“I NEED to ask you, what actually is AI?” 
    
That’s how my mother began our last long-distance WhatsApp call. And really, it’s not a stupid question. I mean, I don’t have an answer. Not a good one. And I’m not altogether convinced anyone else does either. I don’t know. 

Maybe that ought to give us some pause for thought. Maybe Sir Keir Starmer can tell us? After all, he’s just pledged our money — £14 billion of it — to an AI Opportunities Action Plan. Mind you, if he’s asked during Prime Minister’s Question Time, I can well imagine some glib reply like “machine learning” or that old chestnut, “simulated human intelligence.” 

To which, we might respond, is my spellchecker learning? Are images generated online with Midjourney, simulating the wonders of our cognitive capacity when they mistake hands for feet?