AIming a Little Higher

I love Devi Sridhar. Yes, I fancy her but that is BESIDE THE POINT. Her recent book How Not to Die looks like self-help at first, but is in fact a brilliant call for radical change in public health (and for an expansion of what that means). It’s not entirely our fault, as individuals, that we’re unhealthy or suffer a low quality of life. It’s that public policy currently nudges us away from making the obvious healthy choices when it should be doing the opposite. And we shouldn’t be at risk of random agonising deaths from, say, cars and guns, when such things could be spirited out of our lives if only the political will could be summoned to do so. Lucky for me, Devi writes quite regularly in the Guardian, meaning I get little top-ups of her writing. This week she speaks of AI and what it might be doing to our brains and the world. AI is boring but might be of interest to Escapologists who dream of a low-work future for all and might advocate (or not) for the automation of everything.…