The evening before last, I caught up with the Hannah Fry series on Artificial Intelligence and viewed the first one which focused on the way in which AI could recreate the speech patterns of a departed loved one in such a way that the surviving partner could carry on what might be a ‘real’ conversation with the departed one. To illustrate this, the creator of a powerful piece of software created the voice pattern of Hannah Fry’s recently deceased father which the presenter found shocking and disturbing, The trouble is that once this technology has been invented, it cannot be put back into the box but I feel that this particular use of the technology opens up a road down which many of us would be well advised not to travel. I am unconvinced that hearing and communicating with the simulated voice of a departed one makes for what one might term a ‘healthy’ grieving process. It is true that this technology might provide short term comfort and relief for the lonely and depressed but in the end it is replacing what should be social relationships with technological ones and we have enough of this already in our commercial life. Nonetheless, I shall continue to catch up the remainder of the series which will, no doubt, provide much food for thought. The point here is that the technology tends to creep up on one and is introduced without much discussion or pubic debate as has happened with the almost universal adoption of social media. We have an interesting elision of domestic political and international news with the call by Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, for the forthcoming visit of the King to the United States to be cancelled. The King is due to visit the US next month to commemorate 250 years since the country’s independence. But there have been calls for the monarch to postpone the visit in the wake of the escalating row between Washington and London. President Donald Trump has repeatedly lashed out at Sir Keir over the UK’s refusal to allow the US to launch its initial attacks on Iran from British bases. Sir Ed called on the prime minister to cancel the king’s trip due to the ‘illegal’ war launched more than a week ago that has seen retaliatory airstrikes across the Middle East. The Lib Dem leader said on Sunday: ‘Keir Starmer should advise the King that the state visit to the US scheduled for April should be called off’. Personally, I can well understand the reason for such a call and the timing of the visit is unfortunate, to put it mildly. But I think the point that must be made is the spat that we are having at the moment is with the American president and not with the American people. To call ff the visit now could make a bad situation even worse ad I think there are ways in which our displeasure can be communicated, short of a full scale cancellation. So far, the public seems fully behind the stance that Keir Starmer has taken and we have two examples of similar situations. Firstly, those of us with long political memories are reminded that Harold Wilson the British PM successfully ensured that the UK did not get entangled by the war in Vietnam. But much more recently, the war against Iraq and the subsequent finding of the Chilcott enquiry that the whole war against Iraq was at least ‘ill advised’ shows the evident danger of following maverick American presidents when they engage in madcap interventions in the Middle East. There is a now strongly held view that by not restraining the activities of Israel who have been itching for any excuse to have a go against the Iranian regime, the Americans have been bounced into the whole conflict. Could there be a more clear illustration of a tail wagging a dog?
Conscious of the fact that I have not been walking up and down the hill as is consistent with maintaining my health, I made myself undertake a walk this morning. When I reached Waitrose, I picked up my newspaper and had a ‘free’ coffee whilst also buying some bran buds which is very often out of stock. I also tried to investigate some of their superior olive oils but did not get very far. Although olive oil and the Mediterranean diet are often recommended, this is by no means the full story. To convey health benefits, the olive oil as to be high in polyphenols but these are not stated on the label so one has to recourse to the internet to discover which brands they are and, not to my great surprise, it is hard to find these superior oils on the supermarket shelves. So if I wish to pursue this line of purchase, I need to do sone internet searches and then source a supply from a more specialist retailer. After I got home, I made myself a meal of beef slices in onion gravy, potatoes parboiled and finished off in a little oil and some sugar snap peas. Although I had to force myself to do it, I also gave the car a quick wash as it was still covered in a fine Saharan sand but tried to keep my time outside to the barest minimum and, as it was pretty unpleasant outside, I will leave the interior of the car and the windows to another occasion. As is usually do, I perused the columns of the newspaper to ascertain what my TV viewing is to be this evening. It seems like quite a full night with a Panorama programme discussing the origins of the present Iranian conflict. I wonder if the programme will present some infamous parts of British history as the way United Kingdom played a critical role in destabilising Iran in the early 1950s, culminating in the joint Anglo-American overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in August 1953. The destabilisation was primarily driven by the British desire to regain control over Iranian oil resources after Mosaddegh nationalised the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), which is now BP. The TV viewing continues with another in the Hannah Fry series and a final dose of comedy to round off the evening. I am attempting to get to bed just before 10.00pm these days but if I drift off to sleep, I generally wake up an hour or so later and generally watch a bit of TV before settling down for good. All the health programmes stress the importance of a good sleep pattern but this is easier to talk about than to attain these days.
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