Back from a mini tour of Yorkshire and Stockport and cheering for supporting act Indignation Meeting
AI and socialism
Software engineer SCOTT ALSWORTH explains to his mother
AI
ALISTAR FINDLAY is mesmerised by this multiple ‘Visions of Scotland’ assault on the audience’s eyes and senses
The Star's critics ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MICHAL BONCZA reviews I Am Love, The Penguin Lessons, Freaky Tales, The Thicket
MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about the direction of a play centered on a DVLA re-training session for three British-Pakistani motorists
New releases from Steve Knightley, Jupiter & Okwess, Jason Palmer, Lisa Knapp and Gerry Driver, Kin'Gongolo Kiniata, Ingrid Laubrock/Tom Rainey, Dan Sealey, Simin Tande, PAZ
JOHN GREEN relishes photography that unfolds a longstanding and poetic relationship with Leeds
A uncomfortably misogynistic authorial voice that sometimes seems to lack insight troubles FIONA O’CONNOR
“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?
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