Category: City Life
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AI, limiting complexity and the social contract – some emerging thoughts
Has social media led to a rise in anti-social behaviour? And, if so, does the widespread adoption of AI risk making this worse? Or is a highly-networked society one that will see community capacity deepened? Life has a habit of circling around. The first book I wrote – many, many years ago – was an…
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‘We are beyond crisis; we are in a state of distress’
It’s exactly a year since I finally left teaching. It’s coming up for two years since my debut novel – MIDDLE CLASS – was published (get a copy here). And it’s no surprise to see the headlines about the mental health crisis in schools. This is where the novel takes you: inside a London school,…
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AI vs Car Culture – Fasten your Seatbelts?
Just a typical Friday night in San-Fran. A Waymo driverless taxi stops in the street. A guy jumps on the bonnet and smashes the windscreen. A crowd forms, and cover the car in spray paint, break its windows, and set it on fire. I’ve been thinking a lot about cars as I’ve written God-like my…
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Burning Questions and Political Facades
Against the ravenous tiger of fire, we give the rich a rifle and the poor a feather. In 1971, an engineer at Ford motors called Lou Tubben invited all of his fellow company engineers to a presentation he’d put together about gas-tanks. Driving around with a whole lot of highly flammable liquid is, when you…
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The Dark Side of the Summer of Love
Researching for my talk at TEDx this year, I came across scanned pages of this superb article in Playboy magazine. Who knew what crazy stuff was out there on the Interwebs?! Seriously, it’s a very fine piece that gets under the skin of what was really going on at the time, through the story of a…
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A chilly morning for Plato…
Been beautiful in London this week… these both taken on my walk to work through the remnants of the Crystal Palace… though let’s not pretend that the gorgeous sunrises and sunsets aren’t a function of air pollution 🙁