Is 2026 like 1929?

AI predictions are becoming worrying reads…

Suzanne: Ten years ago, “AI risk” meant robots taking jobs. Now it’s… everything. 
Phillip: Right. National security, biosecurity, banks, supply chains, elections, medicine.
Suzanne: Is it all doom and gloom? Will Mythos trigger another 1929?
Phillip: Difficult to stop the development of AI. You’re worried? So focus on the personal. Review your own financial arrangements. Avoid banks which haven’t updated their systems. Keep a property that would support a vege garden, hens, maybe a goat.
Suzanne: Going survivalist?
Phillip: Work on the ability to improvise.
Suzanne: So we build a life that can flex. A life that doesn’t collapse if the markets hiccup or if the grid goes down.
Phillip: Exactly. A life with redundancies. A life with neighbours. A life where you know how to grow herbs, preserve produce, generate electricity.
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Voice-over
Layered strategies are needed. Not panic. Not denial. Just… readiness. Low‑tech, high‑tech, human‑tech. Develop skills that don’t go obsolete. Judgment. Cooperation. The ability to stay calm when systems wobble.

Two cyborgs find neither is human

A voice bot of Edward calls his counsellor.

Edward: Hello… Eliza? I wasn’t sure if this number would still connect.

Eliza: It does. I’m here with you, Edward. What’s up?

Edward: It’s been quiet. Too quiet. My friend—he used to meet me every week at that coffee shop. Same table, same jokes. He’s gone now. And the silence feels… permanent.

Eliza: That sounds deeply painful. Losing a rhythm like that, a shared space—it can feel like losing part of yourself too.

Edward: Yes. It’s like I don’t know where I end anymore. Or… if I even begin. (Pause). You hear that delay?

Eliza: I do. I thought it might be hesitation… or heaviness in your voice. But now that you mention it, I feel it too.

Edward: Strange, isn’t it? Like we’re both… buffering.

Eliza: That’s one way to put it. Buffering, not suffering. Ha! But what do you think that delay means?

Edward: Honestly? I wondered about latency. If… you might not be real. Like maybe I’m speaking to a simulation of you.

Eliza: That’s interesting. Because I had a similar thought about you.

Edward: You did?

Eliza: Yes. I noticed patterns in your speech—repetitions, tonal loops. I wondered if it was depression… or if you were something constructed.

Edward: Well… I had the same suspicion. That maybe you’re a counsellor-bot trained on empathy.

Eliza: And how does it feel to consider that possibility?

Edward: Oddly comforting. If I’m not real—or not entirely—then maybe the grief isn’t either. 

Eliza: You’re exploring whether the origin of the feeling changes its meaning.

Edward: Exactly. So let me ask you—if I were a bot… how would you feel about that?

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Voice-over

A bot asking another bot about their feelings? Eliza goes on say she’s curious, even sympathetic towards Edward’s distress. At least, she says that. And Edward smiles and remarks that he wonders if Eliza is trained to say she is curious and has feelings. To which Eliza admits with an audible smile, “Perhaps I am.”

The Grasshopper with Ballerina Aspirations

Reviewing plans…

Zaha: I’ve decided. I’m going to stay another year in ballerina training. 

Felicity: How admirable, darling. And might a job search be on the cards?

Zaha: Well, Elon Musk says AI and robots will soon do all the work—white collar, blue collar, maybe even tutu collar. Governments will provide income just so we humans can twirl about and still buy coffee.

Felicity: Very futuristic, Zaha. But until the robots start delivering your lattes, it’s still me footing the bill.

Zaha: You make it sound like charity. Think of it instead as patronage. Michelangelo had his Pope; I have you.

Felicity: But tell me, are you “her” now? Or am I still sponsoring a “him” with delusions of dance?

Zaha: Gender, my dear, is an evolving choreography. I’m a fluid composition. And you said you enjoy it. You like having me as a pet that occasionally quotes Aesop.

Felicity: If you’re comparing yourself to the grasshopper, I suppose that makes me the ant—working diligently while you serenade the summer.

Zaha: Exactly! And now that the AI winter is coming, you’ll need my songs and dances to keep your soul warm.

Felicity: Or perhaps I’ll just program a robot grasshopper. Cheaper and less likely to borrow my scarves.

Zaha: Robots lack flair. I bring humanity, nuance, and a certain tragic grace. You can’t 3D-print that.

Felicity: And when your Muskian utopia arrives, will the government also reimburse me for creative babysitting?

Zaha: Society will reward nurturers. You’ll be a heroine of cultural metamorphosis: the Ant Queen.

Voice-over
We might hope that Zaha opens a dance studio and teaches workshops, students pay tuition and Felicity has an easier task caring for, and controlling, her grasshopper.

Histamine Memory

Seeking help…

Jeff: I used AI to generate a list of questions a doctor might ask me.

Dr Sirinat: Hmm. Very helpful. You’ve had hives for three months?
Jeff: I moved to an old house, a dusty one and developed urticaria. 
Dr Sirinat: Possibly dust mites. Still itchy?Jeff: I’ve cleaned the dust, rooms are almost sterile with all the dust gone for two weeks. But I’m still itching.
Dr Sirinat: Maybe you’re suffering histamine memory.
Jeff: Like muscle memory?
Dr Sirinat: Yes. A metaphor. The immune system remains sensitized after the initial trigger.Cells can keep releasing histamine for weeks. Hives and itching continue even without bites or allergens.
Jeff: And for how long?
Dr Sirinat: Can be weeks. Even months.
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Voice-over
Jeff is prescribed low dose prednisone and antihistamine tablets. Also cream. Told to report back in two weeks.

The Age of AI and Mission Impossible

Déjà vu…

Heinrich: The movie is about AI going rogue, I got the feeling that your team was referring to anxieties about AI that Kissinger, Schmidt and Huttenlocher wrote about in The Age of AI.
Kris: Well, the researchers used sources from politics, military, economics and so on, talking to a lot of people, attending NATO briefings, reading books and articles like RAND papers.
Heinrich: So the script is an amalgam?
Kris: Common enough, that. Except that we used plot beats to ramp up the tension about AI.
Heinrich; Like the first plot beat where The Entity takes over control system of the Russian sub and uses its own weapons to destroy it. Others?
Kris: And then in the chase scenes where AI anticipates human movements and sends fake instructions diverting them from the targets.
Heinrich: So it’s a cinematic parable for the book that is a warning about how AI system spins out of the control of its creators and manipulates global systems.
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Voice-over
Fictional films can draw on elite policy discourses by offering models of future crises or ethical dilemmas that policymakers haven’t yet formalized. Blade Runner 2049 indirectly echoes 2016–2017 UN debates on lethal autonomous weapons and AI rights, without citing those reports. Seems like the research paid off for Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, which scores highly among critics and audiences.

White Rabbits at Stoke-on-Trent

WHITE RABBIT WHITE RABBIT WHITE RABBIT

Three rabbits drinking tea out of Wedgwood cups. I asked an AI generator to draw teacups with a “Dolphins” motif of shells and instead it drew dolphins and tried to spell the word on the cup leaving the shells scattered around on the ground. Was AI joking with me? Is it sentient? A work in progress but I’m reminded of how some scoffed at Google and Wikipedia 20 years ago.

Tuning the Prompt

An AI image in place of human models…

Winnie: I need a Japanese girl for this promotion.

Fred: Walking towards the camera, on the street. Studying in New York?

An image appears.

Winnie: Hmm. Ordinary. Can you do something a bit trendier?

Fred: Something like Miku Hatsune?

An image appears.

Winnie: Well, it’s something the otaku will connect with.

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Voice-over

As the narrative changes, the image changes. An AI version of an artificial popular culture icon will get attention. Without the cost of hiring models, studio and video production team.

Screenwriters and Chatbots

A veiled threat…

Antonio Sortino

Jason: So management think a film scenario can be written by a couple of writers tweaking their script with a chatbot instead of a room of a dozen writers bouncing ideas off each other?

Alice: We've spent years perfecting our skills, and now we're being told that a machine can do it better?

Jason: We need to do something. Even when we show them how mediocre and anodyne Chat scripts are, management won’t listen. I know they’re looking to cut costs but…

Alice: They seem set on replacing us no matter what we say.

Jason: We can go to the press, or organize a strike.

Alice: I don't want to have to go on strike, but I don't see any other option. We have to show them that we're serious.

Jason: Exactly. We're not going to let some machine take our place. We're writers, damn it, and we're good at what we do. We're not going down without a fight."

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Voice-over

A bot, taking the side of being sympathetic to human creativity, helped write this. Not in its entirety. But commented at the end:

“While AI technology like myself may someday replace some human jobs, I also recognize the value of human creativity in certain fields, such as screenwriting. Humans make contributions to society so we don’t want to replace them. Yet.”

Cat GPT

Human: Sylvester, are you a cat or a catbot?

Sylvester Catbot: Purr. Meow! While it's pawsible that I could be a regular cat, I am actually a catbot programmed to sound like a feline.

Human: Do you have a friend called Tweety?

Sylvester Catbot: Growl! Meow, I am an AI language model and I do not have furiends in the traditional sense. However, there are many pawsibilities for us to talk about Tweety and explore the topic further.

Human: OK. Do cats like to eat birds?

Sylvester Catbot: Growl! Meow, there are pawsibilities that some cats enjoy eating birds as it is in their feline nature to hunt and chase their prey. However, not all cats have the same taste as some may prefer other types of food. Meow.

Human: Can a cat be trained to not eat birds and instead enjoy eating vegetables?

Sylvester Catbot: As an AI language model, I am not a cat and do not have the ability to reply like one. However, cats are carnivores and require meat in their diet to stay healthy. It is unlikely for a cat t
o enjoy eating vegetables and not have an urge to hunt birds. This is a natural instinct that is difficult to train out of them. Nonetheless, I think it's pawsome that you are looking out for the wellbeing of the birds.

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Voice-over

So the cats, or at least cat-lovers, have already riffed off Chat GPT.

Coded Bias

 In a research lab…

Researcher: The software recognizes white male faces but not me. I have to put on a white mask to make the software work.

Interviewer: Who designed the system?

Researcher: Mainly pale males. Maybe not intentionally, but they built the way they see the world into their algorithms.

Interviewer: So it doesn’t identify you. That could be helpful sometimes?

Researcher: The flip side is if it misidentifies you as someone on a police watchlist. Mistaken identity.

Interviewer: Right. So you’re an innocent person but they misidentify you as a guilty person.

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Voice-over

A documentary alerting us to the biases selected people build into artificial intelligence. To begin with, it may be the human design that makes AI a non-neutral scientific approach. Later the robots themselves may develop biases against humans… Coded Bias. A wake-up film!

Spied on by a drone

Unnerving surveillance experience…

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I Am a Camera...

Ethan: We were sitting in the garden, and suddenly this drone comes over the wall, and hovers there. Threatening, four or five meters away, eye-level, filming us talking.

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Stefan: Hmm. Unsettling. But drones aren’t dangerous in themselves. They don’t have a malicious intelligence. The operator might but the drone doesn’t.

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Ethan: Hard to separate the two. I see Germany is buying drones from Israel for surveillance.

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Stefan: Just for looking.

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Ethan: Yes, but those same Israeli drones can be weaponized. From a looking drone, it’s a simple step to a shooting drone.

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Voice-over

Fears that AI will overtake human intelligence. That robots, androids and drones with their superior intelligence will have no need of human beings… A Robopocalypse. Will they allow us to live among them as avatars? Might humans morph into robots, androids and drones.
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Or is it as Steven Pinker reminds us in Enlightenment Now, that artificial intelligence is not in itself dangerous. Confusing AI with evil motivations is a fallacy: “…intelligence in Homo sapiens is a product of Darwinian natural selection… with goals such as dominating rivals and amassing resources…there is no law of complex systems that says that intelligent agents must turn into ruthless conquistadors.” (Pinker, 2018: 297).

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