My views on sinister AI, clever AI and a problem for witches on broomsticks – Peter Rhodes
When we hear of schools allowing pupils to self-identify as wolves, cats and whatever, we tend to assume there was a time, not so long ago, when common sense reigned and the authorities gave short shrift to bizarre requests. Think again.
A reader sends me a 40-year-old copy of Private Eye which reported that in March 1984 councillors in Exeter upheld a petition from a woman who claimed that if two houses were built next to hers they would interfere with her flight path to Dartmoor. “I ask for the utmost consideration,” she said, “because I am a member of a minority group.” A witch, to be precise.
I love the vision, unveiled by the Government this week, of an obesity-free world. After a series of injections, the lard will tumble from our buttocks and we will emerge, snake-hipped and bright-eyed, to fulfil our destiny in a dynamic workforce, ready to increase our nation's prosperity and win the war for growth. I can almost picture an Attlee-era poster showing the heroic, slim, worker clambering like a butterfly from the bloated chrysalis of obesity. And all thanks to the NHS.
