Author Archives: Jack Coulson

Eagle-eyed Conference goers this year may spot enlarged Brighton beaches, thanks to a scheme extending them to combat coastal erosion.

Dumping tonnes of rocks is hard work, but the simplicity has a certain beauty. Sadly, the tide is not so easily turned on free speech.

We have all seen it. Octogenarians arrested for holding bits of paper, terrifying examples of trials for tweets, and the unedifying spectacle of ‘free speech absolutists’ banning journalists they do not like from events.

Big Brother Watch has just published a major review: Britain’s Free Speech Problem – How growing restrictions are stifling speech online and offline. It highlights issues including a heady mixture of draconian legislation, partisan hypocrisy and an absence of people willing to stand up for the rights of people with whom they do not agree.

Some of these problems are timeless, but technology means some are genuinely new and require new answers.

Until recently, one could straightforwardly argue that people should have access to more information: anything less was censorship. Then people worked out that with the right algorithm, they could convince people to spend hours in bed watching nonsense, 15 seconds at a time.

Effectively infinite information, presented in an order nobody is directly accountable for, with enough flashing light to tempt even the most performative of readers away from their books.

How free is the public discourse if an algorithm chooses what is seen?

For their next trick, the tech bros invented a novel Google search that seems to talk to us and can sort of do many white collar jobs.

We learned something sad – lots of what we thought made us special is easy to mimic. From the good, like creative writing and music, to the bad, like an intern who swears something is true until you make them check their source: AI can do it all.

As the gap between having an idea and executing it is filled by AI, old notions of who is responsible, and accountable, need reevaluating. For years I have tried to rewrite Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours into an album about Brexit. I am sure Claude could do it for me, but that is definitely not ‘me’ doing it.