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There’s been a lot of commentary about AI generated creative work, pointing out its shortcomings. A substantial part of this argument suggests that AIs can only synthesise what’s already there, but can’t do anything original. That may well be true for now, but it’s open to the argument that it’s only a matter of time, and that improvements in the technology will produce things that are richer,…

Every so often, on platforms like Medium, and elsewhere, you’ll see a piece proclaiming traditional publishing models are dead, or irrelevant, and in one recent example, the especially doubtful observation that the novel was dead, because it had developed to suit a particular commercial imperative, which has been left behind by the rise of short form digital platforms. I want to unpack some of…

It happens. You invest a good few hours in a TV series on a streaming platform, which ends on a cliffhanger, and you think, okay I’ll wait for the next season, and then the platform turns round and cancels the future. It’s like reading a book only to find the closing pages have been ripped out. When you start a story there’s an implicit contract with the viewer/reader, that the story will come…

Killers of the Flower Moon documents the emergence of modern America from the foundation myths of the old west. In doing so it places a story of greed, corruption and self deceit at the heart of American history. Its starting point is an unusual one among the more familiar narratives of native American exploitation by white settlers, and those who came after them. It’s the true story of what…

Rei Inamato recently wrote a piece on Medium offering advice for creative workers heading into their forties and beyond. https://uxdesign.cc/40-something-creatives-what-should-we-do-next-788e42ce4726 As a freelance writer for whom 40 was a milestone passed some time ago, I have a direct interest in the question, but there are more important issues lurking behind it, and they go far deeper than…

Between them AI language models and Donald Trump offer a challenge to the ways we make meaning in language, but to recognise the problem is to begin the fight back. I said to Mary, “Look, it’s five past eleven already.” Mary just smiled. So what’s going on here? It was actually 9.45. I was making a mild joke about the fact that the clock in my sister’s kitchen is stuck at 11.05. Without my…

The easy availability of AI powered writing is going to change how we do many things. If we want to ensure this change is for the better we’re going to need to be clear about what we value and what we’re trying to achieve.   In a lecture I heard as an English literature undergraduate the late poet Geoffrey Hill commended the American poet and critic John Crowe Ransom for his affirmation that we…

No artificial ingredients? The future of copywriting

Copywriters! Artificial intelligence is coming for our jobs! Or is it? Not so long ago task automation seemed largely about robots replacing mechanical repetitive work. But it’s been apparent for some time that artificial intelligence (AI) in computing was coming for a whole swathe of administrative roles, including things like accounting (at least the clerical bits) and property…

Britain comes to the end of a road

The forced resignation of Britain’s home secretary Suella Braverman could well spell the end of the Conservative administration (it should do). But will Labour learn the right lessons? Brexit has proved the last straw for the British parliamentary system. The mission to leave the EU concentrated the minds of the hard Right faction in the Tory party, giving birth to the European Research Group…

How could you be so stupid?

Kwasi Kwarteng’s catastrophic mini-budget has raised many questions, but the one that intrigues me most is the claim that he’s a highly intelligent man. I appreciate that he came through his (privileged) education with some success, and has a PhD in economic history. He has the bits of paper to declare that he’s intelligent (so do I). But if he really was so smart, how could he do something…

Past Caring: history, love and death in Karloff’s Mummy

I was in my mid-teens when I first saw the 1932 film of The Mummy, with Boris Karloff in the title role. I watched it on TV on my own, as part of a burgeoning interest in film as an art form as well as entertainment. I was riding too on a curiosity fired by childhood trips to London, where I was captivated by film posters on the walls of Tube tunnels, in particular those garish bits of artwork…

McCartney, melancholy, and my generation

The end of a weekend of music making with Entertaining Mr Stone leaves me melancholic and wistful, not because of our performances (which were happy occasions) but because I spent the last hours watching Paul McCartney’s set at Glastonbury. McCartney at 80 was not exactly bouncing around the stage, but he commanded it all the same, and though his voice was thinner in places, he held the stage…

Crossing boundaries: ethics, wealth and power

The crisis in Ukraine has placed an ironic spotlight on the persistance of national borders: ironic because the pandemic (not to mention the looming climate crisis) has only made clear their ultimate irrelevance to the natural order of things. It’s true that borders developed to reflect fundamental aspects of our society, our sense of identity, and in a less fundamental sense our emerging…

Cancer 22: an end, and the next beginning

I’ve been given the all clear on my bowel cancer, bringing this difficult year to a happy end. I want to reflect on what this means, which will entail talking about more than cancer, so please bear with me. I have been in yet another limbo of uncertainty for the last few weeks, waiting for a meeting with the oncologist which would tell me whether I was finally clear of the disease, or whether…

Cancer 21: a turn for the worse

I suppose it serves me right, when I was thinking I’d come through the chemotherapy with the same ease as my rapid recovery from the tumour removal. It serves me right for thinking I might have special powers of recuperation, or resistance to discomfort. But after a truly grim week at the end of my third cycle I can no longer claim to have got off lightly with the chemotherapy. Then again,…

Cancer 20: normal is really not an option

Steroids and brutally stupid government economics combine for a wave of literally sleepless nights It’s 2.15 in the morning. I’ve been trying to sleep for the last four hours, without success. Thanks to the steroids I have to take to help my body copy with the poisonous elements of the chemotherapy four hours’ sleep is about the total I’ve had over the last three nights, apparently soon to be…

Cancer 19: laughing at cancer

I’m nearing the end of my first chemotherapy cycle, or at least I’m in the third week, in which I don’t have to take any drugs for seven days. It’s a part of the cycle in which most chemotherapy patients can expect some relief from side effects, except in my case I’ve barely had any side effects. I experienced a very mild increase in sensitivity to cold in the first few days, which has long since…