In stockinged feet, somehow managing to look awkwardly relaxed as heavy rain poured outside, Rishi Sunak began as comfortably as he could, given who was sitting opposite him. Beth Rigby, Sky News’ political editor, has the look of an experienced deputy head teacher at an urban comprehensive who is not so much angry as, well, just disappointed in you.
by an anonymous comms pro
Deadly on its own, she adds to this the precision and mercilessness of a highly trained assassin - one minute lobbing you up a couple of easy forehands to bat back about Russia or Ukraine, the next casually biting the pin from a grenade and tossing it towards you.
Which is worse, Rigby pondered, losing to Liz Truss, the most ridiculous attempt at a Prime Minister in history, or the four figure numbers of seats that you (yes, you!) lost in the local elections? Or worse, do you actually care about any of this? Because with all due respect, Prime Minister, you just seem like a robot. The Rishibot.
The PM was programmed to smile back, so he contorted his face into a position that showed his teeth, as he began his response. Robot, robot…
Rigby upped the emotional ante. What about stealing food to feed your baby?
Rishibot was now floundering. He hadn’t been programmed for empathy.
What about migration?
Robot, robot…five priorities…stop the boats. Rishibot was starting to overheat. Circuits were melting. Rigby circled, sensing weakness. OK let's unpack it, she suggested helpfully, as she reminded Rishibot once again how implausibly bad everything was.
Politicians, media-trained to within an inch of their lives, are supposed to be better than this. When asked something difficult, they are taught to move seamlessly from acknowledging the question, to a subtle redirection back to one of their pre-programmed key messages. Blair was a master of the art, so much so it would feel like he was being open and honest. Like shaking hands with the pickpocket, you would only know he had stolen your watch long after he had gone.
But Rishibot was breaking. There was no acknowledgement, no attempt at redirection. Just message, robotically repeated. The digital equivalent of a scratched record, the needle lurching back to repeat the same lines, again and again. Committed, relentlessly focussing, five priorities, stop the boats…
Rigby gave Rishibot a kick to move the needle on. “OK, let’s try and get a commitment out of you.”
But to no avail. Relentlessly focussed, stop the boats, five priorities…
Beth leaned in. She’d had enough. The Rishibot's eyes widened, sensing the final lunge. Neither fight nor flight, just pure, visible fright.
"How do you feel when you lose?" Rigby spat the grenade’s pin from her teeth.
The Rishibot's eyes swivelled as it frantically searched its database for anything relevant. The word itself was familiar, but the algorithms threw up nothing that could connect it with Rishibot itself. What happened next was a masterclass in appalling. It was a response to make mandibles hang wide. A catastrophe for the ages.
The Rishibot didn't just malfunction; it whirred and fizzed, as half utterances came from its mouth. Still Rishibot found nothing. Literally. Then, like the customer service chatbot that answers a question it has failed to comprehend with an infuriating loop back to the beginning of the conversation, Rishibot went back to its five priorities. Priorities it somehow claimed we had voted for two weeks ago when deciding who should be responsible for collecting our bins.
We are at a moment in history when the dangers of artificial intelligence are beginning to be understood. We risk everything in the pursuit of something we don't fully comprehend, say some. It's safe, its proponents say, because it will always depend on the knowledge of those who program it, and thus could never outsmart us.
Rishibot, programmed as it has been by sneaker-and-suit Spads in GCHQ, with the collective worldly wisdom of a moderately sized ant colony, provided a reassuring reminder of the superiority of humans - literally any human, with any experience of the real world - over the bots. It was not so much AI as SI. Superficial intelligence. If that.
As the general election looms, the interrogations, and the scrutiny, will only get more intense. Rishibot needs an upgrade. And fast.
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