Rachael McKelvey

• How do you feel about AI?
• That weird feeling of agreeing with Matt Hancock
• Is nature trying to get even
• Intensive three day courses
• Voter ID, the data is coming

How do you feel about AI?
BT announced this week that will be reducing staff numbers by up to 50,000 employees by 2030 and estimates 10,000 of those jobs will be replaced by AI and while not all because AI can replace humans, but that better infrastructure requires less maintenance, so this is not simply AI replacing jobs, but it’s the first step.

In the same week a wonderful human in my life sent me a wonderful piece of prose from ChatGPT from the simple instruction “write me a poem about…” and selected two variables. I don’t mind saying it punched me right in the feels, it was as beautiful as it was insightful and I couldn’t quite marry up the insight with the lack of human being the one that put it together, it has obviously originated in those words, maybe not in that order before, from human input.

I think I am AI agnostic, simply because for a little while longer I’d like to believe in the future that robots will do the heavy lifting of life and I will be the one writing prose and making art…not the other way around. (Side note: If ever there was a call for universal basic income, the time is coming.)

That weird feeling of agreeing Matt Hancock
Thank god Matt Hancock went on The News Agents podcast and had an opinion on Nat-Con because I couldn’t not talk about NatCon but who wants to talk about NatCon? What happened at NatCon should very much have stayed in all their heads. On the one hand “don’t talk about them, it’s exactly what they want” but very much on the other hand when you have serving members of parliament sharing and cheering some quite obviously fascist policy ideas then you definitely have to say something.

It pains me to agree with Matt Hancock but he did the right thing. While he has come out to criticise those speaking at Nat Con it’s worth noting he does so from the safest possible place that can’t damage his political career. He is not a member of the Conservative Party, currently sitting as an Independent and he is not running at the next general election, but credit where credit due. He quite strongly condemned, rightly so, the right of his party, the current civil war and the honest reality if they think this is the answer to win a general election they will not be voted back in for a generation.

Is Nature trying to get even?
Following a spate of Orca’s sinking boats in Europe, Live Science published an article that might explain why and how Orcas appear to be teaching each other how to do it.

Scientists think there is a “critical moment of agony” which results in attacks on boats and that this is now becoming socially acceptable behaviour in the Orca community, in the most recent attack the Skipper reported that the two younger smaller Orcas were imitating the larger orca and also slammed themselves into the yacht.

The crew were rescued, the boat bought into port, where it promptly sank at the entrance, days after a similar incident where a pod of six Orcas charged another boat. Is this a fight back? Just because we built boats and can travel by sea, should we in quite the way we are doing it now?

Intensive Courses
I am just off the back of a three day intensive course and assessment and I am shattered. It definitely does not suit my learning style at all. I am so tired might I cry. Very early on I had a feeling that I couldn’t do it, I felt quite deflated on day 1, turned up on day 2 wondering if I was even going to turn up on day 3 and well day 3 was a story arch of “if there was no more content today I might pass this” to if I fail this I don’t think I’ll bother getting assessed again, I don’t need this.

I passed, somehow. It can only be based on the submission for assessment criteria, I knew the stuff but that it would probably escape me in the moment. Our assessor was lovely and the time flew, but my mind definitely went blank, I definitely got some things wrong and I definitely am not at peak fitness. The fact that a three day intensive course had be stuck entirely in fight or flight, an entirely voluntary course and assessment that no aspect of my life depends on me having.

With a whole generation of Covid children facing week two of their GCSE’s this week, it was nice to be humbled, you think you get it, the stress and the overwhelm because we’ve all done it, but you forget what it’s actually like, in the moment.

Voter ID, the data is coming
It’s currently being predicted that around 10,000 people were not eligible to vote at this round of local elections as they did not have the correct eligible ID – because it wasn’t even about having ID, it was having the right ID.

The BBC has gathered data with 160 of the 230 councils operating in the election showed that over 25,000 voters were initially refused a ballot paper for not having ID, but of those voters just short of 1000 voters did not return to vote.

What is great is that a significant percentage did return to vote with the correct ID and that is amazing, but, there is always a but, to do so comes with privilege, how many people didn’t return because they didn’t have ID, how many didn’t return because they didn’t have time?

Current watch:  The Chair – I originally watched this a few months back, but an odd conversation sparked my want to watch it again, because Sandra Oh. The premise is prestigious American university, a first woman chair of the languishing English department, that’s very stale male and pale, but she becomes caught up colleagues self destruction, declining enrolments and out of touch views.

There are three very strong female characters very much in different seasons of their academic life, highlighting how hard it is and always has been a woman in a sexist patriarchal power structure, even with women at the helm. I wish it was longer, it’s a short 6 30ish minute episodes, but it packs a punch because of the reality of it.

Current read: F**k You Ver Much: The surprising truth about why people are so rude by Danny Wallace – After 24 hours where I had seen impatient people abuse dispensary staff at the chemist and ignorant people abuse volunteers at a local hospice shop I was left with a feeling, a feeling I knew only this book would solve.

I absolutely adore Danny’s writing and this was on my kindle from its release back in 2018, but it had never been the book to suit the mood. So imagine my delight 5 years later when it confirmed everything I was already thinking, people are getting ruder and it’s a problem. It impacts those who are rude, those on the end of the rudeness and people who witness said rudeness.

Danny travels the world interviewing neuroscientists, psychologists, barristers, public sector workers and even joins a Radical Honesty group – never heard of them? Go look them up, I won’t come with you! I felt comforted in my experience and really do vow to be kinder.

Most Impactful Listen: Today in Focus – Why ‘Godfather of AI’ George Hinton thinks humanity is at a crossroads – Hinton stepped away from his work with Google in this field to be able to speak freely about this concerns, at 75 Geoffrey Hinton’s work on neural networking has been key in the progress of AI to date, but he is worried about the risk of the technology outpacing the human ability to respond and the risks involved.

It is well worth your time, regardless of your feelings on AI, because it felt oddly hopeful, because I think if you’re not concerned by the risks then you’ve missed the point, but actually there are reasonable steps we can take, so why aren’t we?