The newest wild tech talk is about artificial intelligence, and ChatGBT in particular. I cannot pretend to really understand the science, but there are some fundamental issues about the rate of take-up of the services of machines pretending to be human that are distinctly alarming, even at a superficial level.
For people over a certain age, there may be a reluctance to even start trying to get to grips with this new wave of tech development, but that is a luxury for a younger generation charged with managing societies in which these creations of the unstoppably inventive human brain proliferate.
Fortunately, some forms of integration of new technology happens without one noticing too much. For example, I do not know how to open the bonnet of my five-year-old car, because most of the operations are computerised, and if something goes wrong (and it never has), a light and a message pop up to tell me exactly what to do when. A service every six months guarantees trouble-free car ownership, something unimaginable when I started driving.
Some newer technologies have more or less ousted older ones, such as the conventional telephone. In poorer countries with exaggerated inequality, such as India and in most of Africa, people went from no means of personal, domestic communications to mobile phones, thereby eliminating a whole previous stage of development.
It also means that expensive imported desktop computers and laptops are not strictly necessary to become part of 21st-century living.
Not everyone, however, is aware of the ethics of modern tech usage. I have railed against being sent an urgent message by social media, such as news of an accident which needs immediate action, when the use of a phone would be more appropriate.
But I have been informed that it is impolite these days to call. One must first send a message to enquire if it is convenient to be called by phone.
In truth, incoming calls can be a pain, and it may be useful to be able to plan them, but the result is that we must now all have our mobile phones about our person or within sight to remain in contact, especially when the phone bell is nearly always muted, except by more mature users who appreciate the main benefit of a telephone call.
Alexa and Siri, which use voice recognition, also have their attractions, and many users have easily come to rely on them. They certainly enjoy their novelty without realising that they represent a new form of dehumanised house help and secretarial service, with the benefit that, since no money changes hands, the relationship could never be deemed exploitative.
It certainly removes the possible stress of managing a member of staff, which brings me to the important matter of employment.
According to McKinsey, the international management consultants, AI will have displaced about 15 per cent of the world's workers, which is 400 million people, between 2016 and 2030, and if the pace of take-up quickens, then the numbers could double.
It begs the question, why must we do that?
The answer m
