The Illusion of Depth

Let me tell you a little story about my friend Sheldon (his name is Sheldon). Sheldon. Sheldon lives in the East End of London, but he grew up in the US and moved to England with his family about forty years ago. Even though he has lived here for most of his life, Sheldon knows that he will always be something of an outsider in the UK, which is one of the reasons he loves living in London. Quite apart from the genuine thrill of a big bustling city with its crowds and traffic and chaos (Sheldon likes to say that you can trust the air in London because you can see it) Sheldon loves living in a city where millions of people from diverse cultures and backgrounds have deliberately chosen to live together in a messy, sometimes futile attempt to create a cohesive, functioning community.  Like Sheldon himself, almost every Londoner has an "origin story"; something that brought them on a path from wherever they were, and led them to London. They may not share a religion, an ethnicity,...

Hi, everyone;  So sorry for the extended absence, but the last week or so has been very busy and stressful for me, with personal and family matters taking up a great deal of my time. That is why I was forced to cancel last week's presentation, and why I am now scrambling to write the programme notes for this week. (If you are reading this right now then I guess I must have finished writing it at some point. That's encouraging! I'd be curious to read it myself.) I may not have had time to sit down to any actual writing all week, but that doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about it at every opportunity. I've been going over it in my head during every spare moment, and I know exactly what I want to say; I have a very clear sense of the ideas I want to get across. Unfortunately I still have to sit down and actually  write the damn thing at some point. Thoughts inside my head are all very well, but they're no good to anyone else until I perform the overt act of...

Earlier this month, the New York Times conducted a little experiment. They provided a series of writing samples in various styles and genres (Literary Fiction; Historical Fiction; Fantasy; Poetry etc) and presented readers with two extracts in each category. One of the two passages (we weren't told which one) was written by a human, while the other was generated by A.I. We were asked to choose our preference. Crucially, the test did not ask us to guess which one was human; it simply asked us to judge which was the better piece of writing. The response from readers was fascinating, to say the least. Many commenters angrily denounced the experiment as "unfair" or "meaningless". "I don't really understand the point here." grumbled one contributor. "It asked me which I preferred. It didn't ask me 'which one is the human'." Others were angry with themselves because of the choices they had made. "This is uncanny and downright ...