Having looked at what our esteemed Westminster MSM want us to talk about today I think there’s only one diagnosis possible: the chickens are coming home to roost. Some of them have already arrived. Of course, you know what lands on the floor underneath roosting birds, i.e. on us plebs … Here’s the collection of this morning’s front pages, aimed at enticing punters to shell out for them, There can’t be that many bird cages left to recycle all those papers as lining: “Newspaper headlines: ‘Saturday night taken away’ and ‘BT use more AI’” (link)
“AI’ – ah, the stuff now scaring even the developers, and ‘our BT’ is already embracing it! This makes me wonder how deeply involved BT were in the development. A British industry to apply already a new process which the public only heard about at the end of last year? I’m suitably amazed!
The headline of the DT report is interesting: “BT to cut up to 55,000 jobs and replace a fifth with AI – Scale of redundancies at telecoms giant risks reigniting row with unions” (paywalled link). So a showdown with trade unions is already pre-programmed. I wonder if BT will have to shell out such huge sums in compensation that there won’t be any of the savings left which they aim to achieve by cutting jobs. Here are more details (all emphases are mine):
“[BT] will reduce the size of its workforce by 40pc by the end of the 2030 financial year as it battles to steady the ship amid surging inflation and energy prices. […] Around 25,000 jobs will be lost through a reduction in engineers as the company’s full-fibre rollout comes to an end and old copper networks are shut down. A further 10,000 roles will be replaced by automation as the company embraces AI, largely in its customer service division. Mr Jansen said BT would be a “huge beneficiary” of AI, which he said could save the company hundreds of millions of pounds compared to its old IT systems.” (paywalled link)
Are we to be happy with “AI for better customer services”? Will our telecom bills be reduced? (Cue: hollow laughter!) Will other industries now follow BT? What will a Labour government have to say, especially if their supporters, the trade unions, put their oars in? Will they look like the Luddites of old, standing up against modern technology – or will they try to cloak themselves in the mantle of ‘saviours of humanity’ by putting stops to the use of AI?
A difficult decision, isn’t it, so I expect Starmer to be as silent about this as he is about his definition of what a woman is. Not that the current PM is any better. He demonstrated his and his mandarins’ incompetence when he said the following the the G7 summit:
“We have put in place a regulatory approach that puts those guardrails in place, and sets out a set of frameworks and areas where we need to have guardrails so that we can exploit AI for its benefits. […] We have taken a deliberately iterative approach because the technology is evolving quickly and we want to make sure that our regulation can evolve as it does as well.” (link, paywalled)
“A deliberately iterative approach” is Whitehall speak for ‘we dunno and are just kicking the can down the road’. Thus, we don’t know what these ‘guardrails’ should look like, never mind actually having ‘guardrails! Apparently we need ‘frameworks’ first to find out where ‘guardrails’ are needed before deciding what these ‘guardrails’ should ‘guard’ against. What does this say about the mandarins’ mindset!
Is it possible to find a better example for truly woolly thinking, combined with an attitude of hiding one’s ignorance behind nebulous expressions? Obviously, dear old Whitehall is populated with serpents shining by their scientifiC illiteracy, just as in the case of covid which we peasants haven’t forgotten.
Where are the SAGEs dealing with AI? Where are the nudge units? Shouldn’t they at least nudge ‘the youth’ into studying MINT subjects rather than mickey mouse degrees? Perhaps that’s impossible because the top universities are filling their places with students, mostly from China, who are paying the full university fees, as Allison Pearson describes in her opinion piece for the DT (paywalled link).
The chickens are indeed coming home to roost: our educational system has been so dire for more than a generation that not even any ‘SAGEs’, never mind mandarins, PMs, MPs and chief editors know what’s what. Some of you might remember the first line of an ancient song by ‘Pink Floyd: “We don’t need no education …”. That was in 1979. Those kids later became the professors educating the Westminster ‘elites’ who are now governing us – with ‘guidance’ and ‘guardrails’.
These are the people who’d rather push LGBAlphabet ‘issues’ into schools than worry about what our kids actually learn. Btw – the latest ‘outcry’ is about a male model promoting a woman’s swimsuit (link). Frankly, I don’t get that particular outrage. After all, yon ‘diagnostic bulge’ at the model’s South Pole can be removed in the photo by AI, making him look just like a female model …
That’s all I have for today. Perhaps we should let AI decide what ‘guardrails’ we need to protect us from the decisions of the current crop of the governing, self-proclaimed ‘elites’. Have a good day.
What an utter charlatan Sunak is attending that G7 summit and standing next to Ursula von De Luyen in an obvious attempt to cosy up to her in the photoshoot taken on the water front somewhere in the Far East. And how did he get there I wonder. I assume he didn’t travel there on a pedalo, rowing boat, coracle or sailing boat, and went instead by jet which emitted emitted unnecessary carbon into the atmosphere. It is very much a case of don’t do as I do but do as I say, and eventually it will see him becoming unstuck by his own arguments and that of his ludicrous net zero government. I would much prefer that the oik who poses as our prime minister on the international stage without actually doing much for the country that he supposedly represents spent more of his time trying to find workable solutions to the burgeoning English Channel Migrant crisis which is costing our nation an arm and a leg. And that would mean leaving ECHR and dealing with the Human Rights lawyers once and for all thereby cutting off their lucrative lifestyles, as well sending all those illegal entrants packing from whence they came. Time is running out for Sunak and his Clan and I think he knows it judging by his awkward demeanour during that photoshoot.
Sunak: a real snake in the grass as expected.
Further to Biscotte’s comment yesterday re. the Patriot/Kinzahl exchange.
Irrespective of which side won that exchange,
Ukraine apparently launched 30 Patriots in 2 minutes: $152m worth gone in a flash.
Alexander Mercuris said, on The Duran, that the U.S. produces 250 Patriot missiles per year.
The West is enfeebling itself, feeding its ordnance into a crusher for no good reason.
PoS- agreed. The actual Patriot modules that make up the system are, as commented, a great deal more expensive. Further they need to go to Jermany or uSA for repair or scrap.
I’ve seen several comments that when ‘the penny dropped’ they realised 1. with own missiles on board, a Russian hit would take out a hooge central chunk of city in which they were stationed; and 2. the Patriot wasn’t working against a missile moving at 30,000 ft/sec. Hence fired all their air defence missiles off quick to keep casualties / destruction to a minimum.
And again yes, the whole of the West is running out of guns and ammo with Ukr using it faster than it can be found, as production is too little, too late. Plus uS weaponry comes up short against a non-goat-herding combatant with a competant air force.
Years gone by, we feared the Yellow Peril – China, due to its population that could swamp anywhere with troops / people. I don’t see that happening, but after Ukr, the Russians could easily steamroller over Iron Curtain Countries, You-rope and Scandinavia. Would you drop a nuclear bomb on You-rope – say France to hold up the advance. And the uSA is not exempt with current Russian Weapons.
No, it ain’t gonna happen, but with Pres Paddy O’Bidet, I’m not 100 pct sure(!).
But Phil, when your not paying for the fireworks its nice and great fun to light up the sky
Surely there is a contradiction in wanting AI to replace many jobs whilst allowing mass immigration on the excuse that immigrants are required to do those jobs?
BT has a customer service division?
SY- as my Son once said, it does not matter your problem, BT does not give one sh. . sh . . shot that day.
Have we finally reached that long predicted age when everybody will sit on their R ses at home with every luxury while machines/robots do all the work?
This has been predicted for almost a hundred years in various Science Fiction novels.
Also predicted that machines will rebel and take over the world.
Think 2001 and Arnie in Terminator. Any John Connors out there?
Or has 1984 finally arrived?
Arry Again- didn’t the boy Connors win Wimbledon that year?
Biscotte…..yeah, except that his name was Jimmy as opposed to John.