Look, I get it. I’m being unreasonable – petulant, even. For years I complained about the government treating the internet like some mysterious, spiky thing that could not be trusted. I watched ministers refuse to engage with technological advances and it was infuriating, because I felt that both they and the country were missing out. I wanted to grab them by the shoulders and sit them at a desk, and show them that there was nothing to fear about the laptop in front of them.
Now, in 2025, the government seems to have finally – finally! – caught up with the times. AI, we’ve been told, will soon be “mainlined into the veins” of the nation. Thanks to a multibillion-pound investment in our computing capacity, the technology will revolutionise everything from health to education. Hell, it’ll even help us get rid of bothersome potholes. In time, ministers said, the UK will become “the world leader” in AI. It is, you could argue, what I’d been so desperately waiting for, so why do I feel like I’ve got this pit in my stomach?
Let me make my case with three names. The first one is Elon Musk. The richest man in the world, and possibly the richest man in history, X and Tesla’s CEO is a man who has lost his mind. He seemingly spends every minute of every hour of every day posting on his own website. He has backed the AfD in Germany, among others, and has been relentless in his attacks on the British government. His current obsession is Tommy Robinson, as he keeps arguing that the far right activist needs to be freed from jail.
The second is Mark Zuckerberg, who runs Meta and recently announced that he would get rid of fact-checkers on Facebook. In an interview with Joe Rogan, he also argued that most companies need more “masculine energy”, and said that he’d put an end to internal diversity policies at his own company.
The third is Sam Altman, who runs OpenAI and argues that his company cannot be profitable if it is not given free access to even copyrighted material available online. At the end of last year, it was reported that he would donate $1m to president-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural fund.
What do these three men have in common? Firstly, I’d need enough money to last me a lifetime in order to agree to a dinner party with any of them. Secondly, they’re the men currently building the future – our future – and I don’t trust them. Trust is an interesting thing, isn’t it? Dense as a rock when it’s there, but as easy to shatter as glass. Once it’s gone, it’s also nearly impossible to repair.
I look at these three men and all the other ones, hiding in the boardrooms of Silicon Valley, and I find it hard to buy into whatever version of the world they’re trying to build. Perhaps most importantly, I bristle at the suggestion that they should be able to insert themselves into every nook and crevice of my life. Technology now dictates how we work, how we talk to each other, how we engage with our GP, our bills, and some of our appliances.
Sure, it has changed some things for the better but, overall, I’m not sure all of it was worth it. Crucially, I don’t feel that we were ever really asked about any of it. All these apps gradually took over our lives, and eventually we had no choice but to use them all. What happens when some of the men behind them – Musk, Zuckerberg – start going in a direction that makes you feel nauseous?
I look at the government welcoming AI with open arms, because Britain so direly needs economic growth and ministers will do anything to get it, and it makes me feel like we’re collectively Little Red Riding Hood, merrily walking into the house of a hungry wolf. Once the door closes behind us, I worry that we will become powerless.
That probably means that I am now a tech pessimist, for the first time in my life. I look to the horizon and what I see just doesn’t fill me with confidence. It’s a sad state of affairs, as catastrophising isn’t usually in my nature, but recent developments have managed to beat most hope out of me. I would love to be wrong, though – nothing would please me more. I hope the government has made the right choice, and the future really is bright and exciting.
Maybe they’re seeing something that I’m not; maybe I’ve become too jaded but they will, in time, show me the light.
All I know is that watching a prime minister compare a groundbreaking technological shift to “upgrading from my dad’s old Ford Cortina to a Formula One McLaren in one go” doesn’t currently fill me with confidence.
