Under the terms of its International License, the BBC was, last evening, obliged to apologise for the bad language of the American Secretary of Defense in his address to all the top generals of the US military. You may, like me, feel that motivating the top brass of the most powerful armed service in the world by saying words you would reprimand your children for using is something of a let-down. I would like to use the words myself and you may wonder who I would use them about. But I have more respect for you and more respect for myself.
Teaching leaders to be good fighting men is not a version of Alice in Wonderland, as much as it may sometimes appear to be. It is a job to elicit thinking, calculating risk, making judgments, caring for and inspiring troops whose lives are their offering. And ensuring that the world is a more peaceful place for their activities. The strategy for that does not, in my opinion, include rude language much as any Gorilla Minister may think it does.
I asked AI to make me a picture of a somewhat similar scene without my mentioning any names, of course. I specified that no bad words were to be seen in the picture. AI’s reply: “I can’t create that image, John. It involves a political figure in a potentially defamatory or disrespectful context, which goes against my guidelines.”
So free speech isn’t quite as free as a major power’s top minister on prime time television, then? And it is perfectly OK for a senior person to trot out bad language for children’s tv but not OK for an author to suggest that rude words are poor motivators? Really?
Of course, I complimented AI on its sensitivity and rephrased my request for a picture. Which it brilliantly did as you can see from the top of this article. A little imagination and you’ll get “the message”! So it’s a wonderful world provided you use only indecent language. But whatever you do, don’t attempt the truth. It’s outside both the BBC’s and AI’s licenses.
If all that isn’t enough to make us ask “What the (no ,I won’t say it)?” then I must ask what will? If you’ve got the answer, please share it.
Good morning
John Bittleston
Usual place: [email protected].
01 October 2025
