A list of links to all my non-tech writings:
Essays
Glanglish - with audio versions
Travel writings
Novels
Poems
Moody Sonnets - with audio versions
19 September 2026
The End Of The Line
A long, slow, cold crawl across
The tedious desert dotted with small dark
Shrubs, which - of course - by night were imposs-
ible to see, during a ten-hour journey mark-
ed otherwise by nothing. A single train track
To the honeycomb-stones of Jaisalmer stopped short
Of the walled town, as if suddenly lack-
ing the will to move. The sullen, tethered thought
I had no hotel chilled me. It was very fool-
ish. I did try: from Jodhpur, I booked
A long-distance call, waited two cruel
Hours, connected, spoke, failed. It looked
Like I’d doss down with the camels. Later, it was clearer:
This world would disappear, with the end of a mobile-less era.
The tedious desert dotted with small dark
Shrubs, which - of course - by night were imposs-
ible to see, during a ten-hour journey mark-
ed otherwise by nothing. A single train track
To the honeycomb-stones of Jaisalmer stopped short
Of the walled town, as if suddenly lack-
ing the will to move. The sullen, tethered thought
I had no hotel chilled me. It was very fool-
ish. I did try: from Jodhpur, I booked
A long-distance call, waited two cruel
Hours, connected, spoke, failed. It looked
Like I’d doss down with the camels. Later, it was clearer:
This world would disappear, with the end of a mobile-less era.
(18.9.26) v 1.3
The Real AI Threats: Automated Hacking And Surveillance, Conventional Weapons Development, Biological Misuse
Should we rely on a few dominant companies to police everyone’s use of AI to spot and block the bad actors? As AI becomes embedded in everyday life, that effectively means constant surveillance of everyone by those companies. What about the legal frameworks for handling these abuses? Who should bear the liability when threat actors succeed in circumventing the built-in safeguards and cause real-life harm? And how would increasingly capable open weight/open source systems that exist outside the control of any company fit into new legal and liability frameworks? It’s going to be an interesting few years finding out — assuming we have that long…
On Techdirt.
AI Agents Are Not Going “Rogue,” But Recent Developments Lead Increasingly-Concerned Researchers To Call For AI Slow Down
For the last few months, there has been much talk of AI agents going “rogue”. This is another of those unhelpful anthropomorphisms that are great for clickbait headlines, but which obscure a multitude of important issues.
On Techdirt.
US government argues that fair use applies to OpenAI’s training of LLMs in key copyright case
As the use of generative AI and LLMs becomes widespread and even routine in today’s society, it seems possible that this will bring with it a certain presumption in their favour that will trump even the decades-long habit of treating copyright as something sacrosanct that must be preserved and protected at all costs.
From Walled Culture.