Thank the Lords someone is worried about AI weapons | John Naughton

The most striking thing about the session (for this columnist, anyway) was that, although it was ostensibly about the military uses of artificial intelligence in warfare, many of the issues and questions that arose in the two hours of discussion could equally have arisen in discussions about civilian deployment of the technology. Questions about safety and reliability, for example, or governance and control. And, of course, about regulation.

Overall, it was an illuminating session, a paradigmatic example of what deliberative democracy should be like: polite, measured, informed, respectful. And it prompted reflections about the fact that the best and most thoughtful discussions of difficult issues that take place in this benighted kingdom happen not in its elected chamber, but in the constitutional anomaly that is the House of Lords.

Democratic deficitA blistering post by Scott Galloway on his No Mercy/No Malice blog, Guardrails, outlines the catastrophic failure of democratic states to regulate tech companies.

Hit those keysBarry Sanders has produced a lovely essay in Cabinet magazine on the machine that mechanised writing.