Will machines replace us?

Well, it's pretty clear from all the packed events at Hay Festival dealing with artificial intelligence that we fear we will be replaced by machines.

Is it all doom and gloom as swathes of jobs disappear?

One man who ought to know, Nigel Shadbolt, a leading computer scientist from Oxford University, struck a surprisingly optimistic note.

Yes information networks will become all pervasive with even the wall paint linked up to the ‘internet of things’.

But, he says, providing we maintain control of the technology and big data with an agreed moral and ethical code then we have little to fear.
The biggest danger he saw was not the technology but the human idiots who would run it.

Then we face a dystopian future. Unfortunately the evidence so far points to the latter.


On a more prosaic note we have booked into a local inn whose normal rate is £79 for a room with breakfast for two people.
 
But during the Festival its upped to £150 and this is common practice in the area. If we were younger we would be in a tent or yurt.