As AI surges, one scientist who was right about most things predicts our immortality

Almost everyone's an expert on AI now, aren't they? Odd how their predictions vary so much, then. You've got one lot breezily asserting that humans will always stay one jump ahead of whatever artificial intelligence continues to mutate into. Then there's the 'we're all doomed' crowd, almost smacking their lips with relish at what they predict will be a takeover by the machines. Think HAL, the predatory onboard computer in 2001 a Space Odyssey. The truth is, no-one has a clue what the future holds for humanity and AI. That's partly because so much depends what we want it to do for us. Benign governments will see it as a beneficial tool and seek to steer it in that direction.

But malevolent regimes will regard AI as a weapon to intimidate others. Who would you trust to hold the safety codes to AI? London and Washington, say? Or Moscow and Beijing? China can't even be trusted to keep its artificial viruses safe inside the lab. They'll never admit unleashing Covid on an unsuspecting world but the evidence is overwhelming that they did, through sheer incompetence.

I wouldn't trust China to keep a synthetic computer virus any more securely than they did Covid-B. In the race to lead the field in AI development, we're looking at another accident just waiting to happen.

A fantastic article on AI written last month for a technology stream broke through into mainstream media this week. Mat Honan, editor-in-chief of MIT Technology Review, said of ballooning AI: 'It buys things while we sleep. It discovers the structure of proteins. It tells children to kill themselves.'

Honan wondered if humanity needs to build itself a bunker to shelter from increasing AI fallout. But I think the best – and profoundest – forecast for AI was made by the late Prof Stephen Hawking. He tended to be right about most things, be they black holes or whether the time travel is possible. (It isn't, he said. Not least because by now we would have been visited by tourists from the future, curious to see our quaint old-fashioned ways).

Hawking sincerely believed that yes, AI will overtake and eradicate humanity as we know it. But he saw that as the next stage in the unstoppable evolution of our species. Our consciousness – our souls, if you like – will inhabit machines and achieve the kind of immortality humans have always craved. It will mean this new version of mankind will be able to cross the universe, discover new worlds; colonise, just like its flesh-and-blood forebears did.

Quite a thought, eh?

Peerless presenter made her name while in excruciating pain

Three cheers – no, make that four – for the peerless R4 radio presenter Emma Barnett. Woman's Hour's loss a few years back was Today's gain. Emma has endured agonising endometriosis all her life. Despite often being in excruciating pain, she's regularly turned up for the live broadcasts that have made her one of the BBC's prime possessions.

This week, her brilliant documentary 'Emma Barnett; Fighting Endometriosis' laid bare the scandal of delayed diagnosis – often 10 years – and scant treatment so many women endure. A tour de force.

Yobs are risking lives with their entitlement

London, where I live, has imposed ever more cycle lanes for years now, denying drivers access to so many long-familiar roads and turnings. Yet still the yob cyclists blatantly and contemptuously break the rules. Last week I was walking on the pavement of my local high street in NW11 when a youth on a bike dashed from behind through the narrow gap between me and a shop doorway as a young mother exited with her baby buggy.

The moron almost collided with all three of us before lurching sharply over the kerb, onto the road, and smashing straight into an elderly woman using a pedestrian crossing. She went down like a sack of coal. I honestly thought he'd killed her. With huge good luck, she was merely stunned. Nothing even broken. The young mother and I helped her gently to her feet.

'I'm alright... thank you...' While the younger woman comforted her, I turned toward the youth. Around 15, with a sullen, resentful expression. Entitled, even. Who was this ancient creature to get in his way?

Reader, the ensuing short conversation was one-sided (on my part) and quite unprintable. But I'm sure you can imagine the gist of it.