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Tolstoy reads in a bright loft, with a cultural magazine collage of city buildings and interconnected people

AI, Humanity and CivilizationOct 29, 20266 min read

Tolstoy, War and Peace, and the Illusion of Control in the AI Boom

Napoleon's orders and Kutuzov's attention to the battlefield offer a way into the uncertainty facing professionals in the AI boom: how can leaders recognize their limits without abandoning responsibility?

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01AI, Humanity and CivilizationTolstoy, War and Peace, and the Illusion of Control in the AI BoomNapoleon's orders and Kutuzov's attention to the battlefield offer a way into the uncertainty facing professionals in the AI boom: how can leaders recognize their limits without abandoning responsibility?Oct 29, 20266 min read 02Future Cities and CivilizationShould Local AI Grants Reward Adoption or Better Lives?The UK's proposed local AI partnerships raise a public-spending question: what should count as success when a place adopts AI, and who gets left out?Oct 25, 20266 min read 03Technology, Business and SocietyCan a Drone Team Keep Working When Communications Fail?A multi-drone mission needs more than parallel flight. Task ownership, stale shared state, collision risk and recovery determine which work can continue when links degrade.Oct 20, 20266 min read 04Technology, Business and SocietyWhen Does a Drone Complete an Autonomous Mission?A programmed flight is only the beginning. A single-drone bridge inspection needs evidence of coverage, usable images, anomaly review and a credible recovery path.Oct 16, 20266 min read 05AI, Humanity and CivilizationCan AI Suffer? Gedomaru’s Broken Memories and an Image That Turned the Question Back on MeAn AI-welfare debate brought me back to a scene in Neo Babylon’s second volume. I spent two weeks writing it, yet its imagery remained hazy until AI illustrated it. Did my words work, or did the model understand?Oct 16, 20265 min read 06Future Cities and CivilizationFuture City Governance: Does Better AI Management Make Us Freer?AI can help manage transport, energy, public safety and services. But governance goes beyond optimization: who sets the goals, how can residents object, and who answers for mistakes?Oct 15, 20265 min read 07Future Cities and CivilizationArchitecture in Future Cities: How Can Spaces Adapt as Life Changes?As households, work, populations and climate change, buildings need room to adapt. M.K. considers repair, changing uses and whether smart systems weaken residents' control over their homes.Oct 15, 20265 min read 08Future Cities and CivilizationLife in the Future City: When Work Is No Longer the CentreVisions of future cities often show towers, transport and automation, but little everyday life. If AI takes on more work, cities still need to support relationships, learning, care, creativity and life beyond consumption.Oct 15, 20265 min read 09Future Cities and CivilizationFuture Cities and Nature: From Reducing Harm to Ecological RestorationSustainability often begins with doing less harm. Can cities go further by restoring land, waterways and habitats, building climate resilience and designing for other species?Oct 15, 20265 min read 10Future Cities and CivilizationWho Lives in the Future City? When Humans Are No Longer AloneAI agents, robots, autonomous vehicles, digital counterparts and other species may all act within a city. What does that mean for residency, responsibility and people who cannot or choose not to go digital?Oct 15, 20265 min read 11Future Cities and CivilizationFuture City Transport: Can We Reduce the Need to Travel?Future transport must address more than speed and congestion. M.K. considers how transit, freight, automation and mobility privacy could give residents more time and choice.Oct 15, 20265 min read 12AI, Humanity and CivilizationAI Worms and The Incense: What Outlives the Creator?Anthropic’s AI replication research recalls The Incense in M.K.’s Neo Babylon. Why should a mission outlive its creators, and can preserving human civilization respect the choices of later minds?Oct 15, 20267 min read 13AI, Humanity and CivilizationHow Can Science Fiction Reveal AI Ethics' Hidden Costs?An imagined world can expose a choice's consequences without proving a prediction. M.K. examines assumptions, counterexamples and competing viewpoints as tools for disciplined ethical thought experiments.Oct 14, 20266 min read 14Next Generation and EducationWhen Young People Know AI Better, Who Gets to Teach Whom?AI fluency can unsettle familiar authority. M.K. separates tool skill, domain understanding, evidence and accountable judgment to explore how generations can learn from one another.Oct 14, 20265 min read 15Future Cities and CivilizationIf AI Governs More Efficiently, Should People Give Up the Decision?Better analysis is not automatic permission to govern. M.K. follows public decisions from agenda and metrics to alternatives and revocation, asking how efficiency can coexist with self-government.Oct 14, 20265 min read 16Future Cities and CivilizationAutonomous Machines in Public Life: Who Gains, Who Pays?A machine's purchase price does not capture its public costs. M.K. examines shared space, maintenance, withdrawal and the chain of responsibility behind autonomous services.Oct 14, 20265 min read 17Next Generation and EducationWhen AI Does the Thinking, What Should We Still Practise?Instant answers change the purpose of practice. M.K. explores how attempts, explanations and transfer can preserve meaningful learning without turning life into a race against AI.Oct 14, 20266 min read 18AI, Humanity and CivilizationWhy Could a Richer AI Economy Leave People Less Secure?Productivity gains do not automatically reach household security. M.K. follows AI's benefits through wages, prices, ownership and transition costs to examine who receives prosperity.Oct 14, 20266 min read 19AI, Humanity and CivilizationAre We Delegating Work to AI, or Giving Away Authority?Delegating a task need not mean surrendering a decision. M.K. examines permissions, meaningful review and the ability to revoke authority in personal and organizational AI use.Oct 14, 20266 min read 20AI, Humanity and CivilizationWill AI Bring the End of the World? The Answer May Surprise YouAI catastrophe may begin with inequality, disrupted livelihoods and unchecked delegation. M.K. examines the nuclear analogy and why self-reflection, restraint and accountable institutions must grow alongside our tools.Oct 14, 20269 min read 21Future Cities and CivilizationWill Robotaxis Reduce Traffic? Follow the Empty MilesA driverless car may improve dispatch without freeing road space. Ride-hail evidence, empty mileage, occupancy and transit substitution show what cities need to measure.Oct 13, 20266 min read 22AI, Humanity and CivilizationI Asked Six AI Models to Read Neo Babylon. They Did Not Read the Same Book.Six AI-written reviews of Neo Babylon: AI Forbidden Zone converge on its Taiwanese mythology, then diverge on spectacle, character, editorial craft and freedom of choice.Oct 7, 20266 min read 23Technology, Business and SocietyWho Will Pay for the Global GPU and Data-Centre Buildout?A platform may finance an AI data centre without bearing its entire eventual cost. Follow cash spending, leases, depreciation, cloud contracts and electricity tariffs to see where the risk lands.Oct 6, 202612 min read 24Technology, Business and SocietyWhen Do Humanoid Robots Make Sense?A human-shaped robot can fit spaces and tools built for people. Whether that benefit justifies two-legged mobility and complex manipulation depends on the task and its alternatives.Oct 2, 20267 min read 25Technology, Business and SocietyWhy Household Robots Still Haven't Taken OffHousehold robots will not become ordinary because one machine can fold a shirt in a demo. They need to save more time than they add in supervision, recovery, maintenance, privacy and safety burden.Sep 29, 202612 min read 26Technology, Business and SocietyWhy Robotics Is Hard: The Real World Has No API ContractRobotics is difficult not simply because models need to improve, but because perception errors, contact physics, latency, mechanical wear and human behaviour accumulate into uncertainty that the system must manage safely.Sep 6, 202612 min read 27Technology, Business and SocietyWhen Token Costs Approach Zero, What Remains Expensive?Falling model prices do not make the full cost of AI disappear. The scarce and expensive parts are moving into energy, usable data, integration, verification, trust and organizational change.Sep 4, 202612 min read 28Technology, Business and SocietyWhen Devices Become AI-Powered, Product Management Becomes Lifecycle ManagementAI-powered devices force product teams to manage hardware and model dependencies, capability limits, power budgets, OTA failure paths, data flows, cybersecurity and end-of-life support.Sep 3, 202614 min read 29Technology, Business and SocietyAI Cameras Need to Understand Events, Not Just Detect ObjectsThe next AI camera advantage is not simply detecting more objects. It is turning continuous video into a small number of trustworthy events through tracking, rules, edge filtering, VLM review and interoperable metadata.Aug 28, 202614 min read 30Next Generation and EducationWhat Should We Teach Before We Teach Young People to Use AI?As AI enters schools and homes, young people need more than operational speed. They need to judge sources, recognize uncertainty, disclose AI's role, own outcomes, protect privacy and choose not to use it.Aug 24, 202612 min read 31Technology, Business and SocietyWhy Edge AI Matters Again: The Real Shift Is Where Inference RunsEdge AI is not replacing cloud AI. As AI moves into devices, cameras, robots and long-running agents, latency, connectivity, privacy, power and cost turn inference placement into a product architecture decision.Aug 22, 202613 min read 32Technology, Business and SocietyWhen Computer Vision Starts Understanding Events, Not Just ObjectsComputer vision is moving beyond object detection toward streaming video, event understanding and distributed edge inference. The harder question is who defines what counts as an event and what the system is allowed to do next.Aug 19, 202612 min read 33Technology, Business and SocietyWhat Is Physical AI? Why the Next Wave of AI Will Leave the ScreenGenerative AI transformed how we create and process information. Physical AI goes further: machines begin to perceive, reason and act in the real world, where latency, safety, hardware and failure suddenly matter much more.Aug 15, 202610 min read 34Technology, Business and SocietyWill AI Become Public Infrastructure Like Electricity and the Internet?As AI becomes a capability every sector depends on, the important questions shift from model performance to access, rules, cost and responsibility. Electricity, the internet and public compute point to three plausible futures.Aug 3, 202611 min read 35Future Cities and CivilizationFrom Garden Cities to AI Civilization: Why Future Cities Continue to Interest MeFrom Garden Cities and eyes on the street to climate resilience and AI governance, this essay traces the urban ideas that inform Neo Babylon.Jul 21, 202610 min read 36Next Generation and EducationWhy Some Young People May Be More Wary of AI Than AdultsStarting from family conversations and anxiety around creative work, this essay asks why some young people keep their distance from AI and what education should protect beyond tool use.Jul 21, 20266 min read

Topics

Start with four topics, then follow series on AI, education, cities and society.

AI, Humanity and CivilizationHow should people choose, remain responsible and build a civilization worth continuing as AI grows more capable?8 02

Next Generation and EducationHow do people develop understanding, judgment and independent learning at different stages of life?4 03

Future Cities and CivilizationHow does technology reshape space, public institutions and shared life, and who can decide?11 04

Technology, Business and SocietyHow does AI become an industry, a product and a real-world system that can keep working?13

Tag indexNext Generation 4 AI Education 4 Human Agency 23 Future Cities 9 Urban Governance 8 AI & Civilization 15 Speculative Design 6 AI Infrastructure 7 Compute Economics 4 Technology History 2 AI Business Models 2 Agent Economy 1 Physical AI 12 Future of Work & Organizations 5