Almost daily

For the last several years, whenever asked how frequently I write on the blog, I have replied “almost daily”. I’m beginning to wonder if I should refactor my stock reply to “almost weekly”. I’ve been keeping my mouth shut a lot recently (or rather, my hands away from the keyboard, I suppose). While there’s been all sorts of subjects I might like to have weighed in on, I’ve managed to catch myself before emptying my thoughts all over the social internet as one might imagine one could hurl a bucket of tripe. In a strange sort of way, my reluctance to poke my head above the battlements has caused me to consider why I’m here - why I write this codswallop in the first place. (cue “It’s all about you me”, by McFly) I’ve been half-reading the uproar that’s exploded across Facebook, Instagram and Threads in response to Meta scaling back their censorship and fact checking - wondering why people get so worked up about other people’s opinions, no matter how objectionable, misguided or badly informed they are. Whatever happened to ignoring people? I can’t help but be reminded of a comic-strip I saw several years ago - around the same time the “social internet” first happened. It might have been on XKCD - I forget, and can’t be bothered to fact check myself. There was a drawing of a man sitting at a computer, late at night, feverishly typing at a keyboard. His other half is on her way to bed, and asks “are you coming to bed?” - he replies with “I’ll come to bed in a minute - I just need to explain to this person why they are wrong”. I’ve never quite understood how the internet became so polarised - or how people became so polarised, I guess. To me, their arguments often feel like somebody saying “Next door have decided to paint their front door red. I think we should have a home-owners association that bans red front doors, because I don’t like red front doors. Or anything red. Or doors.” Anyway. I have some rather ridiculous news to share. There is an AI version of me, out there in the wild. You know that I make pocket money while monkeying around with pretend aeroplanes on the internet? I was approached over the Christmas period to review a service that provides air traffic control services via AI voices that you can talk to while flying your pretend aeroplane (a bit like Alexa, I suppose). One of the services they offer allows pilots to “ask a mentor” while flying - to have an AI person sitting in the cockpit with you during the flight, dispensing knowledge, wisdom, and know-how. I’m now one of the mentors available to fly in people’s planes. I spoke to myself this morning. It was the weirdest thing I’ve ever done. And you know the even weirder thing? The AI version of me knows more about anything and everything than I ever will. The robot overlords aren’t just coming - they’re here already.