverse that. I don't incapacitate myself with illegal substances and I make my own decisions about whether or not to drink coffee at Starbucks or eat at any restaurant. (What is it with paying a small fortune for coffee anyway?) I can also cook, clean, make and mend all by myself, not because I can't afford to pay somebody else to do it, although I can't, but because being dependent really doesn't suit me.

I get no winter fuel payments, mobility allowances or child benefit, I don't need to be reminded to vote and I have yet to be taken in by a Ponzi scheme or other such scam. (I recognise that I have also missed some good investment opportunities by exercising the same caution.) My house isn't in negative equity because I bought what I could afford and my current credit card balance is £136, a charge I incurred just seven days ago. If I lose my current employment it will either be my fault or else nobody's fault and it will be entirely my responsibility to find another way of making a living.

I read several newspapers to get a balanced view and I rarely take any reportage at face value. I regard any stories involving statistics with suspicion and I am knowledgeable enough to realise that few journalists ever fully understand some of the technical issues they write about. I know that the job of a newspaper is to sell copy, so the hard facts are usually secondary to intriguing headlines and I occasionally bother to dig deeper, which is why I know that the truth behind much political news is so much blander than the partisan press versions.

When I was a lad that's how I was taught to be. When I was a lad, I believe that was what most of us aspired to. When I was a lad it was understood that we could all aspire to be whatever we wanted to be, but that raw ability, hard work and perseverance would be needed to actually rise above the herd and we valued little that which was handed out on a plate.When I was a lad we cared for those who couldn't but thought despicable those who merely couldn't be bothered.

Now, however, I appear to be in the minority. As a white, working male I am the antithesis of the new world order. I'm a dying breed, facing extinction. I should be the purpose of a preservation charity, fighting for my survival... or at least be able to apply for a grant.