Typing, Bomb-Threats & Bubbles

Well: three things in the news this weekend that aren't about Russell Brand or Donald Trump: first off the bat in this weekend's Guardian, the revelation that Apple iPhones operate a company 'grey list' of 100,000 words and phrases that the device will not auto-predict and suggest when texting, or typing generally, which is hard-coded into the phone's operating system, forcing the user to manually peck out the offending words and phrases manually. This begs a fundamental question: which comes first, the thought or the action? Methinks simply slowing someones typing down is hardly likely to stem their thought processes and delay their actions by more than a few seconds: necessary? I think not.

Secondly, what's with the current wave of empty bomb threats against airlines? This strikes me as simple economic terrorism, and would seem to me to be a far more effective method of disrupting the status quo than the deployment of any amount of lethal ordnance. But why now? The curious thing is that it centres specifically on Europe, a continent currently sandwiched between the animus nocendi of Russia and the indifference of the Trump administration, whose attitude to world politics vacillates according to Trump's whim. The motivation behind these paper tiger threats, combined with increasing levels of cyber interference in Europe's economy, seems coordinated rather than coincidental. Considering the current shifts in European politics which seem to be pointing towards a re-unification of the Union possibly involving the UK once again - please, let's just get on with rejoining - one has to ask the question: who stands to lose out if this happens? China, Russia and the US would seem to be standout candidates, methinks.

And thirdly, the inevitable AI stock bust would seem at last to be kicking in, and weirdly it would appear that the epicentre of the backlash is at the very heart of the industry: the United States of America, where resistance to the technology is growing daily, as people's fears about job lay-offs and employment security in the face of the combined threat of the behemoth and its tech bro billionaires' seeming indifference to the affairs of ordinary folk grow apace. According to The Guardian, '...More than $3.2tn was wiped from the value of the US stock market on Thursday - bigger than the annual output of the Canadian economy - after the tech heavy Nasdaq fell by 5.5% and the blue chip  S&P 500 fell by 4.4%...'. You can't tell me we've not been down this slippery slope a time or two in the past. I leave it to you to make what you will of any of it...

My title tonight is loosely and obliquely allusive: if anyone can give me title of the collection of essays it paraphrases and its author, you get my admiration and a virtual thumbs-up: if the mark of AI is stamped all over it, no cigar, mes amis.