It may seem impertinent, or even sycophantic, to agree with Jensen Huang, Nvidia boss, about the attitude of the west to AI. He and I see the situation from opposite ends of the journey. He knows what he is talking about. “China will win the AI race” he says. No doubt his agenda is to try to pump energy into the somewhat laborious systems he sees holding up our ability to use the tool properly. I only know what I am thinking about. My skin-stripping accident when I was eighteen on an unguarded experimental bale sledge compels me to try to understand anything that promises and threatens so much at the same time.
AI is potentially totally controlling. Competition has overtaken cooperation in our world, whether we like it or not. We have become rich enough to indulge our promotion of the ideology we believe in but not, apparently, wise enough to articulate what we want that credo to deliver. We have turned life into such a process that my attempt to contribute to Remembrance Day and get a poppy symbol became more complex than a request to hitch a ride to the moon..
AI presents us with speed we have never before encountered and memory no human has even conceived, let alone achieved. Think of these elements in your daily life. Impossible to say how much of our waking time depends on them. Let’s settle for 90%. It’s likely a lot more. So potentially 90%+ of our time is soon going to be available to be filled. Perhaps even more important than time truncation is the way AI will reduce the need for effort.
Physical effort has already been substantially limited by internet communications. The WhatsApp’s symbol might well be the man with the cleft stick redolent of the messenger. He used to get shot if they didn’t like his message – so perhaps things have not actually changed all that much. Mental effort is now being restricted to the point where AI not only answers your questions but tells you what they should be. Masses of people have already become mentally idle. AI may encourage this trend to the point where it does all our thinking for us.
The race to which Jensen Huang and I refer is not only the technological stampede but the sprint to the control tower. Whoever reaches it first will have the decision about humanity’s future firmly in his or her hands. Should we mind that? And if so, what should we do about it? I am reminded that the nuclear arms pact came about as a result of the horrendous tests that were carried out. We now mutter about whether they should have been. If they hadn’t we would already have had WWIII.
We need to know AI before we can control it. Both the explosive nature of the tool, and the tardy systems of potential control that we employ, dictate that. Perhaps we can use the diplomatic skills we have developed over centuries to negotiate a sensible sharing of the genie before it leaves the bottle. It will never be recaptured. It is significant that Foreign Ministers all over the world are now setting their sights on cybersecurity as much as diplomatic engagement. This will soon be totally allied to AI. Could they revive the United Nations as a focal point for such an exercise? I’m more optimistic than many who will answer ‘No’. Bomb is bomb, but brains are brains.
We’d better liven them up before they croak.
Our heirs and assigns require it.
Good morning
John Bittleston
Have a better idea? Please share it. We all need it.
A line to [email protected] will pull us into shape.
09 November 2025
