Tag
Human Agency
Preserving choice and responsibility in automated environments.
22essays
01Should 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 read02Can 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 read03Future 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 read04Architecture 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 read05Life 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 read06Who 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 read07Future 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 read08AI 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 read09How 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 read10When 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 read11If 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 read12Autonomous 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 read13When 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 read14Why 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 read15Are 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 read16Will 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 read17I 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 read18Why 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 read19AI 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 read20What 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 read21When 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 read22Why 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
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