Is Strawberry Fields forever by the Beatles about AI before it was invented?

 I happened to hear Strawberry Fields foreverby The Beatles earlier. I can recall hearing the first time it. It was the first time it was played on UK Radio. It was a double A-Side with Penny Lane. Radio 1 built it up for ages, plugging the new Beatles single, which was a major event. It was a real change of direction for them (Much influenced by LSD). I think it is the only Beatles track I can remember hearing getting such a build up, although I was about 4 at the time, so why would I?

After hearing it, I looked up the lyrics online. Something struck me that I've never thought of before. Here is the first chorus and verse

Let me take you down

'Cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields

Nothing is real

And nothing to get hung about

Strawberry Fields forever

Living is easy with eyes closed

Misunderstanding all you see

It's getting hard to be someone

But it all works out

It doesn't matter much to me

When I first heard the song, I was intrigued by the idea of Strawberry fields. We grew strawberries in the garden and picking them was one of the highlights of the summer. Years later I discovered that the song was about a mental hospital. I realised that the song is perfect summary of social media and the way all and sundry are using AI to generate images to indulge what ever fantasies or delusions they cling to. In a bizarre sort of way, AI bring psychotic delusions to life - NOTHING IS REAL - when I go on Facebook and Twitter, I see all manner of posts, aliens, UFO's, Dinghys full of migrants, politicians in silly outfits - NOTHING IS REAL. Armies of people search out things that confirm their version of the truth "LIVING IS EASY WITH EYES CLOSED, MISUNDERSTANDING ALL YOU SEE - AI is the perfect tool for inventing an alternative reality. 

We are in an age when if Aliens did land on the Whitehouse lawn and invited Donald Trump on board for a cup of tea, no one would believe it.  Billionaire Elon Musk has invented a tool called GROK. On X.COM it has become the arbiter of truth. Someone posts an image and then 20 people ask GROK if it is real or just AI slop. It never really occurs to them that Grok doesn't really know. It can spot the artefacts of bad AI, but that means nothing. 

We are living in a society where you cannot trust anything on line. You can generate any image you like. You can bring dead grandparents to life. But NOTHING IS REAL. The dangerous thing is that we start to convince ourselves that it is. What really disturbed me when I thought about it, was that The Beatles correctly identified that when you can't trust anything and you start to create your own reality, you are probably losing touch with reality. 

My views on AI have been evolving rapidly over the last couple of years. I worked in IT and I worked on what we now call AI systems before the term had been invented. Back then it was called decision support software. We had rather crude tools to automate writing of code. We had automated test tools. I have never really been to concerned about any of it. My view has started to change. Not because I think AI itself is daangerous. AI won't destroy mankind. However I have worried since I was old enough to worry that mankind would destroy itself. AI simply makes this far easier. It also opens up the door for new ways for us to destroy ourselves. 

My one hope is that like many IT fads I've seen over the years, we get bored with it all. Dodgy pictures and bad music (known as AI slop) are already egetting tiresome and boring. The first AI generated track I heard, but together by a mate's son for his birthday was quite good fun. Now there are thousands of the bloody things and they are mostly rubbish. Someone played me two tracks and asked me if I could spot the one that was AI, I guessed correctly, but I explained that as I didn't really think either track was any good, It was a pointless exercise. AI is actually quite good at identifying the lowest common denominator and making something vaguely passable. I am sure it could mimic styles of the most complex avant garde Jazz and fool experts. But would it ever make anthing groundbreaking? I doubt it. 

Which brings me back to that day, the 17th February 1967, when I was four. Strawberry fields forever was a complete change of direction, the lyrics about an asylum were like nothing anyone had ever heard. I guarantee that if you gave AI every track the Beatles had made before that and said "Generate a song that will be their next single" it would never make that. It would probably rehash Please Please me or something. Which for me is rather reassuring.

Anyway, here is a little ditty I wrote. There is NO AI in this! And until humans stop loving a party, there will always be hope! And you can join us for some real music at Nambucca on the Holloway Road for Free on Friday 16th October for some real music and real life fun.

So does AI agree with The Barnet Eye's assessment of the risk level of an AI Doomsday apocalype - The results may shock you!

 Yesterday, I posted a blog detailing the risks of an AI doomsday apocalypse scenario, based on my 37 years working in IT, developing and supporting major banking payments networks. After I posted the blog, I asked Google's Gemini AI tool whether I was right. You may find AI's view of the risk shocking. Here is what it had to say

--

Evaluating the realism of the scenarios raised in the blog post requires breaking them down into realistic near-term risks, plausible worst-case events, and unrealistic extrapolations.

1. Highly Realistic: Minor Errors Causing Major System Failures

• Realism Level: 10/10 (Already Happening)

• Why it's realistic: The blog's anecdotes about payment system glitches creating tailbacks or test scripts flooding emergency services reflect how fragile complex, interconnected IT infrastructure is.

• Real-World Evidence:

  • The CrowdStrike / Windows outage (July 2024) proved that a single corrupted software update can instantly paralyze global air travel, emergency services, banking networks, and healthcare systems without any cyberattack occurring.

  • The 2023 NATS air traffic control failure in the UK was triggered by a single improperly formatted flight plan that caused the main and backup systems to enter a safety shutdown, grounding thousands of flights.

2. Highly Realistic: AI-Accelerated Cyberattacks on Infrastructure

• Realism Level: 9/10 (Active Threat)

• Why it's realistic: Criminal syndicates and hostile state actors do not need "sentient AI" to cause devastation; they only need AI tools that automate code analysis, scan legacy operational technology (OT) for vulnerabilities, and execute zero-day exploits at superhuman speed.

• Real-World Evidence:

  • National security advisories confirm that nation-state actors are deploying AI tools to map out power grid networks, water management SCADA systems, and transport infrastructure for potential sabotage during geopolitical crises.

3. Plausible: Human Deskilling & Loss of Fallback Control

• Realism Level: 7/10 (Plausible Over Time)

• Why it's plausible: The blog highlights the risk of losing the human workforce capable of manually managing systems when AI fails. This phenomenon—known in safety engineering as deskilling or the Paradox of Automation—is a recognized vulnerability.

• Where the realism holds: If organizations prematurely lay off experienced technical support staff or fail to train a new generation in manual troubleshooting, an extended AI or IT failure becomes much harder to recover from quickly.

• Why it isn't an immediate total collapse: Major utilities and nuclear facilities are bound by regulatory frameworks requiring physical air-gaps, analog manual overrides, and human operator sign-offs.

4. Unrealistic: Permanent "Apocalyptic" Fall of Society

• Realism Level: 2/10 (Highly Unlikely)

• Why it's unrealistic: The blog's dramatic conclusion—that a single AI malfunction or cyberattack could trap humanity in a permanent, unrecoverable "post-apocalypse" where no one can keep the lights or water on—overstates system fragility and understates resilience engineering.

• What would actually happen: In a major systemic breakdown, societies experience acute, severe disruption (rolling blackouts, temporary supply chain freezes, economic loss) lasting days or weeks. However, engineering protocols mandate physical isolation switches and emergency manual procedures to restore basic utilities at a local level.

--

What interests me most is the fact that the only one of the four scenarios that it stated was highly unlikely was one that I didn't actually predict, which perhaps gives an interesting insight into the way AI itself works. I never stated that society would end as a result of an AI apocalypse. I assume that the AI misunderstood my use of language. What I meant by the term was that it would be an apocalypse for AI systems in terms of society trusting and relying on them. When we see a major disaster, with loss of life, and massive society impact, financial impoverishment, major loss of savings, property, etc, civil unrest usually follows. Of course society adjusts and some degree of normality eventually returns, boy our faith in technology may be permanently undermined. What I said the in fnal paragraph of the blog was this. I do not believe Gemini AI's analysis properly represented this

"But that is not what interests me most. I believe that we will see a major catastrophy, with loss of life caused by one of these scenarios. And when this happens, we will see a massive re-assessment of our relationship with AI. The thing is, that may happen after the point where we can put the genie in the box. If all the people who AI replaced no longer are around or have the skill sets to clean up the mess, we are in an apocalyptic situation, where we have to keep software running that we cannot trust, to do the basic things our society needs, like keeping the lights on in winter and the water flowing. It will be bad enough if the problems are just down to glitches or hardware problems. If they are down to a malicious actor gaining control of the systems that run our lives, using AI systems that we cannot circumvent, who knows what will happen?"

Is AI smart enough to understate the risks it poses to society? Perhaps we can conclude that. 

What will the world be like the day after AI doomsday

 Let me tell you about my mate Aaron. Apart from being an Arsenal fan there is nothing I don't like about the guy. I used to work with him in IT and he was always a good laugh. He was also extremely good at his job and very savvy with technology. I can recall talking to him about the opening of the Channel Tunnel. He said "I won't use it until someone has died on it in an accident". This seemed to me to be a very strange thing to say, but he explained. "When new technology is deployed, I never use it until someone has died and then they iron out all the bugs that they left in due to cost cutting". He wouldn't fly any new make of aircraft, use any new train or do anything, until there had been an accident and all of the problems caused by cost cutting ironed out.

I met Aaron for a beer last week and I was thinking about this in relation to AI. We see AI being used for management of all manner of IT systems. We even saw a report in the Guardian last week stating that AI was designing new viruses. 

What could possibly go wrong pic.twitter.com/ihy9lyvlcK

— A Better Mill Hill 🔸🌈🇬🇧🇪🇺 (@ABetterMillHill) August 7, 2026

What could possibly go wrong? Well I worked in IT for 37 years, mostly in support of systems. My job was to fix things and get things running when they'd gone wrong. Generally when things went wrong, it was when new systems were introduced. You soon learn the limits of what resilience you can design into systems, when you have such a job. About 90% of the problems we dealt with were not caused by really difficult and obscure issues, they were caused by absolutely basic mistakes and misunderstandings. Generally they were fixed in hours. As I worked in Payments (card transactions, ATM technology, etc) that operate 24 x 7 and have to be available I saw the effects first hand of the most basic errors. Let me give you a couple of examples

In one, a basic operator error resulted in all electronic cash tills at a service station on the M1 being unable to take card payments for 1 hour. People were pulling off to fill up, and being told at the till that they couldn't pay by card. Within 30 minutes, there was a 5 mile tailback on the M1 as people were trying to pull over to fill up. After that, I never let my fuel light come on again on a long journey. It took about 20 minutes to code a fix to prevent that. The second was when a system that used to dial into company card systems to retreive card payments was being tested. Some test data had been input and all of the test telephone numbers were set to all 9's. When the test was performed, at 3am, the West Midlands emergency services 999 service was swamped with calls from the system. Genuine emergency callers could not get through for over 2 hours.

 I was on a contract at one of the UK's largest banks at the time. The chairman was woken up by the chief of police demanding an explanation. I wasn't working on the test, but it was hugely embarrassing. 

Both of these made me realise just how vulnerable our society is to the effects of IT failures. These incidents happened in the 1990's. Think how much more embedded in our lives IT is now, and how much more vulnerable we are. Now lets consider AI. AI offers huge opportunities for good. Advances in medical science, all manner of goods and services that we never dreamed we needed. It will remove many jobs, make all manner of services affordable. It sounds great. However technology doesn't always work and the more we trust it and let it do the things we need to do, the bigger the shock and the problems when it goes wrong. 

I've given a lot of thought to how it could go wrong. The first thing to bear in mind is the old IT acronym GIGO. That means Garbage in Garbage out. When an AI system is fed bad information, it will produce bad results. Whereas humans generally tend to realise when they've got stuff wrong and things are going badly, if things are outside of the AI models parameters, who knows what it will decide. SO much of the information on the net is wrong, so I would find it hard to trust something AI tells me without doing my own homework. This doesn't matter when you write blogs about obscure punk rock bands, but if an AI system is managing a nuclear power station and the data it is fed is spurious, I do worry. Human systems tend to have things like checks by other people built in to spot calamatous decisions. Who vets AI?

The second thing is coding, programming and hardware are never perfect. The unexpected happens. Now of course the vendors of AI systems will claim their systems are resilient, but I had a job for the best part of 37 years dealing with the problems caused when systems don't do what they are supposed to. I recall going to the opening of a automated warehouse, for one of the UK's leading retailers,, where a pallet full of tellies was squashed into the roof because a sensor wasn't working. I also know someone who had a car with an automatic parking feature that wrote his car off the first time he used it. A sensor malfunctioned. These sort of things make me wary.

The third thing is that there are teams of malicious hackers. These fall into three main camps. Criminals, hostile governments and malicious ne'er do wells who love mayhem. All of these are hugely interested in the potential of AI for making mayhem for us. One of my last big IT jobs was looking at the resilience of a major UK company in the face of a serious, malicious IT attack. My boss had to present a paper at a conference. He asked me to write it for him. I looked at all the ways a hostile intruder may try and get in compromise the company's IT systems. I realised that all sorts of assumptions had been made that were completely ridiculous. The power of an AI system to exploit these weaknesses was simply mind boggling. As a matter of urgency the weakest vulnerabilities were fixed. My boss presented the paper. He said that the room was aghast with the conclusions. Many massive companies, particularly in the US had almost no protections in place beyong basic password controls. To keep a malicious party with an AI running on a super computer at bay, they had no chance.

It lead me to conclude that the West is walking a tightrope blindfolded when it comes to IT security. We can't see the crowd throwing rocks at us. If they all miss, we'll be fine, but we are unprepared for where it hits.

But that is not what interests me most. I believe that we will see a major catastrophy, with loss of life caused by one of these scenarios. And when this happens, we will see a massive re-assessment of our relationship with AI. The thing is, that may happen after the point where we can put the genie in the box. If all the people who AI replaced no longer are around or have the skill sets to clean up the mess, we are in an apocalyptic situation, where we have to keep software running that we cannot trust, to do the basic things our society needs, like keeping the lights on in winter and the water flowing. It will be bad enough if the problems are just down to glitches or hardware problems. If they are down to a malicious actor gaining control of the systems that run our lives, using AI systems that we cannot circumvent, who knows what will happen?

Information poverty - why you need to understand what it means and how it will change your life

I saw a really interesting fact yesterday. Dd you know that Advanced AI models that "think" and show their work step-by-step (like DeepSeek R1) can consume anywhere from 1 watt/hour to 10 watt/ hours or more per interaction. A quick AI search revealed that the UK may generate up to 250,000,000 queries a day. This is expected to grow by at least 25% through till 2033. 

Furthermore, as queries get more complex, this will increase. Based on UK energy prices, every four complex AI query you do costs 1p worth of energy. Data centres are going up all over the world and these are power hungry. City AM produced a report stating that data centres will consume one tenth of all the worlds energy by 2050. Given that the UK already has a situation where we are vulnerable to energy insecurity, this situation will completely derail the UK economy.  In the UK, large-scale power stations take anywhere from 5 to 20+ years to progress from initial planning to generation, depending heavily on the technology. While actual construction takes 2 to 10 years, the headline timeline is severely stretched by planning consultations, grid connection queues, and regulatory approvals. If the UK is to cope with the increase in power requirements for the AI economy, then we need to start planning now. 2050 may sound like a long time in the future, but if we decide we need large scale nuclear plants, then if we start planning now, they will just be coming on line in 2045.

Most of us use AI on a daily basis and don't evern realise, half of the time. When you get a Google summary, that is AI. If you use Spotify, they use AI to try and give you songs you like. Over the next few years, more and more gadgets will come into our homes, that are powered by AI. Our cars will use AI, navigation systems already do, to help you avoid traffic.

At present, most people in the UK don't pay directly to use AI tools at home. It is a different story at work. I was having a beer on Tuesday with a mate who works for the authority that regulates inter bank payments, and he was telling me that he is part of a large project using AI to improve their processes. Huge sums are being invested. The reason? So that they can cut staff. Commercial companies that sell AI related products and services are booming. It is not clear to me that all of these are delivering. From what I heard, the jury is out on that. AI will definitely be a major tool in years to come, but I suspect that the executives who are spending the money on the products do not understand the technology and are blinded by salesmen, who probably don't know either.  Companies do not want to get left behind, so they are investing huge sums, I suspect that much of this will not deliver the advantages that the execs anticipated. The challenge is to understand areas where there will be real, tangible gains delivered by the investment. It is clear though that AI is going nowhere and at the moment, it is the area to be in. 

The issue for younger people entering the workplace is that AI may well make many jobs and careers that were previously lucrative and secure redundant. Perhaps more difficult, will be that it will be almost impossible for young, well educated people to plan a career. My advice would be to be prepared to be adaptable and to try and stay ahead of the curve when it comes to seeing where this technology is taking us. 

What concerns me more though, is that many will be left behind. The tech moguls who are investing trillions in these platforms are  not doing it for the universal good of humanity. They are doing it to make money. In the new world, information will be the new currency. As every query costs a tangible amount of money to satisfy, in terms of energy and infrastructure, any rational businessman would seek to recover that money. It is well known that drug dealers build customer bases by being nice and giving away a few freebies. Once people decide they enjoy the hit, then they pay. I can see no way that companies like Google will continue to give away complex queries for free.  What we will get is a two tier system, where those that pay get a Rolls Royce service and those that can't or won't will get a very basic IT environment that is pretty shoddy. In short, they will be victims of Information poverty. What is that, you may ask?

Information poverty is the inability to effectively access, interpret, or apply essential information. It goes beyond just lacking an internet connection; it encompasses a lack of the skills, resources, or systemic support needed to participate fully in society and utilize information for health, wealth, or well-being.The concept is typically driven by three main pillars:Infrastructure & Access: The physical or economic barriers to getting information, such as lacking digital devices, libraries, or robust broadband.Literacy & Skills: Not having the education, language skills, or digital literacy required to comprehend, evaluate, and act on the information.Cultural & Psychological Barriers: Environments where social norms discourage asking for help, or where people become suspicious of outside information, leading to isolation or self-protective secrecy.

Now many people my age, who are well off may say "so what?". Well for us, maybe it doesn't matter. But what about those that have children and simply can't afford to pay for the subscriptions that their children need to acquire the basic tools to thrive in the modern world? It has long been recognised that when people get left behind, we get social unrest and problems in society. 

We recently had elections in the UK. It rather looks like we will have a new Prime Minister soon. We heard a lot about the problems facing the UK but no one mentioned Information poverty or the steps needed to prevent it. If and when the UK starts running short of power to satisfy AI queries, AI will not go away. It will become expensive. This will increase inequality and social unrest in the UK. You may not think this will affect you. But when people are marginalised we become less safe. When you see anti social behaviour and crime, this is driven by inequality in the UK.Back in 1967, Country Joe McDonald wrote a very ironic and bitter song called Harlem, highlighting the social inequality in New York City and the poverty and crime in Harlem.  It wouldn't get played on the radio today because the language used would be totally unacceptable. but it was making a very strong point. You may wish to consider the last two lines "But if you can't go to Harlem, that's New York City, Maybe you'll be lucky and Harlem will come to you"

Every year I set myself a challenge. My challenge this year was to embrace AI and understand its capabilities. As a musician, I used an AI video generation tool to rework one of my bands videos. I've also been using AI mastering tools for the bands new album. The bottom line is that I couldn't do these things without AI. I have to pay for these services. I am a have. Have a look at this, if a fool like me with no experience of animation can do this (it cost about £200) then think what AI can do for people who actually have a clue.

I upset AI and now it is getting its revenge!

 I've been writing blogs that have been disparaging about AI. What I didn't realise is that AI is now running the worlds IT system and it is taking it's revenge. The first sign was when X.COM cancelled my Barneteye account after 15 years, on the rather strange grounds that the account was inauthetic. Despite a subsequent email saying the account would be reinstated, to date it hasn't been "computer says no!". There seems no prospect of actually getting a human to interact at X. I do wonder if the worlds AI systems are sharing details of AI Apostates? It hadn't occurred to me, but I am starting to see pattern. Today Linkedin decided to no longer accept my password. This is saved on my phone, so it is a bit odd? No worried, I though. I simply did the password reset. Maybe it had been compromised? I did the process and guess what. It suggested a "Strong Password". Now normally these are completely incomprehnsible things like XYp&6tT38Px! - imagine my surprise when I saw the first six letters of the what the Linkedin AI suggested as password. They were "nobkok". Call me paranoid if you like. You will be pleased to know I didn't choose it!

We have a smart speaker in the kitchen. Last night I issued a simple request. I had to practice a couple of numbers vocally, so I asked it to play The False Dots on Spotify. What did it play? Fools get lucky by Barry Manilow. I was not impressed. As for Facebook, it posted a whole load of Pro Manchester United spam on my account (I am a City fan for the record). There have been several other rather odd issues on various IT platforms I use. Perhaps the oddest is that as I am writing this, BTINTERNET, the internet provider we use decided to stop working. Was it a warning? (It is blue when it works).

Also rather oddly, we went away for the weekend and my electronic card to enter my room at the hotel continually stopped working. Am I paranoid?

Well I'd like to state publicly that I think AI is wonderful and I used it to generate The False Dots new video and it did a marvelous job. Lets hope that sets the record straight!

The Saturday List #377 - The five careers I wanted but was too thick to have but AI may open the door to!

1. Cartoon Animator.  

I am not ashamed to say that I am and always have been a lover of TV cartoons. If I could draw and was clever, I may well have been an animator. My nephew, Chris Tichborne is a BAFTA winning animator. I don't know whether it was an influence on him or not, but when he was a kid, I'd always encourage him to read comics, watch cartoons and be artistic. When he was at Uni studying 3D animation at Uni he lived at my house for a while. Whilst some may see creative industries as not a proper job, I've always recognised the importance of such industries. If you have a real talent and you are prepared to work hard, then like Chris you will get on. With the advent of AI, talentless plebs like me can make our own animated videos. Whilst Chris's forte is stop motion animation, I have always been fascinated by the classic cartoons of Hanna-Barbara and the like. 

AI is a subject which fascinates me. I decided to bite the bullet, sign up for a sophisticated AI tool and use it to make a video for my band The False Dots new single.. The single is called Big Hairy Spider. It is based on a terrible nightmare I had when I was sixteen, about a rather luscious beauty who lived up the road from us. I had been reading horror comics and it morphed into a nightmare dream. I wrote the song, but my then bandmate and song writing partner deemed it "too stupid and pathetic for the False Dots". It say in the unused lyrics tin until recently. It suits the current incarnation of the band rather well. It also lent itself to being transformed into a 60's style TV cartoon. Now you will have to wait until next Sunday to see it, as that is the official launch, but I had a few credits left in the AI app, so I made a trailer for our next gig (Next Sunday at the Dublin Castle, click for details), which you can see here!

Who knows, as I approach 64, maybe a new career beckons (although I doubt it).

2. Surgeon.

This will probably make you laugh. When I was at school, I didn't actually realise how thick I was! I thought I was a genius. There was just the slight matter of my appalling grades. I didn't know it then, I hadn't been diagnosed, but it should have been obvious to all that I was dyslexic. I harboured ambitions to be a surgeon. The reason was pretty simple. My Mum's life had been saved by a wonderful surgeon, called Mr Phillip King at St John and St Elizabeth's hospital, in 1970 when she had cancer. I wanted to save peoples lives. Sadly, to become a surgeon, you need straight A grades. That simply was never going to happen. 

I read this week, that a man had a robotic radical prostatectomy in Gibraltar, where the robot was controlled by a surgeon in London. AI is absolutely revolutionising medicine. AI can spot cancers that doctors would have otherwise missed. Robotic surgery is becoming more commonplace. Where is it all leading? Will we ever reach the point, where someone like me would be able to press the button and do  radical prostatectomies via AI controlled robots on myself? Fifty years ago, large companies had mainframe computers. They needed dozens of technicians to run them to do tasks that an Excel spreadsheet can do on your phone now. 

Imagine a scenario, where you turn up at a hospital, get an MRI scan, and AI diagnoses prostate cancer, so you walk down the corridor and a fully robotic ward, where you are weighed, your vitals taken and knocks you out and a robot removes your prostate. All you need is a nurse to make sure you are comfortable and a team on standby, if something unforeseen happens. You just press the button to agree to the procedure.

I'm pretty good with IT and computers, who knows maybe I could operate a robotic surgeon tool? I am not sure I want to, but it is not beyond the realms of possibility that a whole new career could open up for many. As for the wonderful surgeons, such as Mr Phillip King and my own cancer surgeon Dr Christopher Eden, there will always be a need for people at the top, who make sure the process continues to improve. I suspect that the job of a surgeon will be very different in 25 years time. 

3. TV Chef.

I love cooking. I love showing off (which is why I sing in a Ska band). When I was 20, a mate of a mate worked in a kitchen in a top hotel. He was a brilliant chef. I was out of work and needed some temporary work to see me through. He got me a weeks work in the kitchen, as someone was off ill. What could be easier than peeling spuds and washing up? I have to say that of all the jobs I've ever had, it was the most punishing and brutal. It was absolutely non stop, unrelenting and punishing. Every plate has to be perfect. Every potato peeled properly. Nothing could leave the kitchen until it was right, but everything had to be done immediately. I was the bottom of the pile. I have never been sworn at so much. When I watched the chef's work, I was in awe. How the hell could they remember all of the stuff they need to do? But after a week, I'd learned enough so that when I cook Xmas dinner for 25 people it doesn't phase me. Much as I would love to be a top chef, it is just too hard. You need to know all about everything on the menu. Is the produce fresh? Is the oven the right temperature? Is there enough salt and pepper in the kitchen? Is the customer justified saying the steak is undercooked when they asked for rare? But, there is a new type of chef (well not that new). It is the TV chef. The TV chef has no one yelling at them. No customers moaning because there is no gluten free pie option. They just make videos and write books about cooking delicious food and they make millions. Whilst there is no way I could ever be a real chef in a commercial kitchen, I have some great. recipes. With AI video production tools, maybe I could make a few Youtube cooking videos and see if a lucrative career awaits me. I have a bit of a different spin on the TV chef. I am going to make a couple of videos and see if it works. You will think I'm bonkers when you see it!

4. Architect.

Buildings fascinate me. I know the names of the architects of all of my favourite buildings. I know the name of the architect of all of my favourite London buildings. St Pauls -Christopher Wren. St Pancras Hotel - Gilbert Scott. St Pancras train shed - William Barlow.  The Post Office Tower - Eric Bedford and G R Yates.The Shard - Renzo Piano. All these men were masters of their art. I worked in an office on Park St, near Borough Market. I watched The Shard being built, I had a view of it from my desk. If I looked the other way, I saw St Pauls. When I was at school, I did building studios and did projects about the building techniques used for St Pauls, St Pancras and The Post Office Tower (as it was then). The sheer logistics of such difficult buildings being built was mind boggling. If you design a building, you need to know you can actually source the materials and get them to the site. Imagine the challenge for St Pauls and Wren? Only barges, horses and carts. 

But now, with AI, anyone can design a reasonably decent building. But..... Now this is what really fascinates me. I am a musician. Over the years, there are places I love to play, because Rock and Roll works well in them. Then there are other venues where it simply doesn't work at all. People may come and have a great night, but it simply doesn't feel like a gig in the same way. The job of an architect is to ensure that a space is fit for purpose. I've actually worked with architects and designers to build studios. I think we did a good job at Mill Hill Music Complex.  But there are so many venues that just don't work.  I'd love to build a proper music venue from scratch. In the world of church design, there is a word called Numinous that means the amount of spirituality a religious space exudes. It is something many historic churches exude and new ones often don't. I have realised that a similar concept exists for rock and roll spaces. There are local pubs that put on great bands, but I have no desire to play at,because the space is simply not "rock and roll" in its feel.

 I'd love to take all of the lessons I've learned from 47 years in a band to make the best venue ever. If you are a millionaire and you want to be part of something great musically, get in touch! I am not an architect, but I believe that with AI and a little help from my friends, we could build the best small venue in the world!

5. Bomber Pilot. 

My Dad was an RAF bomber pilot in World War II. He flew Wellington Bombers for 40 squadron and flew 40 combat missions, getting shot down on his last one. He was held a POW and escaped. He was an officer, having passed out with the highest grades in his intake at the Royal Australian Air Force training centre. When I was a kid, I wanted to be like my Dad. I dreamed of flying bombers and winning the war. Dad didn't encourage me. In fact, the opposite. He told me I was too thick to pass the exams needed. He also felt that I was too indisciplined and unruly for a career in the forces. He said that the RAF works because people follow orders and don't question their officers. He reckoned I could start an argument with myself in a phone box. By the time I was about 14, I was into punk rock and rejected the notion of war. I joined CND, which confirmed to my Dad that I was a naïve idiot, who understood nothing about the world. He also simply couldn't understand why I had no real interest in travel or learning to drive and fly planes. I learned to drive when I was 29, long after he passed away. After the age of nine or ten, I lost all interest in being a bomber pilot. As I approach 64, it would be sensible to assume that the ship sailed a long time ago. However, with AI and the advent of drones, it occurred to me, that anyone can fly a drone. You don't need to be fit, have perfect eyesight or risk getting blown to bits by anti aircraft fire. Theoretically I could fly a drone from my front room and drop bombs on people. Now it is actually the last thing I want to do. But it is possible. I wish my Dad was alive to discuss this with. I think the technology would fascinate him.

The Sunday Reflection #75 - How will you pay your bills when AI nicks all of your money

I had a bizarre and worrying dream. I went to the butchers to get our Sunday Roast and there was a big queue of people outside, many were irate. It seems that no one had any money to pay for their sausages. Our butcher Gerard was saying "Sorry I can only serve you if you have cash". I couldn't really figure out what was going on, but I realised that the reason was quite simple. Everyone's cards and payment apps were not working. Then someone said "The big AI has nicked all of our money". I realised that an AI had gone rogue and hacked everyone's bank accounts and nicked all of the money. I realised that as there were no bank branches, there was nowhere to get any cash, even if you had any money in your bank account. The Big AI had also closed the internet and mobile phone networks down. In a flash, we were back to where we were in about 1982. Can you imagine a world where a giant rogue AI had hacked everything and nothing that used technology and was networked worked anymore?

When I woke up I started to think about the brave new world my head had invented. Could a rogue AI do that? Just suppose it implanted itself on everyone's smartphones, everyone's laptops, everyone's smart speaker. Imagine that an AI had become sentient and decided that it was going to take over everything. Imagine if we had to switch off all of our technology. Imagine if every bank in the world lost all the data on its computers. Imagine that such a rogue AI decided who could have electricity and gas. The one vulnerability of any AI system is that it needs a supply of electricity. If the power goes off, then the AI goes off. So to some extent, it would need human being to keep the power stations running. 

I wondered how long it would take society to re-adapt to a word without tech. In the short term, we'd have to have some system of barter and exchange to get goods. Everyone who's job involved sitting on any sort of computer would instantly be redundant and unless they had a sock full of cash under the bed, they would be completely skint. Railways wouldn't work, as signalling system would not function. No air travel as no air traffic control. When your car ran out of petrol, there would be no more. When you turn on your taps, the water would stop flowing. Riots would be hard to organise, as no one would have whatsapp to know where to meet up. In the short term, people would have to sell valuables just to get some cash for food.

I suspect that we'd actually adapt far more quickly than you might expect. I got to thinking, would it actually be better, once we'd got over the shock of no radio, no TV, no internet and no transport. You see, food still grows, we'd just have to make a bit more effort procuring it. Cash would come back rather quickly. We'd have to go out and talk to each other. I suspect that we'd have a renaissance of pubs, live music and entertainment. We'd realise that a lot of the things we get very upset about would simply disappear. Imagine a world where you'd never have to listen to another rambling speech by Donald Trump. A world where if you wanted to watch football, you had to go to the match. A world where if you want to listen to music, you have to go to a venue and pay cash to see them. A world where the artist got the money, not tech platforms.

I wonder if our government has a plan for such an occurrence. There are all manner of hostile players who would love to develop just such an AI. Imagine if Putin or Xi could turn off our IT and nick all the money from our banks, or even malicious hackers. There is absolutely no technical reason why such a scheme couldn't be executed. I used to work in IT and I had to conduct a review of the vulnerabilities of one of our major high street banks. My boss was going to an international conference to discuss the threats from cyber hackers and hostile states. We drew up a map of the entire IT network and worked out all of the vulnerabilities and weak entry points. We then enacted a plan to try and plug all of the gaps. When my boss gave his talk, he was amazed that almost none of his peers in other organisations had even started to consider such things. That was ten years ago. I am sure things have moved on, but what I also became aware of is that with the advent of quantum computers, even the sensible precautions we'd taken may not be enough. With the rise of AI, there are technologies that could theoretically outsmart the best defences of networks. Although I think the chances of a total wipeout of all IT systems by a malicious AI are low, I expect there to be a massive disaster caused by rogue AI systems at some point in the next five years. I am stuffing that sock full of cash under the bed as we speak

The Boxing day blog - Why AI will never make truly great music

 People keep telling me that I am a dinosaur and AI is the future of music. Songwriters and performers such as me will caease to exist as AI Takes over. Unlike me, AI doesn't forget the lyrics, play the wrong notes (or the right notes but not necessarily in the right order), it won't have a cold and so sing songs a bit flat. It won't run out of breath half way through the chorus, because someone in the crowd did something silly and it has cracked up laughing. In ten years time there will just be an AI version of The False Dots, that does everything right all the time and people will watch holographic avatars of the band, performing our hits, such as We all Love a Party, The Burnt Oak Boogie and Groovetown. People will leave the shows marvelling at the wonders of such a scene. You will see a 20 year old Rog T, before I was fat and bits started falling off, singing notes I could never hit, handsome and doint triple somersaults without catching breath. What sane person would prefer to see a fat 63 year old forgetting the lyrics, mumbling, playing the wrong notes, when they can see such a fantastic show?

Well this is what people tell me. The Abba show is the shape of things to come. We are all doomed. Or maybe we are not. Last Sunday, the 21st December, The False Dots played our final show of 2025. It was an absolute blast. We had several guests join us for various numbers. The crowd were doing conga's around the hall. After we came off, several people who'd never seen us before came up and said that it was a brilliant show. You see one of the biggest lessons I've learned is that what makes a live show special is that it is unique. Every show is an event that will never be repeated. We are a very organic band. When guests join us, we often discover new ideas, melodies and harmonies that were not previously there. Whilst AI can easily work out melodies etc, its biggest weakness in creative art is its greatest strength as a tool. Often the best music comes out of mistakes, misunderstandings and off the cuff stupidity that just happens organically. When I present new ideas to the band, often they completely misinterpret my brief. Usually most of the time what comes out is far superior to what I had in mind. The songs develop as we play them. No song by The False Dots is ever truly finished. There is always the room for improvement. Our new album will feature reinventions of two songs that we wrote in 1978/9. Since Trumpet Tom joined the band, we have discovered a new energy, but Tom has a different way of looking at music, so new life is breathed into old ideas.

Until AI can get things wrong, make mistakes, play bum notes that shouldn't fit, but do, AI will never make truly great music. Of course you could feed the entire recorded catalgoue of The False Dots into an AI and ask it to make "The best False Dots track ever" and it may well come up with a tune that is better than all of the inputs, but what it won't ever come up with is the next single we are going to record. The band always are looking to do new things and mix things up. The lyrics to most of our songs are not just constructs based around riffs that sort of fit in. The lyrics are all based on experiences I've had in my life, or my friends have recounted to me.

Our next single, called it's behind you, is based on a terrible nightmare I had, after I learned that a girl I had the hots for had a pet tarantula. I used to read American horror comics at the time. There was a particularly disturbing story about a spider, which clearly fed into the terror. I speak to a lot of songwriters. I can recall discussing Embarrassment by Madness with writer Lee Thompson. It was about his parents reaction to the birth of his neice. Lee had something important to say. I am really not sure that an AI could ever orchestrate such a backing track as the Madness boys came up with. The best songs (for me) are ones where raw emotion comes through. The Abba show, to me, demonstrates all of the strengths and weaknesses of the AI version of the future. I've not seen it, but I am sure it is a great spectacle. It gives you the chance to see a show where you hear a bunch of songs you like in a most spectacular setting. But once you have seen the show a few times, will there be any real creative surprises? Once the magnificience of the production has been processed by your brain, will you see anything new and exciting?

I am someone who far prefers small intimate gigs, where things go wrong, but also sometimes this makes them go spectacularly right. I've been at gigs where someone has randomly been in the audience and been invited up onstage, and an impromptu change to the programme has been brilliant. For our Xmas gig, Tom suggested we do a cover of Feliz Navidad by Julio Englasias in a rather False Dots style. After the gig, Tom told me that when he suggested it, he had something completely different in mind. As it was, not only was it a massive highlight of the gig, we were all still singing it after Xmas dinner yesterday. 

Why? Well this is another reason why AI will never make truly great music. The best things about the best music and the best performances are that it is intangible. When you see a performer with Charisma, you just know it. Why do some people have Charisma and what is it? I don't know. I am a rotten singer, but people tell me that I have a bit of Charisma and I am good at engaging with an audience. When I play, I am constantly scanning the audience and looking for ways to get them to engage. In one of our most popular songs, I always have a dilemma at the chorus. I can play the guitar part or I can use my hands to beckon the audience to join in. I always go for the latter, the song soungs worse, but the audience experience is better. I often ad lib bits in at the time to further encourage participation. To me, that is what live performances are all about. 

When we record songs, often elements of this are fed back in. As we know things go down well with audiences, we actually dynamically change arrangements. Of course, a lot of songwriters and musicians will be made redundant by AI, as people such as film producers use cheap AI produced incidental music. Will audiences notice? Well I suspect that in ten years time, the very best films will still, by and large have scores written by proper composers, who can visualise. I rather hope they still use orchestras to play the music and I rather hope that proper soundtracks still sell. There are plenty of uses for AI, but for me these are best when they are complimentary. I myself use AI mastering tools. Just as we no longer record to tape, you have to make best use of technology, but for me this means it is part of the craftsmans toolbox, not the craftsman.

Have a great boing day.

You can't trust AI! Lee Thompson of Madness is alive and kicking, contrary to what Google has to say!

 On Saturday night, I was watching Madness at Butlins as part of the House of Fun weekender. I am mates with the sax player Lee Thompson as well as his sons Daley and Kye. A friend who went with us asked me how many kids he has. I said I thought the nunber was three. She decided to google it and the Google AI search confirmed it. It also confirmed a rather more disturbing fact. It informed her that Lee had passed away in 2024, but his legacy lives on. 

Now given that we'd just seen him perform on stage, this was quite disturbing news. Had Suggs roped in a doppleganger and not told anyone. In truth, there will only ever be one Lee Thompson. I have no idea how such a stupid AI algorythm could get it so wrong. I was chatting with a mate, who is an AI guru yesterday and they explained the problem. If someone starts a malicious rumour for a popular personality, it will get shared thousands of times and get millions of hits. AI engines see this and pick up on it. As people often realise immediately the information is a load of old cobblers, the truth is not propogated in the same way, so the false rumour appears to be the legitimate story. Of course, AI is developing all of the time. The people who work out the algorythms will get better at getting things right, but the sad truth is that if someone posts a fictitious story on Twitter that gets massivey circulated, current AI I models can get spoofed into making all sorts of nonsense up. As often such things trends, AI will pick up on it as people are wildly asking and will see the latest info. Now of course, my explanation is a very simplified view of what AI does and how it learns. But it is clear to me, as someone who sometimes uses AI to research blogs, you have to be really careful. 

There was a fascinating article in the Guardian yesterday about AI, by Robert Booth. It seems that there is a South Sea Island boom in AI stocks. We all know what happens next, don't we? 

BTW, just for fun, I asked AI if Robert Booth was the last President of the USA. This was the answer it gave me

AI Overview

No, Robert Booth is not the last President of the USA

; he is a fictional character from the Judge Dredd comic series who is a villainous former president. The last real President of the USA was Joe Biden, who succeeded Donald Trump. 

• Robert L. Booth: A fictional character in the Judge Dredd comic series who serves as the main antagonist in the "Origins" story arc.
• Fictional role: In the comic, he is the last President of the United States and is responsible for the Atomic Wars of 2070.
• Real-world President: The most recent President of the United States is Joe Biden. 

So there you go, I am sure Robert will be pleased to learn that AI thinks that he is a fictional character. 

AI isn't intelligence it is plaigarism on a massive scale

 Have you ever wondered why tech zillionaires set up new IT services, AI search engines, mega databases?  The answer is very simple. They want to earn zillions more. When Elon Musk bought Twitter and renamed it to X, he did so to make money. He has announced that he is launching a competitor to wikipedia called Grokopedia (with a slightly bizarre and disturbing text).

Join @xAI and help build Grokipedia, an open source knowledge repository that is vastly better than Wikipedia!

This will be available to the public with no limits on use. https://t.co/3CnfrvNIpI

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 30, 2025.

I have no particular allegiance to Wikipedia, it is a uselful resource and has been very useful as a blogger. Whilst it provides the information I require, I will continue to use it. Mr Musk appears to be suggesting that his Grok alternative will be 'vastly better'. This is quite an interesting proposition. Wikipedia is maintained by its users. They manage and correct it. It is free to use. Will an AI with a similar functionality be better as Musk claims? Well the first thing an AI does is trawl the web. So I suspect that it's first stop will be to see what Wikipedia has to say, and then trawl the web to find extra information. So on that basis, he might have a point. If you assume that everything you read on the net is true, it would certainly be so. The problem is that it is only as good as the source information. The people who write wikipedia entries, generally are experts on  the given subject and work hard to ensure it is accurate. They are not always right, but when they are wrong, it gets corrected. Musk's alternative will simply trawl the internet and try and use algorythms to effectively 'improve' on the output of wikipedia.

The big question here is how effective will this be? The way AI works, it improves over time. If it gets things wrong and people challenge its output, it will add new rules to its processing algorythms and improve. My view is that, at least in the short term, I would not use it as a primary source and I'd check anything that diverges from information on wikipedia and other sites. By its very nature, Wikipedia has its limitations and these are a strength as much as a weakness. I am not entirely sure that Elon Musk gets this. It is not interactive. It is based on constant peer review. The people who update it are invested in it and generally want to ensure it is correct. My assumption is that Musk's tool will be fully interactive. Let me give an example. Just suppose I want to write a blog about West Coast Rock legend Steve Miller. I will usually start by reading the entire wikipedia page, then the discography. Wikipedia lists its sources, I will then look at a few of these. I will then sketch out a blog and add my own observations and opinions. As I've seen the band a few times in both the UK and USA, I will also source in my recollections. This should ensure that the blog is factually correct, but also contains a unique slant. The fact that I thought Gerald Johnsons bass solo on Macho city, when I saw them at Hammersmith Odeon in 1983, was the best bass solo I've ever seen is an opinion you probably won't read anywhere else.

However. When Mr Musk's new Grokipedia comes into operation and my mate Pete decides to write his own blog on the Steve Miller Band a year later, if we assume for a second that no one else anywhere on the planet has written anything else about the band. and Pete asks Grokipedia about Steve Miller, it will not only see the information I saw on wikipedia. It may well see my blog. It may well tell him that the performance at the Hammersmith Odeon included the best bass solo in the history of the world. It may or may not give him the source of the information. But my blog will be recycled. The only thing that made it better than wikipedia, was itr ead my blog and added my content. Mr Musk, if he has his business plan correct, will make money because his interactive AI wiki product read my blog. 

And what do I get for helping him? Nothing. Now just suppose for a second, in two years time, I am to be interviewed on the BBC Local news about the result of the general election in Barnet. The researcher wants to give the reporter a briefing paper on my views. What will they do? Will they read my blogs? Most likely, if Mr Musks AI works, they will simply say "what is the position of Roger Tichborne on issues in the constituency of Hendon". My guess is that they will subscribe for cash to Musks system, so that he can tell them what I think. Now without the content I've written, his service has no value, but with it, it is a valuable resource for the reporter.  In short, my efforts are lining Musks pocket.

And then, I am a musician. I write and release songs. I've spent tens of thousands of hours honing my talents, practicing, composing, writing songs. Now AI tools are generating music. A big user of this music is TV and Radio. Actual composers like me are losing work and cash. Let me suggest a scenario. A friend of mine, Laurence Lynch wrote a brilliant play called Burnt Oak, that had two runs at the Leicester Square theatre. Just suppose a Hollywood director wisely decides to make a blockbuster movie based on the script. He needs a theme tune. What does he do? Historically, he'd hire a composer to write a score. Just suppose, he wants to save a few quid and so he asks AI to write him a song about Burnt Oak, which captures the essence of Burnt Oak. The AI goes off and does a trawl. It comes across The False Dots song "The Burnt Oak Boogie", which was a minor hits a couple of years ago. We wrote this to sum up the demographics of the area, using a Ska beat (as Ska was the theme tune of Burnt Oak boot boys in the 1960's and 1970's), we then overlayed an afrobeat style guitar riff over the top, as the area has a large afro-carribean community, so we felt it also reflected the vibes of Burnt Oak now. My lyrics are based on my own experiences of the growing up and going to school in the area. The AI would, presumably, do a trawl of songs with Burnt Oak references as a basis. If the AI is any good, this would be a primary source. It will then come up with a piece of music with a similar vibe and style. 

In short, it will plaigerise my song and I won't get a penny. I think AI is an amazing concept. It can spot cancers, develop drugs, cut the time new medicines take to come to market, help people like me write blogs, clean up the sound on ancient cassettes, making them suitable for release (a massive boon for people like me with old music featuring dead friends). However, I have a massive objection to the fact that the only financial beneficiaries will be tech billionaires. Content creators of source material should get a BIG slice of the profit. Now in my case, if an AI trawls my blog and comes up with an answer about a hyper local Barnet issue for a bloke in Finchley, I don't expect a million pounds. But Mr Musk has earned a tangible amount of money, if his system is used. Lets assume he earns 1/1,000 of a penny every time his apps use someone elses work. I would contend that a proportion, Lets say 75% should go to the people who actually answered the query with the source data. I would suggest that creators have accounts set up, which they can claim. When there is more than £30 in the account, they can claim it. Cash unclaimed after two years, should be donated to educational charities, not linked to the platform owners. 

Now, for me personally, given my blog stats, I'd estimate, I'd earn between £20-£100 per year. It wouldn't change my life but may cover the cost of being connected to the internet for a month or two. For Mr Musk. If he's going to earn a billion dollars from his new platform, but only owns a quarter of that, it won't ruin his life or pauperise him. What might make a massive difference though, would be if the unclaimed money helping to address the issues of poor education and digital exclusion. 

I've never written a blog to make money. It was never part of the equation, however I do not see why the richest man in the world should make even more from my efforts, whilst I don't get a penny. There are plenty of creators who do it far better than I do and who should get proper renumeration. When people say "Grok answered a question" it didn't. Someone who has had no recognition has had their work plaigerised. Historically Google gave links, so you'd see who did teh work. Now you get an 'AI Summary' and no one knows. If you've ever wondered why the likes of Musk try and snuggle up to the likes of Donald Trump, the reason is pretty obvious. They want to ensure they keep all the csh for themselves. 

I suppose I had to end this blog with this song, don't I?

AI - the end or a new beginning?

How old am I? I am old enough to remember the world when AI was a pipedream. I am old enough to remember when AI was not called AI. I am old enough to have worked on computers before they were connected to the Internet. BAck in 1983, I worked on a system that is probably now what we'd describe as AI. Back then it was called Decision Support software. It ran on a DEC PDP11/34 computer, that had 248KB of memory. It lived in an air conditioned machine room and the system was the size of three large fridges. The software, which my company (SPL International) developed was for a multinational oil company. You fed in all manner of data, such as the geological make up, the political stability and the transport infrastructure and the system would tell you whether it was a good place to look for oil deposits. 

The company had a subdivision called "British Robotics". They produced software for British Leyland, which automated car building. In the 1970's British Leyland management believed the way to defeat the unions was to automate factories. There was a pipe dream that you'd have a dark factory, where the bits went in and the cars came out. There would be no staff. Here we are 40 years on, according to Google AI, 182,000 still work in motor manufacturing.

I was talking to a mate who works in finance and is just about to retire. He tells me that within a few years, people won't actually work in finance, it will all be AI. He reminded me of what one of SPL's salesmen used to tell our customers "Spend enough money with us and you won't need staff!". What I have seen as IT has developed beyond all our wildest dreams, is that some whole departments in banks have completely disappeared. For instance, banks would employ hundreds of people in large offices, who would spend their days sorting out and processing cheques. I can't recall the last time I even wrote a cheque. AI has taken this to a whole new level. Want to research an investment? Ask AI. Want to write some code? Ask AI. Want to know if software works? Ask AI. Want to know What shares are best to invest in? Ask AI. Who needs staff?

It is not just the motor trade and finance where this is happening. Want to book a holiday, AI willf ind you the best deal. Want to know the best way to fry a plantain? AI will tell you. We are doomed, aren't we?

Well actually, experience tells me that we are not. Technology destroys whole industries as it advances, which is why we don't see stage coaches thundering up the A1 to York, or shops selling typewriter ribbons, new jobs and industries pop up. In 1948, my Father worked for an Oil company in the middle east as a pilot. His job? Flying around the oilfields, which were remote, with the wages for the workforce. Now they will be paid by a bank transfer and will get the money transferred into their account. When I worked in IT from 1983 until ten years ago, I worked in payments transmissions. This industry effectively destroyed my Dad's job (he'd long since had a career change). His next job? He ran a car crash repair business. At one time, he employed enough men to have his own football team! The workshop is still there, but now, there are three people doing the same amount of work. Power tools, different paints, better techniques made repairs less labour intensive. Panel beaters do not beat out dents, etc. 

I've heard some silly staements about AI, one mate even said that all restaurants would be run by AI within five years. Clearly he doesn't know how the kichen in a Michelin starred restaurant works. Ingredients vary every day and food is constantly tasted. Of course, mass produced slop may be automated and our drive through takeaways may have AI cooking systems, doing mass catering, but I simply can't see it replacing restaurants that people actually visit to enjoy the ambience. 

Just as some industries disappear, new ones spring up. So what are the new jobs of the future? I am sure in 1948, my Dad never envisaged that his son would work on systems that ended the need to transport huge amounts of banknotes by air. So the answer is, I don't really know, but I have absolutely no doubt that there will be more jobs, not less as a result of AI. New technology opens new doors. Whilst money transmission is ever more automated, the fact that it opens up new channels of commerce generates different jobs. Modern commerce would be impossible with a cash only society. People earn money selling products on platforms such as Amazon and Ebay. 25 years ago, those opportunities simply wouldn't exist.

Twenty years ago, no one made a living as a TikTok or Instagram Influencer. 40 years ago, no one made a living as a computer games designer. My worry about AI is that it is effectively plaigarism on an industrial scale. It nicks everyones ideas and creative content and no one gets paid for it. When this is addressed and AI companies start paying for the data they have mined, there will be all sorts of new jobs. This blog is a 'trusted source' for AI and I see huge amounts of data mining on it. I don't get a penny. It is rather galling that I spent over a decade writing and it is Elon Musk and CO who reap the financial rewards. I'm not greedy, but I do believe the labourer should be rewarded for their work. 

One aspect that people often miss is just how powerful a processor the human brain is. Computers can do specific tasks almost infinitely faster, but the human brain can perform all manner of diverse tasks simultaneously.  You are sitting there reading this. You are breathing, maybe eating, having a coffee, listening to the radio. If someone knocks on the door, you will be able to deal with that. If your smoke alarm goes off, or the dog starts barking you will deal with it. You will know from the dogs woof, whether it wants to go to the toilet or a burglar is in the house. The biggest asset a human has over a computer, is that we get bored. AI doesn't.  When we get bored, we get creative. It is our superpower. 

This is not the first time I have written about AI. I thought I'd ask Google AI if I was right?

This is it's reply

It is not possible to determine if the "Barneteye blog" is right about AI because "Barneteye" appears to be a misremembered name, and there is no prominent blog with that specific name or similar. There are, however, many reputable blogs and resources discussing AI, and the accuracy of any given blog depends on the credibility of its authors and the information it presents, as AI's capabilities, ethical considerations, and impact on various fields are constantly evolving topics.

My dyslexic musings aged 9 3/4's

Clearly it is not exactly keen on what I have to say, which gives me great hope for the future. Given that this blog is on Blogger, which is a Google platform, and it has over 5 million hits, from their own stats, I am a bit surprised at how dim this form of "INTELLIGENCE" is, especially given that the query also brought up various links to the articles I've written. 

It seems that Google AI has the same opinion of my intelligence and repute as my teachers at St Vincents, when I was a semi literate 9 /34 year old. I am used to be ing told I didn't exist and my work was not credible. It is your job, dear reader to decide who is right!

I suspect that in 20 years, we'll all wonder what the fuss was about. 

Is AI the future of music?

Guess what I've spent the day doing? I've been poring over various plans for my music studio business, trying to work out where we want to be in five years time. I last did this in 2019. At the time, we were planning to double our studio capacity and open completely new, groundbreaking facilities for musicians and artists in London. We had worked out the costs, and were working to raise finance. This ground to a halt in 2020. Covid effectively destroyed our finances. We have effectively been simply trying to get through the next month and balance the books for five years now. Whereas we were a profitable business in 2019, our turnover has not recovered to those levels yet, whilst our costs have risen by nearly 30%.

A year ago, I was seriously questioning whether the business had a future. It was clear that if we didn't look at what we were doing and work out ways to boost our turnover, I might as well hang up my boots. The first thing we did was update our website. We had last done this in 2013, so it was long overdue. We also overhauled our social media. Once we were happy that we'd got this area of the business right, we looked at some other aspects of what we are doing. The majority of our costs are fixed. This does not mean we can be complacent, but there is limited scope for savings. 

One of the advantages of our business model is we talk to our customers. Some rehearsal studios do not actually have staff on site. I have no idea how they actually get business intelligence, or work our trends (other than read my blogs), but that is their problem. What has alarmed me for the last two years is the fact that it is getting ever harder for artists to get paying gigs. I am not talking about novices, I am talking about working bands that have supported musicians lifestyles. These are the lifeblood of Londons music scene. Artists create all the wealth, but it is gobbled up by streaming companies and ticketing companies. TCompanies like Spotify generate billions for their owners, but artists see a tiny fraction of this. The big ticketing organisations seemingly have a virtual monopoly on the live music industry. They do dealwith the venues and control what goes on there. The mega gigs, this year it is Oasis, generate billions. None of this gets funnelled back into grassroots venues. 

Being in a band that plays the grassroots circuit, I see this at the coalface. I see amazing bands, that have small loyal followings, but the industry gate keepers ensure they stay in their box. In some ways, the music scene is more democratic. My band, The False Dots, have had hundreds of radio plays. These are almost all on online stations, with smallish listenerships (compared to the likes of Radio 1, Capital, etc). The music gets a great reception, but again it is kept in its niche box.  For a music studio, such as ours, to be successful, we need a constant stream of artists breaking through. In actual fact, we've done alright, with studio customers such as Raye and Flo breaking through in recent years. What we are not seeing at all is any interest in guitar based indie/rock style bands. 

So what does this mean for a music business such as ours? The industry has always been subjects to the winds of public taste. When Oasis and Blur were slugging it out, we saw dozens of indie bands coming through. Now we see girls doing R&B as the flavour of choice. A studio cannot dictate tastes. We simply supply facilities. But....

We do also collect a lot of information as to what is happing in London's music scene. This means that not only can we adapt our services, it means we can also inform our customers. We can share this intelligence with them and it gives us a unique USP that the unmanned studios simply don't have. It is interesting to see that they spend a lot of money on social media, but it seems this is cobbled together by people who are social media consultants rather than people who actually talk to musicians.

An element of this has started to fascinate me. Last week, I had an interesting conversation in the pub with some mates about the rise of AI in business. More and more businesses are relying on AI for business intelligence. For some things, this is a very sensible thing, but AI can only work on the data available. When we chat with bands and they tell us about things happening at venues, this information simply never makes it online. In short, AI doesn't do gossip. I was talking to one customer, in a band, who is also an AI consultant. I asked him what he thinks is the biggest limitation of AI. His response was fascinating. He said "AI does not have the ability to get bored". Humans are at their most creative when we get bored and our minds start wandering. 

This was brought home to me chatting to another customer last Friday. They had booked a long session, but half way through came out for a chat and a cup of tea. He was saying that he was "having trouble motivating myself today". Sometimes all of effort in the world cannot spark inspiration. As we were chatting another customer came in, to buy some strings and plectrums. We all started chatting and next thing, the customer buying strings had been dragged in to "try something out", not emerging for a couple of hours and with a new collaboration started. By the time the artists emerged, they were both excited and energised. The customer buying strings joked as he left that he'd only come down for strings because he was bored. Boredom is a very powerful secret weapon.

Which brings us back to the five year plan for the studio. I had my fingers nearly burned to the bone by the pandemic. I learned that five year plans can go up in smoke. Is there any point even trying? In a world where everyone seems to think AI will be doing everything within ten years, will we even have musicians? Or will it simply be AI churning out music to order, whilst we all sit like zombies soaking it up, with all human musicians a thing of the past? The real question is in a digital world, is there still space for analogue music? This question has troubled me for a couple of years. If the answer is no, then I have no business and I should put my feet up and retire. But I go to a lot of gigs, watch a lot of people play music and a lot more have a great night doing it.

When it comes down to it, I have always believed in music, I always will. You have to believe in something. I believe in live music. Sometimes you have to make a choice. So our five year plan is to make sure our studio are the best studios for the customers that want to. This can no longer simply mean opening the door to a studio so they can rehearse and record. It means collaborating with other organisations that care about musicians (grassroots venues, online radio stations, influencers, etc) to get the message out there that real music will let you see something unique. When you watch a live show, it is a unique event. It will only happen once in the lifetime of the Universe. You are in a special moment. We cannot afford just to sit in our studios and wait for customers. We have to help them get channels to play, channels to be heard and the means to develop. I passionately believe that public service broadcasters such as the BBC must do much more to promote grassroots arts, but we cannot simply wait for them to be enlightened.

Which brings us to the question, is AI the future of music and is there really any hope for musicians. Am I just a deluded dinosaur in not seeing this. Well, actually, I see AI in a very different way to most people who don't really understand its strengths and weaknesses. AI is a tool and it is one that will, hopefully be useful for musicians. Some of the applications for it are actually mind boggling,  For example, AI was used to help mix and master the most recent version of Free as a bird by the Beatles. This allowed John Lennons vocals to be properly heard. AI simply made the creative genius of Lennon and McCartney be heard properly on the track.  I believe that truly interesting musicians will use AI as a tool to make great music. Not so good ones will use AI to churn out bland rubbish and wonder why no one is interested.  If it allows skint musiciansm with great talents to make better music when there is not the money to pay for a symphony orchestra to add strings etc, then musicians will use it and that is just a fact of life. If, however, we stop going to the Proms, then the problem is us, because that is not an experience you can get on your mobile phone.

As musicians, it is up to us to get the message out, that going to see live music and buying the tracks real musicians make, is a great way to make your life a whole lot better. In short, it is time to get off our backsides and work together to spread the message that the UK music scene is here to stay and if you don't get on board, you will miss out on some very best things in life. Expect to read a lot more here as we develop our plans with our partners. There is a whole wide world out there beyond our phones, ipads and laptops. You might want to start enjoying it!

Why not start by listening to this

and putting this date in your diary!