I had a short video go somewhat viral this week, in which I shared the news that Esquire magazine in Singapore generated an interview with its cover star because, according to a statement they gave CNA Lifestyle, “due to his demanding schedule, he was only able to complete a photo shoot and was unable to respond to our interview questions in a timely manner.”

@prohumanpostsSTOP THE SLOP ✊ #ai #aislop #journalism #esquire

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The statement further justifies Esquire’s actions by claiming that: “After several attempts to secure his responses, we chose to pivot the editorial approach to align with the March issue’s theme: Echoes.”

But they didn’t stop digging there…

“The use of AI was a deliberate creative decision intended to reflect this theme; exploring the ‘echo’ of a persona in the digital age in the absence of the physical subject.”

So, basically, what they’re saying is - it’s art you idiot, you just didn’t get it! Well, if I didn’t get it nor did a large swathe of their readers and other online commentators who voiced their displeasure in no uncertain terms as you can see:

The statement from Esquire does not say whether Mackenyu or his people condone the actions, which were based on feeding an LLM the actor’s previous interviews to generate responses to new questions but, having spent a part of my career in the dark arts, I could see why they might agree to it.

Using an AI to generate interview responses has some undeniable benefits for talent agencies and publicists. It means their clients will always be on message, will never say anything controversial and can be everywhere all at once in multiple languages. In fact, as more celebrities scan and license their faces, voices and bodies to AI companies, generating whole appearances could be tempting - after all, many of them don’t enjoy the promo that goes along with making movies and music, as Michelle Pfeiffer once famously opined:

Mackenyu’s case may sound trivial and of course not every famous person has something to say worth hearing, but I for one love to read and listen to interviews with credible actors and musicians about their craft, the context in which they practice it and how that changes over their career. Interviews with legendary performers such as Al Pacino or Paul McCartney are very different across the years as they mature, look back on their legacy and forward towards their maturity. AI freezes them in carbonite.

However, by far the most troubling impact of AI generated interviews is that the interviewee would never have to face down a journalist who may be trying to hold them to account. And if you think that’s a temptation for celebrities, imagine how much politicians and CEOs would love it?

More than a few people have accused me of being a Luddite* about AI, which I strongly oppose. Just look at the video I made above; it uses AI to generate the captions and to calculate the difference between me and my background so that I can place another image behind me. But we need to decide what AI is best used for and what limits should be placed on that use.

For instance, there are plenty of cars that can drive at speeds over 200mph but we don’t allow them to do so because it serves no real purpose outside of professional racing and is too dangerous for drivers, passengers and everyone else on the road.

Even with the many restrictions and regulations already in place on drivers such as licensing, speed limits, passenger limits, emission limits and seat belt laws, cars STILL kill 1.19 million people per year, according to World Health Organization (WHO) data, which amounts to over 3,200 deaths per day. An additional 20 to 50 million more people suffer non-fatal injuries, often leading to long-term disabilities AND road traffic accidents are a leading cause of death amongst children.

But we’re not talking about cars here, we’re talking about a technology that its own best advocates claim “will most likely lead to the end of the world” - Sam Altman, CEO, Open AI.

So, should the press whom we will come to rely on more and more to help us separate fact from AI-generated fiction be allowed to make up book reviews and interviews amongst many other types of content? NO.

Should they be able to use it to conduct research, transcribe interviews and check spelling and grammar? YES.

Should they be able to use it to enhance imagery and generate illustrations? Let’s discuss it but remember, AI isn’t a cure-all for every modern inconvenience whether you’re a journalist struggling to pin down an interviewee, or a politician or business leader trying to avoid scrutiny. As the volume of slop in our feeds increases exponentially it becomes both the core duty and value of so-called “traditional media” to rise above it and do better because eventually the tide will turn, in fact it already is.

* The Luddites were misunderstood - they didn’t hate technology, they hated the factory owners who used it to increase productivity whilst cutting wages, hiring unskilled labor, and creating unfair working conditions, sound familiar?

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P.S. Don’t miss next week’s issue of Pro-Human in which I exclusively interview Michael Jackson in advance of his new biopic opening at cinemas 😜

To Do List

My recommendations for new things to read, watch, look at, listen to and do this week:

• Another great example of our AI slop poisons public discourse was uncovered by the BBC who found the person responsible for churning out animated Lego videos on behalf of the Iranian government, which are proving surprisingly popular and effective.

• I believe the backlash to the Esquire story and other misuses of AI in entertainment are evidence that nobody, knowingly, wants to read, watch or listen to AI slop but unfortunately that doesn’t explain the virality of Fruit Love Island, an AI generated parody of Love Island featuring characters like Plumero and Watermelina, watched by millions! Read: Think Love Island is bad? Wait until you see the AI fruit version. (Interestingly, when popstar Zara Larsson admitted she watched it she got massive backlash too 🤔).

• On Wednesday I’m seeing the iconic Jesus & Mary Chain at Singapore’s Esplanade and on Sunday I am returning with my daughter to see Roald Dahl’s BFG performed with puppets, all tickets available from

  https://www.esplanade.com/.

• Finally, They Might Be Giants are back with a new album of jangly guitar pop coming out TOMORROW so why not preview the first three tracks and pre-save ‘The World Is To Dig’ today?

Right, that’ll do ya. Cheers, Nx

I know it’s wrong.

I know it was an evil conspiracy perpetuated by Big Tobacco.

I know it will give me cancer but, then again, what doesn’t give you cancer these days? The rates of cancer amongst under 50s in developed countries has skyrocketed since 1990 with early-onset colorectal cancers now the biggest killer of that demographic. Why? Your guess is a good as the oncologists’ who have a list of possibilities including obesity, sedentary lifestyles, processed diets, alcohol, and a “birth cohort effect”, but no concrete conclusions.

And now there is another killer on the loose whose effects are the equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Have you heard of it? It’s called loneliness and unlike runaway colorectal cancers we absolutely know the cause.

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According to a 2010 meta analysis of multiple studies led by Dr. Julianne Holt-Lunstad a lack of social connection has an equivalent health impact to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day i.e. it can actually kill you. And according to a whole raft of surveys from the USA to Singapore the leading cause of loneliness is, ironically, the technology that was supposed to connect us all, ha!

For years people claimed smoking was an anti-social habit but I beg to differ. Smoking was the connective tissue of late 20th century society simply because the want of a fag or a light cut right through class lines and self consciousness forcing complete strangers to approach each other and ask for a small kindness, which was almost always given (except to those who smoked only when drunk and thus NEVER purchased a pack of their own).

Smokers are undoubtedly amongst the most generous, creative and fun loving people I have ever met - rebellious souls with constitutions strong enough to suffer daily poison simply to function. They are made of tougher stuff and will brave sleet, snow and hail to get their fix, huddled together beneath umbrellas, bus shelters and shop awnings, embodying the Blitz spirit that kept London going during the darkest days of WWII no less!

As a media salesman in the mid-noughties the best way to meet a “decision maker” was always at the smoking corner of any industry conference or exhibition where their flunkies dare not intrude on the boss’s private respite but strangers were always welcome to pass the time of day.

When I worked in a thirty story building on Euston Road in London I got to know someone on nearly every floor through our shared love of Marloboro Lights (THE city cigarette), and on a Friday those fellow passengers on the nicotine express would inevitably stop into the local pubs and clubs, turning the entire venue into one big local. Now, the smokers have to go home to enjoy a puff and the Gen Zers don’t drink at all so watering holes from Singapore to Soho are shutting up shop, slowing the economy and leaving even fewer locations for strangers to meet and make merry.

My nan, like yours or one you know, smoked at least forty-a-day well into her eighties before she passed NOT of lung cancer whereas my best friend is facing his fate at just forty-six despite quitting the fags around thirty, so what really was the point? He may as well have continued to indulge his smokey pleasure because its probably the microplastics that will do for him in the end!

I quit when I was thirty and now I couldn’t start again even if I wanted to. For all the free will and freedom of expression we’re allegedly entitled to in the developed world, try lighting a cigarette anywhere and see how you’re treated. Oh, and don’t expect to get reasonable health cover or life insurance for your family either - you’d be better off applying as a base-jumping cave diver with a sideline in crocodile wrestling. Oh, but if you drink 10 pints a night and eat Mickey D’s three times a day? No problem, climb aboard sailor - the premiums are cheap!

So here’s my idea - if social media is increasing the risk of death from loneliness by the equivalent of 15 cigarettes per day shouldn’t doctors prescribe 14 as a cure? As Oasis - who brought millions together over cigarettes and alcohol last summer - sang, you gotta make it ‘appen!

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To Do List

My recommendations for new things to read, watch, look at, listen to and do this week:

I’ve been trapped at home for nearly two weeks following a minor surgery so I’ve gone podcast crazy, here’s what I’ve been listening to:

• James Marriott is my favourite columnist in The Times (of London); a perceptive and eloquent observer of modern life and still only 33 years old. He is a passionate advocate for the value of reading and has produced a podcast with BBC Radio 4 to accompany his forthcoming book ‘The New Dark Ages’. Listen to ‘How Reading Made Us’ in all the usual places.

• Rutger Bregman is amongst my favourite historians (as a “centrist dad” I’m a devout listener to ‘The Rest Is History’ with with Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook #obvs). His series of Reith Lectures - an annual series of lectures commissioned by the BBC since 1948 - are an inspiring instruction guide and call to action on how to actually make the world a better place.

• Stuck at home I have also, inevitably, been watching Netflix and Prime and would like to recommend an American horror series by the ‘Stranger Things’ team called ‘Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen’ on the former. And an edgy new British sitcom(?) from British-Pakistani actor Riz Ahmed called ‘Bait’ on Prime. In it, he also plays an actor who finds his life spiraling out of control after he is rumored to be in consideration for the role of James Bond. Here’s the trailer also featuring the always hilarious Guz Khan.

• Also, Basement is my new favourite Britrock band in this is the first single from their upcoming album ‘Wired’ and I love it:

Right, I’m finally allowed out this weekend so that’ll do ya! Cheers, Nx

The smartphone previously belonged to my wife and has all the family controls enabled on it including tracking so we can give her the freedom all children need to roam whilst keeping an eye on her from a distance. She has no social media, the phone is not allowed in her room at night and we check her WhatsApps periodically and ask her about the types of conversations she has on there to ensure nothing nefarious is going on. We have used the phone specifically to give her freedom and independence since the age of around nine and for that I am grateful.

The other thing I am grateful for is that my daughter could not be less interested in her phone. She constantly forgets to charge and bring it with her. I hear it buzz on the charging table (where I put it), as messages pile up that she cannot be bothered to answer. She has never asked to be allowed on social media and, on the odd occasion I have offered to purchase a game for her so she can avoid watching those interminable mobile ads she always says, “Nah, it’s fine daddy.” In this post, I shall attempt diagnose why and how my wife and I achieved this, taking credit for those things within our power as parents and acknowledging those that aren’t. Let’s go!

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I think it all began way before the phone and the child, when I was prepping for her arrival. I read somewhere that if you want your offspring to engage with books, music, films and other artful artifacts you must have them about the house and within reach of tiny hands. This rings true for me. I remember, as a littl’n, being obsessed with a colourful vinyl in my dad’s collection, kept in the bottom cupboard of a display cabinet closest the floor. I would frequently extract it, open up the gatefold and stare at the double-wide image of four mustachioed men in citrus coloured satin suits, trying to copy it onto sheets of scrap paper using highlighters to match the acid tones of their finery. As I grew I turned the album over and discovered reams of lyrics on the backside, which I had never seen before but which fascinated me.

Eventually, of course, I grew tall enough to reach the record player and put the album on. It was ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ by The Beatles and it blew my damn mind igniting a deep and abiding love of music that I indulge to this day. But I was drawn to the album long before I heard it because of the beauty of the physical object, which is why I stack my home with records, books, CDs, DVDs, postcards, paintings, little sculptures and niknaks that my daughter is welcome to pick up and play with at any time barring a couple of very special editions (such as my signed copy of Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance’).

However, it is no use possessing these things if you don’t demonstrate how to use them and the joy of engaging with them, which is why my child will often find me reading or listening or watching without distraction, my phone performatively placed in another room. It is also why we have regularly scheduled movie nights, not every week, but a couple times a month where take turns to select a movie, respect each other’s choices, and watch them in full together. Now she can watch 2-hour+ films without moving. She listens to Taylor Swift and Black Pink albums in their entirety without changing track every thirty seconds and, recently, I have even caught her reading for pleasure on a couple of occasions 😮.

Speaking of reading, I have read aloud to my daughter nearly every night since her birth and, increasingly, I encourage her to read next to me; a silent but companionable shared activity. I want to her to be story-literate, in command of her own attention and with a thorough grasp of comprehension so that she can imagine and articulate her own stories as well as others.

Finally, my wife and I both try - often feebly - to use our phones mindfully at home rather than keep glancing at them whilst doing other things. When we do have our phones out we try to say aloud what we are doing on them e.g. reading the papers or watching a video essay or listening to a history podcast, so my daughter learns more positive ways to put her technology to use.

However, there is one major factor that my wife and I cannot take any credit for and which gives me a modicum of hope for the future of our species and that is; my daughter is simply not very impressed with screens. She finds them dull. She observes my wife and I, who both often work from home, staring at our respective laptops, looking bored or annoyed but rarely overjoyed, and is underwhelmed. She, like all of Gen Alpha, was born into a world wallpapered with screens. What was once a novelty to us is a mundane reality to her. She’s never known a world without black mirrors large and small mounted on walls and weighing down pockets, hence they lack any allure. Given the choice she would far rather practice her gymnastics, make cardboard cat houses for our moggy Marlin, take her skateboard to the playground and hang out with her girl gang in person (whom I have also never observed on their phones when taking one of my surreptitious walks past their spot in the park), because nothing seems quite as boring to her as staring at a screen.

As AI attempts to automate away everything and anything interesting about our jobs and hobbies - not because it’s better but because it’s lowering standards and costs - the backlash that is already well underway will accelerate as new generations born into an averaged out world of machine made mediocrity will realise they have been robbed. As parents we need to make sure, when that realisation dawns, that we can show our children an alternative in the shape of physical art and media that will surprise and delight them all over again.

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To Do List

My recommendations for new things to read, watch, look at, listen to and do this week:

• Former-Google-Design-Ethicist-turned-tech-industry-whistleblower Tristan Harris launched The Human Movement this week, seemingly in conjunction with his new film The AI Doc. The manifesto film, below, looks very much up our collective strasse so I have signed up early and will share updates as I get them. (Oh, and if you’re wondering, that’s Peter Gabriel’s stirring cover of Bowie’s Heroes on the soundtrack.)

• Meta and YouTube were, this week, found liable in a landmark social media addiction trial that proves the tech giants set out to addict users, which could lead to massive class action lawsuits all round 🍾 READ ON CNA.

• Softerfields is a Singaporean listening club that puts together leftfield listening parties at the legendary Snakeweed Studios. On 7th April I will be joining them for an evening centred on the music of Kino and a selection of Soviet and Russian post-punk. Come make new friends: GET TICKETS.

  They’ve also put together a cracking little ambient playlist on Spotify to get you in the mood:

Right, that'll do ya! Cheers, Nx

Anyway, I digress. The origins of his term are in toxoplasmosis, which is a parasite that takes control of cats so that they act in ways that best help the parasite to spread. The cat doesn’t know it’s infected with the parasite, it carries on about its day thinking it’s in charge whilst unwittingly carrying out the parasite’s plans. Now imagine humans as the cats and big tech as the parasite - that’s technoplasmosis.

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Much of our modern behaviour, certainly at work and increasingly outside it, is governed by tech, which subtly changes what we do and how we do it. This can have positive and negative effects. For instance, if you go for a run because you want to keep your Strava stats up, or practice your Mandarin to maintain your Duolingo streak, where’s the harm?

However, if you start spouting misogynistic hate speech to keep your views and likes up and sell your get-rich-quick courses to teenagers then you have replaced your moral compass with a YouTube dashboard because you’ll do just about anything to keep those stats going up and to the right. See, that’s the best reason I can come up with for why those toxic ‘manfluencers’ in the Louis Theroux documentary ‘Inside The Manosphere’ say the things that they do (or why the likes of Lily Phillips and Bonnie Blue do the extreme things they do).

This was the other reason I came up with…

Watch the show and it’s clear they don’t believe a word of what they’re saying, they exist purely to please the algorithm and as algorithms take over more of our lives we’re in danger of living to make machines happy instead of the other way around. Think about it…

• Amazon warehouse workers, amongst many other blue collar workers, are already monitored, pitted against robots and have their toilet breaks timed to increase productivity and ensure they reach their “performance goals”. Any moment of their day not spent scanning items is accrued and deducted from their score so they urinate in bottles to keep the performance algorithm happy.

• Uber uses its pricing algorithm to ensure drivers make just enough money to survive but not enough to take breaks so they continue to drive even when they are tired or hungry or need to use the bathroom, which of course increases the danger to them and their passengers.

• Instagrammers, instead of making what their heart desires, hang on Adam Mosseri’s every word trying to work out what they can do to please his algorithm hence the prevalence of “trending” videos, which is to say thousands of creators ignoring their instincts and all making the same content using the same music and the same attention-grabbing hacks because it’s what the algorithm rewards right now. Last month it was the 2016 “trend”, this month it’s the Mom/Dad, what did you look like in the 90s “trend” 🥱.

And now it seems people are beginning, intentionally or not, to adapt their written and spoken language to sound more like AI. Like any parasitical infection this is a sickness, so what’s the cure?

The cure is simple and is already being adopted by hundreds of thousands worldwide, it’s simply doing things that cannot be tracked or measured. Reading printed books, listening to tapes, records and CDs, going to gigs and movies, writing and drawing on paper because I don’t need to know how far through a novel or album I am, how many gigs and movies I have watched, or how many words I’ve written. Not EVERYTHING has to have a goal. Read what you want at your own pace. Pick it up and put it down. Stop trying to please the machine and please yourself instead.

The consistent rise in consumption of physical media over this decade is a response to two things; the inconvenience of not being able to access anything without a $1,000 device, a data package or wifi connection, remembering an impossible password plus a two-factor authentication code THEN sitting through a 90-second ad for a shitty mobile game only to find that the thing you wanted is not on the platform anyway. And, wanting to enjoy things privately, at our own pace and over time. Books are not only enjoyable when read, they also furnish a room. Albums do not only have value when they are being played, they function as artwork and conversation pieces in your home. My writing is not purely for readers but to help me clear out my mind and figure out what I think about a topic.

If HS Tikky Tokky, Sneako and the other ludicrously monikered men in Theroux’s documentary could stand to be alone with their own thoughts for a second they might find out what they actually believe outside of the algorithm…but then, how would they know if their thoughts were the right ones?!

Cover photo by Armin Lotfi on Unsplash

To Do List

My recommendations for new things to read, watch, look at, listen to and do this week:

• For the locals, my mate Derek is playing a gig with his band USB at Coastal Rhythm near the wake park in Singapore’s East Coast on Saturday 28th March. There’s two sets, 5 - 830pm and 830pm - midnight. Get your tix with Derek’s discount code JAC9USB here: https://www.philstudio-events.com/event-details-registration/jam-cheese-vol-9-1

• Also for the locals, indie cinema Filmhouse.SG is running a ‘Women In Focus’ season including the local movie ‘Amoeba’, directed by Tan Siyou with a soundtrack by Weish - the polymath behind ‘Secondary: The Musical’ with Checkpoint Theatre last year. All I can say is, just check out anything and everything she’s doing - here’s a tune to start you off:

• Speaking of musicians turned theatre-makers, Inch Chua has created ‘Myles - Soulmate in a Box’ about a woman who gives up on dating and creates her perfect mate with AI. Early bird tickets are available until 29th March, we’ve got ours, get yours here: https://www.srt.com.sg/show/myles/.

  

• Needle scratch - back in the 1990s every Friday night started at 6pm on Channel 4 with ‘TFI Friday’, an anarchic variety show hosted by Chris Evans. It was like a televisual version of ‘Loaded’ magazine featuring every mover, shaker and Britpop maker of the era. And it’s back as a YouTube show! 7 eps have been release so far, recreating that irreverent 90s vibe that we used to call… what was it now? Oh yeah, fun!!

• Another British revival, though not from as far back, is ‘Mock The Week’, the satirical news quiz starring the best of British comedy talent in a battle of wits that was decommissioned in 2022 but is back due to popular demand - yay!

Right, that’ll do ya! Cheers, Nx

Despite sucking vast quantities of data, water, energy, land and, let’s not forget, money from the world like an insatiable omnivorous vampire the AI tech bros assure us an age of abundance is coming, to wit:

“The primary effect of technology is to increase abundance.” Ray Kurzweil, Google Futurist

“An AI-driven productivity boom could create an era of abundance.” Marc Andreessen, Andreessen Horowitz Partner & Conehead

“I think we see a path now where the world gets much more abundant and much better every year.” Sam Altman, Open AI CEO

“This means a future of abundance. A future where there is no poverty, where people can have whatever they want in terms of goods and services.” Elon Musk, Professional Troll

“We predict an Era of Abundance.” From Andreessen Horowitz’s AI thesis

Sounds great guys but… We in the west are already living in an age of abundance and it doesn’t seem to making us any happier.

• Abundant junk food has created an obesity epidemic.

• Abundant connectivity has created a loneliness epidemic.

• Abundant entertainment has created a mental health epidemic.

• Abundant commerce has created a personal debt crisis.

• Abundant credit has contributed to a cost of living crisis.

So, when you say abundance what exactly do you mean?

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For these people the ONLY measure of self-worth and success is money. Sam Altman may claim to take no salary from Open AI but he still measures his success in terms of how much money he can raise and how that increases the amount of money his company is worth and how much money that adds to his and his shareholders’ portfolios. What they cannot understand or even conceive of is that the rest of us don’t share their motivation. The rest of us don’t desire abundance, we desire sufficiency in the present and stability in the future as Substacker Tom White articulates perfectly in this note below:

The suspiciously coordinated abundance messaging of the tech-bros is a preemptive strike on skeptics. It enables them to point to people like me and say, “Do you not want abundance? Do you want people to be deprived?”, but I’m not doing the depriving. It is they who are stealing the water and and energy from communities and forcing prices up, it is they who are appropriating work from artists and forcing them into bankruptcy, it is they who are eradicating jobs for young people and yet not compensating them for it. I wonder if there will ever come a time when Altman, Musk and co feel like they have enough personal abundance that they’d like to share some?

I’m sorry, sarcasm is truly the lowest form of wit; I know the answer to that question and it is no, that time will never come. What the tech bros mean by abundance is that you will be able to pay them for access to the greatest library of information, the greatest shed of virtual tools ever stolen and to use that to try and build abundance for yourself. AI is not the antidote to conservative, individualist, bootstrapping so-called meritocracy, it is the crystalisation of it. If - with all these tools - you cannot make yourself a billionaire then it’s YOUR FAULT. You are feckless, lazy, stupid, ignorant, even ungrateful. Once again we paint poverty as an individual moral failing rather than a systemic one.

All of these companies have a diversity pillar but, at their core, they think we should all be the same - the same as them that is - regardless of our myriad backgrounds and cultures, skills and talents, obligations and responsibilities, rituals and traditions, risk appetites and ambitions. Like them, we should want to spend all day indoors, racking up compute bills, striving to be individual billionaires and if we choose otherwise, well…

Of course, for all their claims to innovation we’ve actually heard this plenty of times before:

• Anyone with an iPhone can make a film - the implication being that you no longer need any experience or a crew, just you and your little black box of dreams to make it in Hollywood.

• Anyone with Garageband can make an album - whether or not you have any actual musical talent.

• Anyone with an Internet connection can become an expert on anything - assuming you have all day to watch online lectures and no obligation to prove you actually understood them.

• Etc, etc, ad nauseum.

What they fail to understand is that work is not only a route to money for workers and bosses, it is a source of purpose, motivation, mentorship, growth, dignity and community too. If it wasn’t why would all these billionaires still be working so much? They already have abundant abundance but clearly they desire or derive more than material gain from their jobs. Well, what about the rest of us? Maybe we aren’t so different after all.

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Cover Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash

To Do List

My recommendations for new things to read, watch, look at, listen to and do this week:

• As mentioned above I can recommend Louis Theroux’s documentary ‘Inside The Manosphere’ on Netflix if you want to find out what mewing, mogging and looksmaxxxing is! Here’s my take:

• Over the next couple months I’ll be attending two of the four gigs in The Esplanade’s Mosaic series; namely Hiromi’s Sonicwonder and The Jesus & Mary Chain but the others look mighty impressive too. Listings and tickets available here: https://www.esplanade.com/whats-on/festivals-and-series/series/mosaic-music-series

• I fear money. I’m one of those people who cannot look at his bank balance at the ATM despite the fact that I know I have no debt and do reasonably well for myself. Why should this be the case? Substacker hits the nail on the head:

Your Brain on Money

I make good money. Why do I still feel like this?

I have horrendous work-life balance. I know this about myself. I built a career in financial journalism, started this newsletter, took on financial planning clients, and somewhere along the way adopted a pace that I would never, ever, tell someone to adopt…

Read more

2 months ago · 857 likes · 59 comments · Hanna Horvath

Right. That’ll do ya, Nx

Anyway, I digress. I’m a Samsung user and thus was served up various clips from their recent Unpacked event at which they launched all their new doodahs and widgets and this particular “innovation” caught my eye:

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The purpose of a “snapshot”

What’s the purpose of a snapshot? I use the word snapshot specifically because a photograph can be any number of things. It can be a cover image for a magazine, an element in a mixed media collage, a piece of digital art. However, most of us are not using our smartphones to make art but to take snapshots of memorable moments; nights out, baby’s first words, first steps, first prom. Snapshots are moments in a life, in time, that will serve as a record of their experiences as they happened.

But what is the purpose of a snapshot that never actually happened? An idealised portrait of what one may wish happened but never did? What will it do to our memories and sense of self? Am I really a dog lover or did it just fit the aesthetic (see Samsung demo inserting a dog into a pic above)?

Of course we all want the best possible pictures of our selves and our loved ones but what do we mean by “best”? For persons of my vintage (born in 1979), it’s a rite of passage to bring a girlfriend or boyfriend home to meet the parents and for them to pluck a dusty photo album off the shelf and walk them through all the embarrassing shots of your youth. Not the perfect, airbrushed shots of you posed perfectly in a five-star restaurant with a fake dog on your lap but the one of you as a baby in the bath with your siblings, your hair shampooed up in to a mohawk. The one of you as a toddler, bawling into the lens with a tell tale ice cream melting on the floor at your feet. The one of you as a teenager with curtains and braces and acne attempting to look like a grown up in your oversized prom suit.

These pictures have stories, personality and, most importantly of all, the authenticity of imperfection. They are the real you, in development, trying out different fashions and hairstyles, friends and partners, until you work out who you really are or could be. If you’re looking for a reason why young people don’t drink now it’s partly because they cannot afford to ever lose control in case it’s caught on camera and ruins their lives. Turns out it was an unknown privilege to grow up in private.

The Value of Imperfection

When my mum was growing up in the 1950s no one she knew owned a camera. There was only way to get your picture taken and that was by the school on picture day or church on confirmation day but that still cost money that my maternal grandparents didn’t have. Consequently there exists only four pictures of my mum as a child but this one is my favourite.

This is the most treasured picture I own because of it’s imperfection. Can you spot it? For picture day my grandmother made sure my mum was dressed in her very best clothes, her “Sunday best” and yet, if you look at her right arm you’ll see there’s a hole in her cardigan. My mum’s family were so poor that even her best clothes had holes in them. AI could fix that but I’m glad it didn’t because that hole is a testament to how far she (and my father) have come since the poverty of their youth. It demonstrates her grit and resolve, it speaks to every obstacle she has overcome to become the incredible woman she is today.

Have I ever used a filter? Of course, and if your skin or hair makes you too self-conscious to post go ahead and use one too. AI is not about binaries, it’s about grey areas, and you need to decide for yourself where the line between subtle enhancement and outright illusion exists. Just remember though, when you are looking back through those photos in years to come, questioning your sanity because the images contradict your own recollections - perfection rarely makes for a great memory or a great story.

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To Do List

My recommendations for new things to read, watch, look at, listen to and do this week:

• Power Tools is a brand new, beautifully designed zine from writer and designer Bart Fish, “critiquing AI Toolmen and the myriad of ethical issues generative AI has created or amplified.” I have just ordered my first issue, you should too at https://powertoolsofai.com/.

• The Bride is a feminist masterpiece drawing on the tradition of murderous road movies such as Bonnie & Clyde, Badlands and Natural Born Killers. Brilliantly shot (way better that Del Toro’s Frankenstein #sorrynotsorry ) it fully deserves to be seen in the cinema.

• I couldn’t even get in to see Singaporean blues rock rebels Emperor Niño at either of their gigs this weekend so had to content myself with listening to their 2025 debut album Sedementary Blues, which sounds like it should have come out of the amber deserts of Utah rather than the urban jungle of Singapore.

Right, that’ll do ya!

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As I was saying, I can remember popular culture of the 1940s thanks to my nan who we used to visit on Sundays for roast dinners prepared to a soundtrack of Doris Day, Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald on the “wireless”. Her bookshelves were stacked with their biographies and VHS tapes of classic movies such as Casablanca, The Big Sleep and The Maltese Falcon. When I think back to the 1940s, though I wasn’t there, I can envisage crooners in front of big bands, film noir silhouettes of femme fatales and men in fedoras catching a permanent plume of smoke from their lips.

From there the picture gets clearer. The 1950s, in my mind, were the decade of Elvis Presley and rock n’ roll, the birth of the teenager and the film stars that embodied the inner turmoil of that previously unrecognised time of life; James Dean and Marlon Brando, not to mention the beat writers like Kerouac, Burroughs, Ginsberg and Salinger who captured the restlessness of a new generation (of males, at least). The men wore either Harrington or leather biker jackets with drainpipe Levi’s jeans whilst the women wore pleated skirts draped over abundant, post-rationing petticoats (in the US at least).

What about the 1960s? Well that’s easy, it’s mop-top haircuts, Mary Quant dresses, mods and rockers, hippies and flower power followed by drugs, disillusionment, social realism in the cinemas and social protest on the streets.

The 1970s were glam, punk and disco on the radio and New Hollywood on the screens as Scorsese, Spielberg, Coppola, Lucas, DePalma et al unleashed their cinematic visions (I am aware there have been very few women in my recollections thus far, but it was last century). Interior design was orange, brown and beige; trousers were ludicrously tight at the top and improbably flared at the bottom to accommodate equally ludicrous platform heels. Everyone seemed very hairy.

The 1980s, which is the first decade I actually remember first-hand, seemed sleeker and cleaner in chrome, glass and neon but the 1990s were when I really came into my own. As luck would have it, Anglo-pop-culture shifted towards the UK and London specifically with Britpop which, though “new”, borrowed heavily from the 1960s Carnaby Street vibe with its Union Jack motifs on everything from Noel’s guitar to Geri’s dress.

This morphed, in the early 2000s, into something both retro and futuristic at the same time with indie sleaze aping a ‘70s lo-fi, junk shop aesthetic and Y2K adopting a sleek and shiny view of the future.

Now try to picture the 2010s or 2020s. What does it look like? Does any moment from the past 15-20 years jump out as distinct?

I am not the first to notice that culture appears to have stagnated since the simultaneous arrival of the smartphone and the global financial crisis in 2007/8 but the reason I bring it up now is that it makes me wonder, as I frequently do when labouring away on a story or screenplay that nobody asked for and very few will see - has everything already been made? Is that why new artistic movements and creative forms appear to have stalled?

The Honest Broker

Why Do I Keep Saying the Culture is Stagnating?

At my age, I’m supposed to grow nostalgic over the songs of my youth. I’m also expected to reminisce about the good old days, when actors were cooler and actresses hotter. Newspapers were a lot thicker, and I was a lot thinner…

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3 years ago · 267 likes · 70 comments · Ted Gioia

From the late 19th through the 20th Century you couldn’t move for new artistic movements! In the first 25 years of the 20th Century we went from Post-Impressionism to Symbolism through Art Nouveau, Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism, Futurism and Dada. In the first 25 years of the 21st Century there’s not actually been an new art movement at all, only hangovers from the 20th Century such as street art and digital art (NFTs??), which aren’t so much aesthetics as mediums, and of course post-modernism which is essentially a remixing of everything that went before. Why is this? I would like to propose several, completely unscientific, theories followed by some equally unscientific solutions.

Has culture stalled and, if so, why?

1. Firstly, we must entertain the idea that maybe everything has already been written, painted, sculpted, sung and filmed. Most generations think they have reached the end of creativity before something new inevitably pops up to prove them wrong. But it’s got to end sometime, right?

2. Maybe new creative forms have less cultural impact because we no longer live in a monoculture. Case in point Bad Bunny, who played the half-time show at the Superbowl as the most streamed artist in the world in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2025 but who I, and everyone I come in to contact with, has never heard of. Back in the ‘90s he’d at least have made an appearance on Top Of The Pops but now I am completely cut off from him.

3. Maybe new creative forms are not taken seriously enough to impact the culture, like video games, or vertical micro-dramas, which can be super cinematic and are attracting audiences of millions on TikTok and ReelShort but are dismissed as shallow and soapy - are they not to the three reel movie what a three minute pop single was to the symphony?

4. The algorithms that power both discovery of art/content and, increasingly, its creation can only look backwards and only define what is good by what is popular. Algorithm’s have no taste, see no depth, feel no emotion, all they have is an archive of what was clicked on and what wasn’t so now that has becoming the defining trait of “good” art/content - it’s clickworthyness. This already dubious metric is further devalued by the context in which that art/content is now experienced e.g. on a tiny screen in an unconducive setting whilst the user is doing three other things at the same time. (There’s a reason films seem better in a cinema, art in a gallery and music in a club). This is a huge hurdle to the development of new creative forms with true cultural impact.

5. The decline of deviance, as evidenced in the epic post by below, and which I put down to the now untenable opportunity cost of being original. There was a time, not that long ago in fact, when one could actually scrape by living on the dole in London or Manchester, like the Sex Pistols and The Smiths, or in a loft in NYC, like The Velvet Underground, until opportunity knocked. A time when you could be discovered by a journalist or critic, patron or gallerist, publisher or producer who, back then, actually built their reputations on finding previously undiscovered talent and bringing it to prominence. Now A&R scouts don’t go to gigs, journalists don’t venture into enclaves and gallerists can’t afford to take risks when rents are so high, so the job of being discovered falls squarely on the shoulders of the artist whose only means of reaching an audience is to please the algorithms which, well, see point three above. My point is, where will the next Hunter S. Thomson come from when the price of failure is so high?

Experimental History

The Decline of Deviance

People are less weird than they used to be. That might sound odd, but data from every sector of society is pointing strongly in the same direction: we’re in a recession of mischief, a crisis of conventionality, and an epidemic of the mundane. Deviance is on the decline…

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6 months ago · 8342 likes · 608 comments · Adam Mastroianni

7. Global competition - once upon a time you would hone your talent as part of a small, local scene, collaborating with and competing against the best of local talent until you grew out of that scene and expanded your boundaries regionally, then nationally then, if you were very lucky, internationally. Now, the moment you put something out online, you are immediately in competition with every other artist within your medium on earth and, as the saying goes, no matter how good you are there is always an Asian kid who is better. We expect talent to arrive fully formed these days, without the development process that gets them there.

It’s cutthroat and dispiriting so, what can we do about it?

I don’t have any definitive answers as of this moment but I do have some suggestions, feel free to add your own in the comments below.

1. Go to physical gigs and galleries, recommend bands, books and artists, buy their work for other people as gifts, school yourself in the classics by all means but try something new too.

2. Don’t rely on algorithms to tell you what to read, watch, look at and listen to. Find individual journalists, critics and yes, even influencers, whom you go to specifically to find art that is not necessarily popular with the algorithm but made an impact on someone whose opinion you value. My personal favourite thing is to visit record shops in other countries and ask them who I should have heard of from their local scene and then buy it.

3. Stop trying to re-create the form that inspired you. Yes, I would love to write the great British/Singaporean novel but, guess what, no one’s reading those any more so write something else instead; short stories or novellas perhaps? As bestseller Ian Rankin has suggested, maybe we should write FOR modern attention spans rather than keep complaining about them.

4. Create your own industry; the record labels, movie studios and publishing companies are all still stuck in the last century tying to maintain business models that haven’t actually been around all that long. Just because the last 50 years of the 20th Century gave us mass market paperbacks, blockbusters and rock stars doesn’t mean these are natural phenomena. These industries, formats and successes are all synthetic, people made them up, so let’s make up new industries and formats and successes instead.

5. As an artist, enjoy the process not just the end result. I write to find out what I’m thinking and that provides me with clarity in an otherwise murky world, if I simply prompted an AI I’d get the words but none of the meaning or the pleasure, which often first requires the pain of actually sitting down and thinking for myself.

So, why do we keep creating? Human nature, self expression, curiosity, therapy, boredom, inspiration and sometimes, maybe, for validation but if you put that first you’ll find yourself trying to please the algorithm before yourself and that’s the death of art.

To Do List

My recommendations for new things to read, watch, look at, listen to and do this week:

• My poem is still in competition for Poems on The MRT and every vote counts so please have a read (it’s short) and drop a heart if you like it : https://poemsonthemrt.com/wp/poems/a-timeless-space-ode-to-changi-airport/

• Here’s an article from The Conversation on how AI will accelerate the rate of cultural stagnation in case you needed anymore evidence: https://theconversation.com/ai-induced-cultural-stagnation-is-no-longer-speculation-its-already-happening-272488

• And if you’re looking for the why behind all of this, I fear this piece in the NYT may explain everything - in fact it’s so good I pinned it to my blog roll of favourite essays on the homepage of Pro-Human. It’s about how financialisation killed everything you love: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/opinion/capitalism-industry-financialization.html

• OK, I accept that’s all a bit bleak so here’s something lovely, a brand new British literary magazine and podcast on a mission to “nurture, publish and promote the best new working-class writing by new and established working-class writers and visual artists”: https://thebeemagazine.com/

Right, that’ll do ya! Nx

Last week I was in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia filming for a new series in which I play Chief Inspector Ian Duncan of the Straits Settlement Police Force in 1920s Singapore. I am contractually forbidden from uploading any photos but, trust me, I looked cool in my Peaky Blinders-esque pleat front trousers and waistcoat, dispatching corrupt cops and gangsters in sweaty, smoky rooms with my British issue Webley Revolver

For several days I was surrounded by scores of talented, creative people bringing their passion and craft to hair and makeup, costume design, weapons, stunts, camera, sound, lighting, production, all collaborating to create magic. It was a buzz and, for now, it’s over, which makes me sad.

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Sitting alone in Starbucks a week later, I have calculated that of my 112 waking hours each week I spend half alone either working from home, here, or going to gigs and screenings that no one else wants to go to. Mostly I don’t mind, in fact I often prefer it, but right now I am severely missing the energy of other creative people pushing each other to try harder, go further, be better.

Let me give you an example. In one of my scenes I had to shoot another police officer as he attempts to abscond back to England. I had a real gun, loaded with blanks, and we blocked the shot multiple times because even blanks can be dangerous if pointed in the wrong direction. Finally the director shouted “Action!”, and I stepped into the scene, delivered my lines, raised the gun and squeezed the trigger. My fellow actor Tom (a.k.a. Handsome Tom), fell to the floor and I stood over his body to deliver my final line but it felt...incomplete. I can’t explain why, just that the grammar of the scene felt off. It needed more of a full stop at the end so I suggested to the Director that I fire off one more shot over his body. The Director of Photography immediately leaped on this idea, suggesting he capture it from the floor so I would look intimidating, silhouetted by the overhead lights. The Producer informed us that, in Malaysia, every time a gun appears on screen they have to pay the government 2,000 MYR (USD $509) and, once he got on the floor, the DoP said they they’d need to apply special effects to cover all the rigging on the ceiling. But we all agreed it would look cool and so phone calls were made, schedules were updated, lights were moved, lenses swapped and we captured the shot simply because it looked cool.

What we did wasn’t planned or scheduled, it wasn’t budgeted or approved, it wasn’t necessary or efficient. We did it because it was cool. We did it because, collectively, we saw a creative opportunity; a chance to enhance the drama, capture a beautiful frame and make it more fun for the audience. And it couldn’t have happened without everyone collaborating, seamlessly, almost soundlessly. Once the idea was agreed a collective sense of purpose descended upon everyone - I’m talking about 20 or 30 people - and we all silently went about making it happen and it was electric.

And now, as I sit here alone, coming down from the high of last week and looking for opportunities to meet and hang out with other creative people I find myself lacking and I have a theory as to why; connectivity killed collaboration.

When I came to Singapore in 2009 I knew no one except my Singaporean girlfriend, now wife. I had been sent to open the Asian branch of a B2B publishing company and I needed to get to know the tech industry and its marketers ASAP, which I did by attending Mobile Mondays, Web Wednesdays and Content Conversations at bars along Boat Quay. By volunteering at AdTech, Brand Summit and Agency Summit in Singapore, Kota Kinabalu and Bali. By simply hanging out at Gem Bar on Club Street, Moo Bar on McCallum Street and My Awesome Cafe of Telok Ayer Street where brands and agency types would gather to drink and swap gossip nightly. NONE of these events or scenes exist since the pandemic. If I were arriving in Singapore now, I don’t know how I would ever get to meet anyone.

The Covid pandemic proved we can work entirely from home. AI is making it so that we can work entirely alone and the upshot is the death of collaboration. There is a tech-bro fantasy of the one-man unicorn - a billion dollar company created and run by an individual using only AI. This is amongst the most miserable, dystopian visions for the future I can imagine. Just a sad, lonely nerd optimising every aspect of their existence to make as much money as possible with no one to share it with and nothing else to do. This, I fear, is where we are headed.

As an actor and screenwriter I need to collaborate with others but I can’t tell you how or why or what I need. It’s not as transactional as that. But the Internet makes it transactional; you can only reach out if you have a need. No one on our set knew we needed another shot to complete the scene, it wasn’t in the script, but the idea arose almost telepathically and, together, we made it happen. Yes, I know that technically I can make an entire movie by myself, but I don’t want to, because it won’t be as good and JUST AS IMPORTANTLY it won’t be as fun!

Connectivity killed collaboration and AI is trying to kill creativity by eradicating the process and jumping straight to the end result, entirely missing the point of creating anything in the first place.

I am so grateful that 600 of you have subscribe to Pro-Human, and that around 250 of you open my emails when they arrive but I would swap all of that to have 5 of you join me around a pub table, weekly, to talk about this stuff and collaborate on something bigger, together.

To Do List

My recommendations for new things to read, watch, look at, listen to and do this week:

• First, a favour. I submitted a poem to Poems On The MRT in Singapore and I;d really like to see it printed at the station so could you kindly take a look (it’s short) and drop a heart if you like it? ❤️ https://poemsonthemrt.com/wp/poems/a-timeless-space-ode-to-changi-airport

• Rightly or wrongly, one of the best way to find collaborators used to be smoking and, though I quit 16 years ago, I have to admit I still miss it and this essay, shared previously by , does a good job at explaining why: https://thepointmag.com/examined-life/quitting/.

• Indonesia’s Grrrl Gang are back with a 3-track maxi-single of punk-pop catchiness and, for American readers, they are about to embark on their first US tour, which I would thoroughly recommend attending - find dates at https://www.instagram.com/grrrlgang/.

• I know you’ve heard British soul diva Raye’s single ‘Where Is My Husband’ all over your socials, but have you seen her performance on the Graham Norton show? This is what epic, timeless talent looks like…

• Finally, I’ve been missing a magazine in my life so this year subscribed to ‘The Idler’ which has the motto, ‘Slow down, have fun, live well’ - excellent advice I am sure you’ll agree. Find it at https://www.idler.co.uk.

Right, that’ll do ya! Nx

The audience were made up of members and guests of the Marketing & Communications Committee who came to see me - an independent content and communications consultant - go head-to head-with Madhurjya “Banjo” Banerjee, Senior Global Marketing Director at at FMCG giant Unilever. This is how it went down…

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The Debate

The debate was moderated by Andrew Clark, founder of video production agency AsiaWorks and introduced by Andrea Ng of cultural insights company Canvas8, who shared some compelling new research:

1. While AI use among marketers has exploded (with over 70% using generative tools), consumer trust in brands’ responsible AI use has dropped sharply.

2. Consumers increasingly detect AI’s “soullessness.” In studies comparing AI and human creative output, AI scores lower on authenticity, emotional appeal, and trust.

3. People are defining when AI feels acceptable and when human touch is non-negotiable. Forty percent of consumers feel brands “don’t get them as people”, up from 25% a year ago.

After her opening address, which seemed to lean my way, it was my turn to speak for precisely four minutes (listen out for the countdown)…

After me Banjo used his four minutes to argue that every transformative technology, from the printing press to quartz watches, was once seen as the death of artistry. His thesis was that, “AI is not replacing creativity but amplifying it by killing the mundane (and) boosting imagination”. How?

• By freeing creators from repetitive tasks (“show me the toothpaste tube at 15 degrees left”) and accelerates ideation.

• By allowing ideas to scale and adapt to audiences in new, personalised ways.

• By citing Unilever’s use of AI to test hundreds of launch concepts for a toothpaste brand, even discarding a misguided “gorilla with a bright smile” concept before wasting budget on it.

The Response

Following the debate, the audience of about sixty people were split into small groups to tackle one key question each and send a spokesperson back with their answers - see what you think and if you agree:

1. How can AI can genuinely enhance creativity?

Speed seemed to be the main enhancement but whether or not that’s a good thing remained in contention. As the group’s spokesperson said, “With AI you can deliver faster… but at the same time, it’s scary because you’re not using your creative and critical thinking.”

2. Can AI and human creativity co-exist?

The short and unanimous answer to this questions was, “Yes!”. However, the more nuanced version delivered by the spokesperson was, “We can use it for ideas. We can use it for some processing. But before it goes out of the door it has to have that human touch in the same way there’s a human touch for the input.”

3. How should AI creativity be regulated?

This question was answered with a couple of personal experiences; one about buying a series of books from a beloved author only to find out, upon arrival, that they had been written by AI. Another about using AI to check flight times and being served completely wrong information and the ensuing chaos. The conclusion being that there is definitely a need for stronger regulation to prevent these kinds of incidents and, of course, to protect children.

4. Is there a limit to how much we should rely on AI for creative work, and where should we draw the line?

This group took an audience-first approach and had to admit that AI ads, as of now, are not proving popular (Coca-Cola, Vogue, Malaysia Airlines). However, they also pontificated that we are in still in the early stages of the technology and that improvements may yet change audiences minds.

“Either the technology is going to have to get better, and it probably will, or we stop using it and we just use AI for what it is pretty good at right now, which is that back end stuff like finding ways to connect pipes more efficiently, finding ways to produce reports - stuff that people don’t like doing but are needed in the marketing process.”

5. Should the use of AI be declared in creative work?

The spokesperson for this group shared that there were a lot of mixed feelings on the issue but they concluded the following:

“The creative world is probably one of the least necessary areas for (AI) to be declared. But obviously there’s nuances to that. People felt more sensitive when there would be human faces involved or some kind of human representation so, the front cover of Vogue, or if it was a school magazine and you’re generating happy children at school - you’d probably like to know if they were real or not, right?”

The consensus? AI is probably here to stay - but so is the marketer’s responsibility to use it conscientiously.

The Conclusion

I think the most telling moment of the event arrived at the end. Andrew had been using ChatGPT throughout to help him moderate but when he asked the audience if they would like to hear ChatGPT’s conclusions he was met with a loud and resounding “No!” 😂

So, what do you think? Let me know in the comments below.

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By the way, I have a brand new short story (just 2,500 words) out on Kindle based on the Pro-Human theme, below:

A Massive Waste of Energy

Dr. Timothy Smith has invented an unlimited source of free, clean energy. All he needs to scale is it is a few investors willing to actually make the world a better place AND make a shit ton of money with it. Sounds like the deal of a lifetime, so why is he having such trouble raising funds? I mean, if YOU had the money and power to end poverty, why wouldn’t you? Another short story set at the end-stage of capitalism about the conflict and confluence between humanity and technology.

• UK Kindle Store

• AU Kindle Store

• US Kindle Store

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Originally published 10/01/2016.

I had something else planned for today, but then I heard the news (oh boy) and now I’m writing this instead. I know it will be just one in the thousands of stories, blogs and think pieces about Bowie but, like those thousands of other writers I suppose, I too feel like he meant something more to me, that we had a deeper connection. We’re both from Bromley for a start; a typical commuter town on the southeast edge of London that’s about as far from Mars as you can get. And yet Bromley, with it’s radical suburban-ness, provided the blank canvas on to which David and, later, Siouxsie Sioux, Billy Idol & Topper Headon of the Clash, were able to paint their dreams. Me too.

Bromley is only a twenty-minute train ride to London where dreams can actually come true and that’s where David used to head every weekend, a copy of Catcher In The Rye or something by Baudelaire sticking out of his pocket to let everyone know he was an artist. Even then, as a teenager, he understood the power of public relations. He used to hang out in Denmark Street, then the home of England’s Tin Pan Alley of songwriters, publishing companies and music shops; now a pile of rubble, cleared to make way for London’s Crossrail. I used to hang out there too; window-shopping for guitars, hoping to catch a glimpse of one of my Brit Rock idols trying out an axe or loading into the legendary London Astoria before a show.

David went to Bromley Technical College, now Ravenswood Secondary School, where Peter Frampton’s dad was a teacher. I went to Darrick Wood School not far away. David was teased for having long hair. I was teased for having green hair. David inspired the Bromley Contingent of punks who, in turn, inspired me. I always knew of David Bowie of course, my dad had good music taste and would often sing the first few bars of The Man Who Sold The World on car trips, but he never owned a Bowie album. I didn’t truly discover him for myself until I was around sixteen years old. A girl called Jessica, I forget her surname, had taken a liking to me when I was drafted into her all girls school to play the male lead in their annual theatre production. I’d told her in passing I liked The Beatles and other “old” music. Once the play was over and I had returned to my own school she managed to track me down having won some tickets to see Bowie play a club gig for an audience of less than a thousand. She assumed I must like him because I liked The Beatles so gave one of those precious tickets to me.

The next time I saw Bowie, according to my recollection, was later that year at the short-lived Phoenix festival in Stratford-Upon-Avon, a weekend rock-fest in the mode of Reading or Glastonbury. He was promoting the Earthling album and decked out in his glorious Union Jack tail coat with Ziggy hair and a giant feather earring. I remember lying back in a field on a warm summer evening absolutely off my face on warm pints of foamy Carling and possibly a little stoned from somebody’s joint and listening to him playing The Man Who Sold The World live, knowing that this was a moment to be cherished.

From that point I started collecting his earlier work, just the big albums; Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, Let’s Dance and then in 1999 he brought out another album, Hours, probably his most placid to date but it was the first album I could anticipate as a Bowie fan, that I could look forward to and get excited about. My parents got it for me for Christmas that year and I remember going straight up to my bedroom and putting it on my little boombox and listening to it and absolutely falling in love with it. Hours doesn’t get a great deal of coverage or credit but it’s a very tender, gentle album that harks back to some of his earliest work with acoustic guitars and honking saxophones in the background.

Always at the cutting edge he played the NetAid benefit that year; the first live streamed concert although I saw it in the flesh at Wembley. And then he went quiet for a bit. I started work, but as a baptised Bowie fanatic I would talk about him to anyone that would listen including a gentleman called Gary Reed who was a senior promotions producer at Fox Kids when I was just an aspirant. He was a Bowie fan from way back and made me a bunch of tapes, which I’ve kept to this day, and which introduced me to all the albums that I’d missed including Young Americans, The Man Who Sold The World, Pin Ups and, of course, the classic Berlin trilogy of Low, Heroes and Lodger.

Then, in a flurry of activity, Bowie brought out two new albums in quick succession; Heathen in 2002 and Reality in 2003. He took the latter on tour and for the first time I got to see Bowie in a dedicated, full length stadium gig which is still, by far and away, the greatest gig I have ever seen in my life. At this point I’d been with my then-girlfriend for five years and had spent much of that time trying to convince her of Bowie’s brilliance but she just didn’t get it so I bought her a ticket and brought her to the show. I wouldn’t say she’s a Bowie fan now but I think she understood why I was so obsessed, having seen him live.

The most glorious moment I recall from that night was when he sang Life On Mars, by this point Bowie had found his more rounded, operatic voice in addition to the reedy, Anthony Newley sound that is the basis for so many parodies. It just sounded immense in the room and I’m not ashamed to say I cried like child, much as I did yesterday around three in the afternoon when I heard the news. Strangely I was buying Blackstar at the time and spent most of last night listening to it. I’d put off listening to anything other than the two singles until I had the whole album. Listening to it now, even those two singles, knowing he was aware of his impending death you can’t help but hear more in lyrics that include:

• Something happened on the day he died / Spirit rose a meter and stepped aside / Somebody else took his place, and bravely cried / (I’m a blackstar, I’m a blackstar) – Blackstar

• Look up here, I’m in heaven / I’ve got scars that can’t be seen / I’ve got drama, can’t be stolen / Everybody knows me now / Look up here, man, I’m in danger / I’ve got nothing left to lose / I’m so high it makes my brain whirl / Dropped my cell phone down below – Lazarus

• If I’ll never see the English evergreens I’m running to / It’s nothing to me / It’s nothing to see – Dollar Days

• I know something is very wrong / The pulse returns the prodigal sons / The blackout hearts, the flowered news / With skull designs upon my shoes – I Can’t Give Everything Away

David Bowie was that rarest of celebrities who managed to preserve his mystique despite the fact that he lived a seemingly simple life in New York, having divested himself of his international property portfolio and other rock star accoutrements years ago. He’d learned later in life to separate the art from the artist, not having to live through everything himself, literally turning himself into an alien to deliver. He could just put it in the work, leave it there, lock it up in a record or a video and walk away from it.

I think when we’re young, in our quest to “be real” and “authentic”, we feel compelled to live our art but in this age of social media, when apparently authenticity is the ultimate currency, even Instagrammers admit that most of what they post is posed and constructed and edited. Part of David Bowie’s genius was that he found the art in artifice. It’s hilarious when people talk about him being true to himself; when he came out with glam rock in 1972 it was reaction against the boring authenticity of hippies and heavy metalers banging on about their working class routes and the fact that they didn’t wash or have jobs. He put on makeup and invented a character that was way cooler than himself or any of his fans.

He was an innovator, but the problem with innovators is that they piss people off because they don’t go with the flow, they don’t deliver on your expectations. Just like when Dylan went electric or Bowie went soul there was a backlash but when we look back on it now these were clearly the decisions of unparalleled creative risk takers and that’s why I wrote this post today, partly to pay tribute but also because this is a blog about creativity and without risk there is no creativity.

As David Bowie himself said, “I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring”. If you’re creative, that’s all I ask, don’t be boring, there is enough of that in the world. Be bold, be brave, be different, be anything other than boring, it’s what David would have wanted.

RIP David and thank you.

Sincerely,

A Bromley Boy

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I've lived in Singapore for 16 years and the change I've seen in that time has been...disorienting. When I got here the Marina Bay Sands didn't even exist and now it dominates the skyline. On August 9th we celebrated the country's 60th birthday and I took the opportunity, when I got back from my Malaysia trip, to flick through a book of by Singaporean photographer Lui Hock Seng called Passing Time.

Mr. Lui was born in 1937 and began taking photographs in the 1950s and 60s. His work won recognition from international photography salons and competitions and was exhibited in Argentina, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Portugal, Romania and the UK where he was accepted as an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain in 1963. However, it wasn't until 2016 that he finally received local recognition in an article by The Straits Times. This was seen by a Frenchman, photographer Nicolas Genty, who collaborated with local non-profit arts org Objectifs to arrange an exhibition of Mr Lui's work in 2018, which resulted in the book that contains an incredible visual history of Singapore's recent past.

When Singapore declared independence on 9th August 1965 (read: was kicked out of Malaysia for harbouring communists!), it had nothing. You may think you understand what that means but, trust me, you don’t. Singapore has no natural resources and a tiny population. At the time it had no military, hostile neighbours, 10% unemployment, few farms and next to no fresh water. The Prime Minister, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew - young but no less imposing - famously had to break this news to the population via a tearful television address. He then, as legend has it, disappeared for three weeks and returned with the master plan for modern Singapore.

Key to Mr. Lee’s plan was increasing domestic economic activity. He made the island an outstanding prospect for inward investment by promising safety, stability, zero corruption and a highly educated workforce. As money rolled in, jobs multiplied and salaries increased locals aspired to a much more salubrious, some might even say Western style of life. This resulted in the concept of the Singaporean 5 C's, an aspiration of upwardly mobile locals for Cash, Car, Credit Card, Condominium and Country Club.

The upside of this was a thriving economy that has led to the space age metropolis I live in today. The downside was it made people materialistic and ‘kiasu’.

Kiasu comes from the Hokkien dialect term meaning ‘fear of losing out’. It refers to a deeply rooted mindset of avoiding any disadvantage or missed opportunity, often manifesting as highly competitive or gatekeeping behaviour. It is, needless to say, not so Pro-Human.

Thankfully things, as ever, are changing. At this year’s National Day Rally Prime Minister Wong declared, ‘Developing human qualities key priority for schools in age of AI’. Nonetheless I want to offer up a new set of 5Cs, not just for Singapore but for everyone who wants to practice being more human in an increasingly inhuman world. Here are my five Pro-Human values.

Pro-Human Values: The New 5 Cs

1. Creativity - Create more and consume less, express yourself through art, music, movement, writing. Flood the world with human expression and, as a by-product, drown the AI slop.

2. Community - Resist the desire to keep interactions on the other side of a screen. Why WhatsApp when you can call? Why call when you can have coffee? Why order online when you can shop locally, support small businesses and get to know the people who inhabit your community.

3. Compassion - Give people the benefit of the doubt; you don’t know their situation or circumstances and even if you disagree profoundly with them, accept that their views and behaviours are rooted in an experience you may never know or understand. Most people are good, don’t let the news and social media convince you any different.

4. Cooperation - There are those who would have you believe we reached the top of the food chain due to competition. I prefer to believe, as Rutger Bregman does, that we reached the peak due to cooperation; our ability to work together to achieve feats far greater than the sum of our individual parts. Put your faith in others and never betray others’ faith in you.

5. Charity - Give of yourself; give your time, your money, your talent, your expertise when and where you can spare it. Recognise your privilege, count your blessings and bestow them upon others when the opportunity arises.

That’s it. Now I’m off to find the people that embody these values so I can tell their stories and provide tangible evidence of the positive impact we can all have if we practice being Pro-Human every day.

To Do List

My recommendations for new things to read, watch, look at, listen to and do this week:

• My new favourite podcast is ‘Talk ‘90s To Me’, which provides a nostalgic wander down memory lane led by the people who lived it in the UK:

• New music is courtesy of perky Kiwi punksters The Beths and their new album ‘Straight Line Was A Lie’:

• Also, one of my favourite local bands, Sobs, finally released a video for my favourite song from their album ‘Air Guitar’ called ‘Friday Night’:

• I saw a gorgeous short film (starring my friend Karen Tan) this week - a humorous take on Chinese death rituals and the enduring nature of relationships helmed by the charming Kelly Choo. It’s part of a competition and I would urge you to watch the full film here and vote for it here.

• Finally, The Guardian says Waterstones are opening 10 book stores a year in the UK as younger adults embrace reading - that’s got to be good news, right? The bookshop says people are keen to escape their screens (at last!).

Right, that’ll do ya! Cheers, Nx

Share Neal Moore | Pro-Human

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I am staying at The Bala's Holiday Chalet, a 3-star former British colonial school built in the mock-Tudor style in 1934 and run for the last 47 years by Bala and his wife. To justify this rather indulgent trip I had to provide my own wife with KPIs (Key Performance Indicators for those lucky enough to escape the corporate world), and they were:

1. Walk at least 50,000 steps (Cameron Highlands is known for its hiking trails)

2. Come back with detailed character bios and chapter outlines for my novel ‘User Unknown’

3. Review Pro-Human and come back with a plan for its future

I am pleased to report that I have already smashed through my target step-count and outlined my novel so that brings us to point number three...

3. Review Pro-Human and come back with a plan for its future

Pro-Human began on 12th September 2023 following several prior experiments with Substack including Mooreish, which tried to help busy middle-aged people engage with culture again, and The Lore, which is a dormant but ongoing concern for my main business Moore's Lore Media.

In that time I have written 83 posts and, having auto-enrolled just ten of my friends to start with, gained an additional 573 subscribers for a total audience of 583. How did that happen? Despite all advice to the contrary I engineered two viral moments, the first by copy-pasting someone else's successful 'Note' that, as you can see, sent my subscribers soaring in October 2024.

The second viral moment, which maintained the momentum of the first, was when I complained about how icky the first moment made me feel (below), but the moral of the story is, yes, you DO want to go viral, which is a problem I'll come back to.

Reading back through my posts I can't help but notice that Pro-Human has become a bit of a soapbox upon which I rant about the grudges I have collected through the week whilst reading the news, other Substacks, and scrolling through Instagram and LinkedIn. These rants do quite well, particularly when they concern the threat of technology to creativity, but I don't think they're helping. I think everyone knows what the problems are because there are real journalists out there covering them every day; I am just reacting to them, which is neither original nor healthy.

My tagline states that Pro-Human is an 'advocate for human creativity and culture in an increasingly inhuman world'. It also states that 'I am not anti-tech I am just Pro-Human', but I'm not sure this is reflected in my writing. There's too much anti and not enough pro and I want to change that.

The origin story of this Substack was that, as an habitual LinkedIn user, I was getting sick of the anti-human rhetoric spouted by tech-bros who seem almost giddy to talk down the value of people and replace us with robots. But I have been drawn into their trap by doing exactly the same to them. Talking them down and taking them apart and though it may make me feel better, it doesn't do a damn thing to solve the situation. In fact, it makes feel like Grandpa Simpson shouting at the clouds.

The tough-to-admit fact is, the only ways to affect real change are to either a) run for office or b) challenge those in office. I am not a politician and I am not a journalist, I don't speak truth to power and even if I did there is no compelling reason for them to listen to me as an individual (which is why collective action is so powerful). I have my lines in the sand that I will not cross and I have my causes that I support and charities that I donate to but I am not here to tear the system down. So, what am I here for? To focus on the Pro in Pro-Human.

My great revelation whilst walking the tea trails of Tanah Rata is that I need to stop complaining and start advocating. It's easy to find something to moan about every week, it's much harder to find things to be positive about, but that's why it's so important. There are many far more intelligent, talented and dedicated people than me writing about what’s going wrong with policy, technology and economics, in fact here's a list of the Substackers I think do it best:

Charting Gen AI

The global newsletter that keeps you informed on generative AI’s impacts on creators and human-made media, the ethics and behaviour of the AI companies, the future of copyright in the AI era, and the evolving AI policy landscape.

By Graham Lovelace

Luiza's Newsletter

A leading publication on AI’s legal and ethical challenges, with 72,000+ subscribers in 170 countries

By Luiza Jarovsky, PhD

Trend Mill

In the end, death comes to every trend.

By Stephen Moore

Asma’s Substack

My personal Substack

By Asma Derja

So, what can I do and, maybe more importantly, why do I even want to do it?

Why do I write?

On a three-and-a-half hour hike that was, frankly, way above my fitness level my mind began to wander and I thought about why I write at all. First and foremost is that I think I have some uncommon perspectives that I am only able to express and explore through longer form writing including fiction, which provides a boundless canvas for stretching and testing those perspectives.

My second reason is more pragmatic; I don't want to play the social media game. If our tech overlords aren't going to tell us how the rules, a.k.a the algorithms, work - then I refuse to play. My publishing on their platforms serves them far more than it serves me and any time spent creating short form content to pander for attention is time not spent creating in the medium that I actually care about and want to continuously improve at. I also don't want to be distracted or contribute to the infinite scroll of distractions. That's not to say I want my writing to be deliberately overwrought, impenetrable or obtuse but social media only has room for statements whereas I am more interested in stories.

My third reason, I guess, is vanity? When I die, I don't want my creative legacy to be a disparate collection of posts produced to please the algorithms of a plethora of platforms (try saying that ten times fast!), that may or may not even be around in years to come. I want to invest my time and talent and creative efforts in a medium that I really value. If that medium is not imagery, or short form video or snarky commentary then why waste time with it? You wouldn't start oil painting if you hated it just because you though it might get you attention!

Not posting on social media also means I have a greater chance of escaping it. On this trip I have tried to remain largely off-grid and it's been wonderful. I know this is the least original revelation a middle class white liberal can have but it's just so bloody true and I don't want to forget it when I get on the plane back home. I want to continue to choose where I direct my focus, as I have for the last nine days, rather than react to what's being fired at me through notifications.

I dumbed down my smartphone for this trip but I am curious to dumb it down further. I take too many thoughtless photos with my phone that I will never look at again and that only really serve to increase my monthly payments to Google One for extra cloud storage. I subscribe to too many news apps; I am not a politician or a stockbroker, I don't need to know what's happening, as it happens, every single day, particularly in Europe and America. To paraphrase the immortal words of Derek Trotter, I DON'T LIVE THERE NO MORE! The Sunday papers (and I mean papers), or a news weekly are more than enough to keep me abreast of what I need to know. I am reminded here of a quote by one of my greatest inspirations, Brian Eno:

I don't want to be an obedient shopper, or an obedient creator.

Pro-Human, huh, what is it good for?

Where were we? Ah yes, a plan for Pro-Human's future. Well, based on everything I have shared above; my desire to be more positive, write long form and avoid news that doesn’t apply to me and social media generally here’s my very simple plan:

I will reduce the cadence of Pro-Human from weekly to fortnightly focusing on two types of post:

1. Reports and, occasionally, opinions on Pro-Human happenings in Southeast Asia, where I actually live. That could be news, events or personal experiences but in every case should provide a positive example of Pro-Human values in practice.

2. This Is Not A Podcast, a new series of profiles with people who exemplify Pro-Human values and allow me to revive the art of the long form written interview because, honestly, I don’t like producing podcasts for myself or being on camera at my own behest.

And that’s it. Although I may occasionally post something ad-hoc to Notes, Instagram or YouTube it will not be a focus for me. I don’t want to be ‘Internet famous’, I want to be true to myself. I am a writer, I love to write, and I want to use the time previously dedicated to Instagram, YouTube and even LinkedIn to become a more prolific and proficient writer of articles, essays, screenplays and fiction that I hope you might also come to appreciate.

Thanks for joining me on this journey so far and I hope you will get even more value from it in the future. Nx

When you were a kid and you pictured the future, what did it look like to you? Mine was a combination of Back To The Future II, Star Trek and The Last Starfighter. There were definitely a lot more hoverboards, flying cars and doors that went 'whoosh' when you stepped through them than I currently encounter. In fact, despite the onslaught of AI I would argue the future is looking less and less futuristic and more and more nostalgic, but why?.

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In the last few months some of the world's most innovative companies have announced brand new innovations that seem eerily familiar. Let's take Uber who announced, on 14 May 2025, Route Share, a 'more affordable, more predictable commute'. And how can Uber deliver on this promise? I'll let them explain...

Route Share is a new, budget-friendly ride option from Uber designed for everyday commuters. By sharing a ride with up to two other passengers along busy corridors, riders can enjoy a reliable ride at a significantly lower cost than UberX.

Route Share offers consistent and frequent pickup options along direct routes during morning and evening commute hours (6-10 am and 4-8 pm local time Monday through Friday). With pickups every 20 minutes along busy corridors during weekday commute hours you’ll get the predictability and comfort of Uber, for even less (up to 50% cheaper than UberX). At initial launch, Route Share will be available in New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas, Boston, and Baltimore, with more cities to come.

It's a bus. Uber just invented the fucking bus!

Closer to my home in Singapore our version of Uber (invented in Malaysia to be fair), is Grab who, on 2 July 2025 announced GrabCab, a revolutionary new service comprised of Grab branded cars that can be booked in advance or flagged down on the street, operated by drivers who 'have undergone a rigorous screening process focused on safety, professionalism, and service standards' - as opposed to their private hire drivers I presume? Anyway...

It's a taxi. Grab just invented the fucking taxi!!

Moving on, I was researching the subject of live streaming for a client recently and discovered that more and more people are turning to live streaming when they don’t know what to watch and don't want the burden of having to make a choice. This is being heralded by marketers and agencies as a total paradigm shift in viewer behaviours and I hate to be the one to tell them this but...

It's TV. Live streaming is just fucking broadcast television!!!

Couple this groundbreaking development with the bundling of streaming services into something that looks, sounds and smells an awful lot like the cable packages of days gone by and you might be able to spot a pattern forming.

The Medium Is The Message

But it's not just tech, culture appears to be going backwards too, with nostalgia emerging as one of the most potent forces on the Internet, driving demand for vinyl, cassettes and CDs, VHSs and DVDs, analog and early 2000s digital cameras.

Purveyors of pop culture are capitalising on this trend with endless reboots, remakes and sequels. Just this year we have been treated to remakes of Superman, Naked Gun, The Toxic Avenger, Frankenstein, The Running Man and Anaconda. We've got sequels to Freaky Friday, The Conjouring, Downton Abbey, Spinal Tap, Black Phone, Mortal Kombat, Now You See Me, Wicked, Zootopia, Five Nights At Freddy's and Avatar. And then there's the spin-offs of Tron, Predator and Knives Out - new characters and stories set in the same 'cinematic universe'. Now, that's just Hollywood and there's a whole world of films and filmmakers out there but most of them won't make it to your local cineplex. (There's at least another eight Marvel films coming this year but, as the kids, say, I can't even...).

Our celebrities too are rehashing the past, arguably to detrimental effect - I'm not sure that Sydney Sweeney and Sabrina Carpenter's 1950s pin-up profiles are progressing the role of women in pop-culture a great deal. (C'mon, is it even a Substack article if there's no mention of Sabrina Carpenter!).

So, having diagnosed the disease, what's the cause?

First, the Internet - the great digital archive of all our childhoods that enables us to dial up any memory at a moment's notice. You can only search for something if you know what you're looking for, which is why we search for the same old songs and clips from TV shows we love - in fact it's one of the biggest drivers of revenue for the IP holders of ‘Friends’ or ‘30 Rock’ or ‘Only Fools and Horses’. In a world changing so fast it can be unrecognisable from one year to the next (we only got access to generative AI in 2022 and it's already changing education, work, culture, democracy), we seek comfort in the familiar and our media reflects that back at us.

Then there's AI, the perpetual regurgitation machine that creates nothing but remembers and rehashes everything. AI is not concerned with insight, originality or uniqueness. It is concerned only with what works based on previous data. It ventures nothing new but attempts to offer guaranteed results based on previous successes and in so doing will exhaust trends almost instantaneously through repetition.

The tech bros and advertisers will gleefully blame humans. They will claim we are getting stupider and that our attention spans are getting shorter and that's one way to read the data. Another way is that we are becoming bored with their slop, less engaged and more discerning. That we are turning back to books, CDs and DVDs to engage more deeply with longer formats in a mode they cannot track. However they, like AI, are unlikely to ask an actual human and will instead misinterpret the data until no one is left to engage with their slop. We can but hope, in the meantime support real work by real humans and don’t give your attention (and data) away to the broligarchy so easily.

To Do List

My recommendations for new things to read, watch, look at, listen to and do this week:

“With the help of AI, the pace of corporate tyranny has only accelerated. Any freedoms we used to enjoy, from surveillance and bureaucrats dictating every term of our existence, are rapidly disappearing. The process has become so rapid and all-encompassing that it’s clouding our understanding not only of what’s possible, but what’s human.”

1. ☝That’s just one quote of dozens I could pick from this absolute must-read Unherd column by ‘punk philosopher’ entitled: Our Future Is AI Serfdom.

2. Substacker is asking far more potent questions about AI than I in her recent post on the role of AI in killing people… which it is currently doing… right now… whilst you read this…

   Asma’s Substack

   It’s Not AI, It’s People: Why This Sounds Like “Guns Don’t Kill People”

   Every time I bring up AI’s role in warfare, the response comes fast. Almost too fast…

   Read more

   9 months ago · 3 likes · 1 comment · Asma Derja

• Honestly, I’ve read so much good writing lately and this is another stella post I came across by ‘Broligarchy’ author and pro-human business consultant Aya Jaff entitled ‘No, UBI isn’t a solution to AI killing jobs’

• And if you need cheering up after all that may I draw your attention to these glorious, largely phoneless (and yes, nostalgic🫢) scenes of Gen X going nuts for Oasis at Wembley and demonstrating the value of being present and together (the reaction of the woman who turns around to watch the crowd below her is priceless!). This is why we go to gigs, plays, cinemas and clubs, to share in experiences that bind us together. Is it my imagination, or have we finally found something worth living for? Nx

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GDP = Grossly Distorted Picture

I was first alerted to this story by my friend, and journalist, Teymoor Nabili whose immediate reaction was to point out what a poor picture of success GDP is and then reel off these other stats that Mr. Dimon conveniently ignored:

• According to the UN Human Development index, 7 out of the top 10 countries in the world are in Europe. The US does not appear in the top 10.

• According to the United Nations Population Division, 8 of the top 20 countries in the world with the longest life expectancy are in Europe. The US is at number 48.

• In the PISA global education rankings, 7 European countries score higher than the US, which is ranked just 18th in the world. (The top 5 are all in Asia.)

• According to the OECD, when it comes to: Work life balance – 25 European countries rank higher than the US.

  • Safety - 24 European countries rank higher than the US.

  • Subjective well-being - 11 European countries rank higher than the US.

  • Knowledge and skills - 15 European countries rank higher than the US.

• And according to the Numbeo Quality of Life Index, 9 out of the top 10 countries in the world are in Europe. The US does not appear in the top 10.

Thanks for that Teymoor, I’ll take it from here…

• As of the most recent data in 2023, the United States ranks 54th globally in infant mortality and is ranked 33rd out of 38 countries in the OECD.

• The United States ranks approximately 20th globally in its civilian gun death rate, beaten by several countries in South America and the Caribbean but none in Europe.

• The United States currently ranks first in the world for total prison population, with around 1.8 million people incarcerated as of early 2025 - significantly more than any other country, including China and Brazil.

• The United States currently ranks first globally for drug overdose deaths, having the highest rate of overdose fatalities in the world.

• The United States currently ranks #1 for homelessness in the developed world with over 770,000 people on the streets at a rate of 2.3 per 1,000 inhabitants.

• Etc, etc, ad nauseum.

The US paints itself as a bastion of freedom, the shining city on the hill but it is as smothered by its own propaganda as North Korea - did you know American television tends not to show Olympic sports that it doesn't win at?

My point is that not only is GDP an appalling measure of success for any nation but that it is chosen by people like Dimon precisely because it obscures all the other statistics that prove the US is run for shareholders as opposed to citizens (who do you think benefits from the high drug deaths and incarceration rates? Companies like Purdue Pharma, Johnson & Johnson, AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, McKesson, Core Civic, The GEO Group, I could go on.)

What’s a better measure of success?

Although GDP is of course linked to happiness and wellbeing it is not solely responsible and surely the purpose of work and money and all these other conventions we literally made up over millennia are to make us happier and healthier, not simply richer, right? Well, the Bhutanese worked this out a long time ago and I think they’re on to something.

Bhutan is a landlocked nation in the Eastern Himalayas bordered by China and India. It’s a democratic constitutional monarchy, much like the UK, with a King as head of state and a Prime Minister as head of government. The Je Khenpo is the head of the state religion, Vajrayana Buddhism, which is one of the reasons that Bhutan, in the 1970s, decided to recognise the value of national happiness over national income and adopted the goal of Gross National Happiness over Gross National Product. But how exactly do you measure Gross National Happiness?

How do you measure happiness?

Every few years Bhutan surveys about 10% of it’s population and compiles statistics that cover 33 indicators under nine “domains”, below. To avoid the issue of subjectivity, none of the 33 indicators measure happiness directly (although the psychological well-being survey does ask questions about life satisfaction that come close to a definition of happiness).

For each of the 33 indicators, there is a cut-off for determining whether an individual has reached a sufficient level. For example, sleep sufficiency is set at eight hours per day. A person is deemed happy if they achieve sufficiency in at least six of the nine domains. This individual-level information is then transformed into a single measure for the population: the Gross National Happiness Index. The index ranges from 0 (if no one has achieved any of the domains) to 1 (if everyone has achieved sufficiency in at at least six domains).

The Gross National Happiness Index provides an alternative approach to measuring the success of a nation, and addresses several shortcomings of GDP. For example, GDP will always rise with industrial production but if that production takes a toll on the local environment Gross National Happiness may fall because it include people’s experience of their natural surroundings. Also, while GDP values only market labour, Gross National Happiness takes other uses of time into account. Crucially, unpaid work factors into the calculation of total time spent on work, which determines whether an individual has sufficient leisure time. Given the disproportionate burden of domestic work on women, this makes the Gross National Happiness Index more gender-sensitive than GDP.

A key difference between Gross National Happiness and GDP is that Gross National Happiness has a maximum value whereas GDP can (or must) grow without limit. Once all citizens pass the income sufficiency threshold (which was set at 1.5 times the national poverty line), additional income does not raise Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness Index, and resources would be better used to invest in other domains rather than continuing to raise income.

Read More: What is Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness Index?

Is happiness measurable outside of Bhutan?

Gross National Happiness strikes me as a much more useful and sustainable measure of success for a country to strive for in 2025 and the UN agrees. In 2012 it launched the first World Happiness Report on what it declared the first World Happiness Day, March 20th, which I think should be a public holiday in all nations and will certainly be on my calendar next year.

The report is not compiled in quite the same way as Bhutan’s - the UN combines wellbeing data from over 140 countries with analysis by researchers from across academia - and the infamous ranking of happiest countries is based on a single, question derived from the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale (Cantril Ladder):

Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?

However, at least they have provided an alternative measure of national success that we can aspire to instead of how much more money we can put into the pockets of Jamie Dimon and his pals!

To Do List

My recommendations for new things to read, watch, look at, listen to and do this week:

• Something I have suspected, and has articulated, for years is the fact they we are moving from the democratic nation state to the feudal corporate state and, in this shocking article, Futurism agrees and explains why: Tech Billionaires Accused of Quietly Working to Implement "Corporate Dictatorship"

• I have only just discovered Love Aid Singapore, a charity founded by Gilbert Goh that is - as we speak - building out polyclinics and delivering food to the wounded and starving in Gaza. They only have an Instagram page but the videos are extraordinary and hopeful amongst an endless scroll of misery. Singaporeans can donate via Pay Now to 87745281.

• And finally, we lost Ozzy this week, which definitely hit me. He may have been known as the Prince of Darkness but he was actually a light in the dark for many; a troubled but mischievous soul who brought joy to millions. This duet with Elton John recorded in 2020 is a fitting tribute to his extraordinary life.

Right, that’ll do ya! Nx

Share Neal Moore | Pro-Human

On Thursday last week Seismic Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to making responsible AI a human priority, released a report: "On the Razor's Edge: AI vs. Everything We Care About", in which they surveyed more than 10,000 people across the U.S. and Europe on their attitudes towards AI…and it ain’t good!

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The report reveals that the public is beginning to question the narrative that AI is a net positive. Instead, it claims, people see AI as something that will make their lives worse in deeply personal ways, from eroding relationships to making it harder for their children to find work, to amplifying social inequality.

The goal of the report appears to be galvanising greater support for advocacy and civic action around AI, not to stop it but to curb its worst excesses and ensure it works for people not just broligarchs. Other key findings can be seen in the slide below or you can download the full report, free, from https://report2025.seismic.org.

Almost exactly a year ago I wrote about the rise of the anti-AI movement and this report seems to prove that the momentum continues to build and may be starting to have an impact…

Following YouTube’s announcement two weeks ago that it is demonetising “inauthentic” content, Meta has swiftly followed suit. The company announced in a blog last Monday that it will take additional measures to crack down on accounts sharing “unoriginal” content to Facebook, meaning those that repeatedly reuse someone else’s text, photos, or videos.

It has also removed 10 million profiles impersonating large content producers and taken action against 500,000 accounts that were engaged in “spammy behavior or fake engagement.” Those actions have included things like demoting the accounts’ comments and reducing the distribution of their content to prevent the accounts from monetising, which is good news.

But YouTube and Facebook aren’t doing this out of a sense of moral obligation - both belong to companies with massive AI capabilities after all. It’s because AI slop is actually eroding our attention and engagement, which is the source of their revenue. AI slop is like the fast food of content, it makes us feel dissatisfied and lazy, which actually prevents us from being able to sit still long enough or make the effort to engage with content in way’s that platforms can monetise. Both YouTube and Facebook’s audiences are growing but engagement has been declining for years.

If YouTube, Facebook and, for that matter, Netflix, Disney, Prime and the rest want to increase engagement they need to invest in more authentic and challenging content because slop is fast becoming a turn off, as is just about everything else AI produces right now.

To Do List

My recommendations for new things to read, watch, look at, listen to and do this week:

• Pipeline is a 6-part true crime podcast from Britain’s Daily Mail and the most frightening thing I have ever listened to. It’s about a group of professional divers who were sucked into a 30-inch oil pipe deep beneath the Caribbean Sea and left there for 39 hours due to the inaction of the oil company. It will make your heart pound and your blood boil!

• My new YouTube Channel is up and running and performing quite well with short videos based on my blogs if you want to give that a try:

• And the first merch has been spotted on the streets of Singapore, which you can see on my fresh, clean Instagram Profile too!

Right, that’ll do ya! Cheers, Nx

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It doesn’t start as imperialism

The British Empire began not as an imperialist dream but as an entrepreneurial one called the British East India Company, which merely wanted to "trade" in commodities such as cotton, silk, sugar, salt, spice and tea. But, as its wealth grew so did it's power and, as they say, power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Eventually the British took over the political systems of its colonies and even tried to impose its dominant religion upon its subjects, which they did not appreciate. It also extracted wealth at unimaginable scale. In India alone we helped ourselves to something like $45 trillion of national assets and I would argue something similar is happening now.

The AI oligarchs see the world, its collective knowledge, creativity and data - amassed and recorded over millennia - as free raw materials to which it is entitled. For instance, Meta unilaterally decided that 7 million books had no economic value so deemed if fine to steal the content to train the models for its new business, Meta AI, which allows users to generate “new” content which they can sell or otherwise use for commercial gain. OpenAI scrapes web pages 1,700 times for free content and repays the creators with one referral, Anthropic does it at a rate of 73,000:1. One major sports site reportedly got 13 million AI-bot visits per month but received just 600 human users and since Google launched its AI Overview, referrals from the world's biggest search engine are down 30-70%. This is quite literally taking money out of the mouths of artists, academics, journalists, publishers, musicians, filmmakers and creators, it is wealth extraction at an imperial scale disguised as entrepreneurship and it's not sustainable.

Broke governments ❤ billionaires

One might look to governments, who must surely be terrified at the prospect of mass theft, not to mention job losses, and the consequent reduction in tax receipts and increase in welfare claims, to impose some kind of restraint - but no. The AI giants have already amassed so much money that they can buy their way into the corridors of power and whisper their implausible visions of an AI-funded future into the ears of power.

The result? Trump attempted to sneak a 10-year moratorium on ANY AI regulation into his 'big beautiful bill', which was thankfully voted down 99-1 by the Senate. However, in the UK, the government's Data Use and Access Bill (DUA) passed in June WITHOUT the provision proposed by the House of Lords that would compel AI companies to get permission and/or pay for UK content used in its training models and outputs. (The government has claimed it will tackle this topic in the future AI and copyright legislation—after the conclusion of a consultation on the topic in February. We'll see...)

The AI oligarchs insist that they couldn't possibly identify and compensate all copyright holders because, in the words of the former UK deputy Prime Minister, and subsequent President of Global Affairs for Meta (I know 🤦‍♂)…

Funny how requiring hundreds of billions of dollars worth of land, water, electricity and GPUs won't cripple the country's AI's sector, but paying artists will!

They may take our land…and probably will

That brings me to the second obvious parallel with colonialism and that is the extraction not just of intellectual property but physical property and resources. AI, which it is often claimed will help us find the solution to climate change, is the most water and energy intensive technology ever invented and the impacts of that are being felt in very real ways.

The BBC reported this week from the home of Beverly Morris in rural Georgia. Meta has built a data centre 400 yards from her house where the water pressure has now reduced to a trickle of visibly polluted slurry as the data centre sucks up every ounce of moisture to cool its core. Meta, of course, claims that the two aren't connected but having recently finished Sarah Wynne-Williams exposé of the company, ‘Careless People’, I'm not inclined to believe them.

According to a report by the World Economic Forum, "By 2027, global AI demand is expected to account for 1.1 to 1.7 trillion gallons of water withdrawal, more than 4-6 times the total annual water withdrawal of Denmark." Meanwhile, 2.2 billion people still lack access to safe drinking water services...IN 2025!

AI energy demands have also spiked this year with data centres consuming around 485 terawatt-hours of electricity globally, equivalent to 1.7% of total energy demand with that number set to double by 2032. Is it any wonder your energy bills are so high?

Elon Musk was so impatient to build his 750,000 square foot xAI Colossus cluster (that’s over 9 soccer / 13 American football pitches), that he installed an allegedly illegal array of 35 methane-powered turbines that emit massive amounts of nitrous oxides that are impacting the health of residents in the historically black neighbourhoods surrounding the facility.

Like the imperialists of old these men (and they are all men), are marching into countries, counties and neighbourhoods, planting their flags and claiming the land, water, air and energy for their own and only they seem to benefit because, once the construction is done, there are almost no jobs created by these largely automated facilities.

And what has all this empire building done for us so far? For all the claims to the good the only evidence I’ve seen is a massive rise in AI slop, AI scams, AI image-based sexual abuse and an increasing number of job losses, particularly at the entry-level. Oh, and yes, it’s made transcribing a little easier for me and I can scan my receipts now. So that’s good.

Solutions are emerging

These problems seem epic in scale and governments move slowly but there is evidence of companies, some connected to AI giants, who are innovating at speed to solve these emerging problems.

Just this week YouTube, which is owned by the same company as Google, announced that it will crackdown on ‘mass-produced’ and ‘repetitive’ videos from July 15th as part of a bid to curb AI slop. The approach, at least according to this video by YouTube’s Head of Editorial & Creator Liaison Rene Ritchie, appears appropriate and nuanced and we can only hope it helps redirect audiences, and revenues, to creators of original and authentic content.

Additionally, I dived deeper into Cloudflare’s announcement last week that they have started blocking AI bots from customer websites by default. Not only does this make AI training opt-in rather than opt-out, they have also introduce Pay-Per-Crawl, a protocol that allows content creators and copyright owners to charge AI bots every time they want to use their content to train on or serve up to users. This has massive potential to replace lost revenue and align the interests of content creators and AI models. And just yesterday I spoke to an entrepreneur developing a system to redistribute hot water from data centres to schools, hospitals and hotels in Africa.

As I always say, I’m not anti-tech I am just pro-human and my goal is not just to expose the problems but also the solutions that will enable us all to reap the benefits of technology and avoid the pitfalls. I hope you’ll stick with me as I go in search of the people and organisations tackling these most pressing of issues. Got a tip? Get in touch with me at neal@mooreslore.com. Thanks.

To Do List

My recommendations for new things to read, watch, look at, listen to and do this week:

• According to the NYT A.I.-Generated Images of Child Sexual Abuse Are Flooding the Internet. Organizations that track the material are reporting a surge in A.I. images and videos, which are threatening to overwhelm law enforcement (something I warned about in my short story Virtually Innocent nine years ago!).

• Sticking with the Big Apple this comic short film (3’20”) from the New Yorker stars ‘Bighead’ from Silicon Valley as the disgruntled customer of a company that goes to extreme lengths to keep him satisfied. A clever gag or an extremely succinct satire on consumer culture and AI overreach? You decide. Watch ‘Paper Towels’.

That’ll do ya. Cheers, Nx

So, this week I delivered a piece of work for a client consisting of digital ads, landing pages and sales emails. This, for the most part, is how I make my living - I help people and organisations tell better stories for business impact. We met in their conference room for final approvals and at the end of the meeting I had to make a confession; this time next year, I told them, you won't need me for this.

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The room went quiet, it was #awkard. I had clearly given voice to something they had already been thinking or maybe even discussing during their internal meetings. I told them that I knew the thought would occur to them at some point and I would prefer to confront it head on rather than wait to get ghosted. I asked if we could start discussing now how I can continue to provide value in the future, without pretending AI doesn’t exist or that we don’t all use it.

It’s not about creativity

Some of you may be in the same boat. Some of you may be about to take to the comments to rant about how I should be offering better creative concepts, more ambitious executions, etc. But this is a large MNC, with a long established look and feel and tone of voice and, yet, a limited budget. I worked to brief and delivered exactly what they need, which is what they paid me for. My client is happy. It is neither their fault nor mine that AI exists, but we both need to deal with it.

The conversation is ongoing but it was generally agreed that my perspective and ideas were valuable but the execution can increasingly be undertaken by AI. However, what I can bill for perspective and ideas is only a fraction of what I can bill for execution. The creative agency model relies on billing for both...and it's failing.

I don’t know about you but my LinkedIn feed is filled with middle-aged advertising executives raging against the dying of the light, most believing themselves to be possessed of such rare and exceptional talent that they cannot possibly be replaced. They're grieving and that’s understandable. I want to reassure them that their talent is NOT being replaced and that they are right, AI will likely NOT deliver work as creative and compelling as they can, but this isn't art - it's marketing. Every penny saved is a penny earned and if AI can achieve even incremental growth at almost no cost, well that's just good business.

It ain't just advertising

The UK press reported this week that the number of entry level jobs comprised of junior positions, graduate roles and apprenticeships has fallen by almost a third (31.9 per cent) since the arrival of ChatGPT.

Job search site Adzuna found that vacancies looking for graduates had fallen to the lowest level since Covid, with entry level jobs now only accounting for a quarter of the total market, down from 28.9 per cent in 2022.

It's not just that AI can do these jobs; the world is increasingly volatile, we may already be in the early days of World War III, and companies are going into survival mode, preparing for the worst by cutting spending and hoarding cash, both for their business and themselves.

Example: Microsoft let go 9,000 experienced, degree educated employees this month on top of 6,000 last month. Microsoft is currently worth US$3.71 trillion dollars. Let me say that again:

MICROSOFT IS CURRENTLY WORTH THREE POINT SEVEN ONE TRILLION UNITED STATES DOLLARS (WITH A T!!!)

And yet, apparently, times are so tough they needed to retrench 6.7% of their workforce.

Are AI companies starting to feel bad?

All this economic woe hasn't gone unnoticed by the leading AI companies. Just over a week ago Anthropic launched it's Economic Futures Programme, a new initiative to support research on AI's impacts on the labour market and global economy. They claim they want to, "understand how AI is reshaping the way we work and surface proposals on how to prepare for this shift". Call me cynical but I am fairly certain none of the proposals will suggest they pay more tax, though I'd love to be proved wrong.

This follows OpenAI's launch of their Economic Blueprint back in January, which lays out their policy proposals for "extending America's global leadership in AI innovation, ensuring equitable access to AI, and driving economic growth across communities nationwide". The implausibly utopian PR further claims that:

"Shared prosperity is as near and measurable as the new jobs and growth that will come from building more AI infrastructure like data centers, chip manufacturing facilities, and power plants. As our CEO Sam Altman has written, AI will soon help our children do things we can’t. Not far off is a future in which everyone’s lives can be better than anyone’s life is now."

Great. So, where's the prosperity for creative workers, graduates and Microsoft employees? And if there is so much prosperity in the pipeline, how come all the AI companies plead poverty when it comes to paying copyright holders?

What's the alternative?

The good news is, solutions are starting to emerge, no thanks to Anthropic and Open AI. Two fantastic stories of regulation and innovation that emerged this week include:

• Denmark to tackle deepfakes by giving people copyright to their own features

• In search of fairer deal for content creators, Cloudflare blocks AI scrapers

Cloudflare carries about 20% of the world’s Internet traffic and protects it from fraud, surveillance, SPAM and other nasties and has started blocking AI bots from its customers websites by default. This is good news because chatbots and AI summaries are killing Internet traffic. For instance, Google’s AI summaries have reduced traffic to websites by 30-70% by appropriating content creators’ work as its own. This does not only kill creators’ traffic but their revenue streams (ads, subs, affiliate links), the diversity of the Internet and, arguably, free speech as one or two websites become the aggregators of all knowledge.

Cloudflare’s proposition is a new payment model that compensates their customers for creating content that AI companies find useful. It’s simple, it’s automated, it’s fighting fire with fire🔥.

Reporting for a Pro-Human future

During my time off I started thinking about what Pro-Human is and what it could be. It is a way for me to understand my own feelings about the world and where it’s going; a place to rant and release pent up frustration; and a way to share my ideas and opinions. But I think it could be more because there is no shortage of people opining on the future of humanity. In fact, as an Aussie friend once told me opinions are like arseholes - everyone’s got one.

So, I want to go beyond opinions to do some actual reporting on the solutions that are being built, deployed and tested to benefit humans in an increasingly inhuman world. I am sick of waiting, I am sick of talking, I want to see more radicalism and less tinkerism (a new word I made up to define a method of endless tinkering without resolution).

If you know of a project, person, policy or technology that is truly pro-human - wherever it is in the world - let me know because I want to go there and tell that story. Thanks.

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To Do List

My recommendations for new things to read, watch, look at, listen to and do this week:

• I am currently reading ‘Bullshit Jobs’ by David Graeber, which is a funny but frightening investigation into the proliferation of pointless jobs and the ‘spiritual violence’ they enact upon us. In the West we have a moral objection to paying people to do nothing (or even something they enjoy), so the danger is that for everyone to benefit from the promised prosperity of AI, we’re still going to have work for it whether there is a job to do or not. See some of my favourite quotes on IG:

• I just finished all five hours of Adam Curtis’ hypnotising new documentary ‘Shifty’, a non-narrative exploration of the profound shifts that occurred in British society during the last two decades of the 20th century (BBC Player & YouTube). Non-Brits may not find it as compelling, but this interview with its director has broader lessons for all:

• I recently saw Singaporean alt. rockers Cactus Cactus supporting Inch Chua’s comeback at The Enclave Bar and they blew the roof off. If you like your rock n’ roll spiky and discordant this’ll be right up your street!

Right, that’ll do ya! Cheers, Nx

Share Neal Moore | Pro-Human

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Shaun was there at the death of print journalism, the birth of digital journalism and is now guiding newsrooms through the painful labour of AI journalism. But, is journalism made with AI for real? Are fake presenters the future? And if so, how can we trust anything we ever see, read or hear again?

In this conversation Shaun goes deep on everything from producing AI podcasts for country newsrooms right up to being appointed independent reviewer for the mis-and-disinformation code in Australia.

If you want to know what the future of news and content could look like watch here or on YouTube, listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and don’t forget to subscribe to everything, everywhere, all at once!

To Do List

My recommendations for new things to read, watch, look at, listen to and do this week:

• I’ve been mad-busy trying to hit every deadline before my holiday next month and, as such, have been looking for some light relief in the evenings as opposed to my usual diet of dystopian hellscapes. That’s why I am going to recommend ‘Four Seasons’ written by and starring the gorgeous and talented Tina Fey. At just haf-hour per episode even I can keep my eyes open to enjoy it.

• My fave album of the year so far is ‘If We Have A Future’ by Lone Kodiak who have already surpassed themselves with latest single ‘Reptilian’ 🤘😝

• And listening to Lone Kodiak led me to Black Map who are also keeping my from going insane in the Singaporean summer heat:

Am off to see Thundercat at The Esplanade on Thursday but that’ll do ya for now! Cheers, Nx

Share Neal Moore | Pro-Human

First up, let me caveat what's about to come by stating up front, loud and clear that I am NOT a conspiracy theorist. I don't believe there's some shady cabal of lizard people deciding our fate from a lair tucked away in the side of a mountain. I do however believe that the current billionaire class are a bunch of out of touch undiagnosed sociopaths making decisions that impact billions of people's lives with no idea how those billions actually live and work or what they actually need. And I don't think they care.

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I think billionaire’s believe their accrual of money is evidence that they are somehow smarter than everyone else when actually all they did was make one good decision based on very narrow knowledge several decades ago that they think makes them an authority on how the world should be run now.

And for me the worst of the lot is not Musk, at least he popularised electric cars and made the patents available free for anyone to use. No, for me, it's Zuckerberg and here's why...

Facebook Begins

It all begins with his oft-forgotten origin story, which was to build a tool to rate the women on his campus for hotness. It was called The Facebook and since then it has been involved in more scandals than a Conservative MP caught in a honey trap by a Sunday tabloid!

CNN Business kept a running tally of what they call 'Facebook's Bottomless Pit of Scandals' but it only runs up to 2019 - presumably they just didn't have the resources to keep covering it. Being in a similar boat myself I am just going to look at the last six months of scandals afflicting Meta, which now incorporates Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp and it’s a lot. Ready? Let’s go!

November 2024:

Study finds Instagram actively encourages self-harm amongst teenagers

Danish researchers decided to test Meta’s claim that it had significantly improved its processes for removing harmful content. Guess what? It didn’t. In fact, they found that Instagram's algorithm actively recruited vulnerable teenagers who showed an interest in self-harm content. 🥳

January 2025:

Meta scrambles to delete AI accounts

In in December 2024 Connor Hayes, Meta’s VP of Product for Generative AI told the FT:

A couple weeks later users started to notice a bunch of new Facebook profiles posting slop and telling lies. Profiles like Liv the ‘Proud Black queer momma of 2 & truth teller’ who was one of scores of fake profiles that appropriated cultures to foster “engagement” designed to drive more ad revenue.

Needless to say Mr. Hayes promptly regretted his comments and set about deleting these monstrosities ASAP.

Facebook and Instagram get rid of fact checkers

Not content with lying bots, Facebook decided humans on their platform can post any old bullshit no matter what harm it may cause, allegedly in the name of free speech but actually in another desperate attempt to save its flagging engagement rates by fostering rage bait and conspiracy theories. Somewhat predictably this led to some iconic memes being spread across Zuck’s own platforms lol.

March 2025

Meta Tries to Bury a Tell-All Book

In March Meta - which just two months earlier had removed fact-checkers from Facebook in the name of free speech - successfully convinced an arbitrator to silence the author of a tell-all book about the company. Sarah Wynn-Williams was the former global director of public policy at Facebook and had been in the room when some of the most egregious decisions were made. Her book, ‘Careless People: A story of where I used to work’ is on sale but she’s not allowed to promote it so allow me. 👇

April 2025

Meta AI Staffers Deemed More Than 7 Million Books to Have No “Economic Value”

Apparently AI is going to unleash an age of abundance that will generate so much wealth no one need ever work again. Also, the poor AI companies cannot possibly pay copyright holders to use their material because it’s just not economically viable. WELL, WHICH IS IT?!?!?!

Meta admits "entirely optional" AI feature in WhatsApp cannot be turned off

Why is this a problem? Well, first, they lied. Second they are forcing a technology upon users that users didn’t ask for. And finally, it’s clearly an attempted incursion into WhatsApp, which is supposed to be private but is clearly too tempting for Zuck not to raid for those really juicy tidbits that we daren’t even post on Facebook or Instagram.

I wonder how long it will be before you message your friends about going out for a drink and Meta AI starts suggesting the cool, crisp taste of a Heineken draft, just 150 yards from your current location? 🤔

Meta’s ‘Digital Companions’ Will Talk Sex With Users—Even Children

I just can’t with this one, click the link if you really want to know.

Meta tightens privacy policy around Ray-Ban glasses to boost AI training (not in a good way)

Just before month-end on April 29th Meta sent an email out to owners of its Meta AI smart glasses outlining two key changes. First, “Meta AI with camera use is always enabled on your glasses unless you turn off ‘Hey Meta,” the email said.

Second, Meta is taking after Amazon by no longer allowing glasses owners to opt out of having their voice recordings stored in the cloud. So just be aware, if you find yourself talking to someone wearing the least cool glasses Ray-Ban has ever designed, they could be recording you on video and audio for AI training purposes. 👍

May 2025

Facebook Allegedly Detected When Teen Girls Deleted Selfies So It Could Serve Them Beauty Ads

One of the revelations from the book Meta tried to ban was how Facebook tracked when adolescent girls deleted selfies, "so it can serve a beauty ad to them at that moment,” according to its author.

Other examples of Facebook's ad lechery are said to include the targeting of young mothers based on their emotional state, as well as emotional indexes mapped to racial groups, like a "Hispanic and African American Feeling Fantastic Over-index."

So, that’s nice. 😐

Meta’s new AI chatbot is yet another tool for harvesting data to potentially sell you stuff

Recent research shows we are as likely to share intimate information with a chatbot as we are with fellow humans. The personal nature of these interactions makes them a gold mine for a company whose revenue depends on knowing everything about you.

Just imagine confiding in a chatbot that you are lonely and it serves up a surreptitious ad for a dating app, or telling it that you are anxious so it suggests you “speak to your doctor about Zoloft”. AI is not benign, it’s a business and its model is to manipulate you.

Meta forges ahead with facial recognition for its AI glasses

Meta originally scrapped the facial recognition feature for the first generation of its Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses over ethical concerns but guess what? A new report from The Information claims that the Federal Trade Commission under the new Trump Administration has emboldened Meta to reboot its plans for the next generation of smart glasses. Yet another example of AI-powered tech creeping into your private life, whether you like it or not.🙄

Mark Zuckerberg says people can fill the need for friends with AI

And finally the straw that broke this camel’s back, Zuckerberg’s deluded, misanthropic, sociopathic idea that - and I quote - “the average American, I think, has fewer than three friends and the average person has demand for meaningfully more. I think it’s, like, 15.” He sees that as a market opportunity for AI companions. What could possibly go wrong?

Seriously, WTF?!

Has any company in the history of corporate American done so much so wrong in such a short space of time and gotten away with it? Zuckerberg is a ghoul who would happily have us sever or spy on all human connection in the service of his advertisers and shareholders. And I know we don't HAVE to use Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp but at this point they have essentially become utilities, most of us can't get by or do business without them.

Anyone with a car before Tesla HAD to use petrol but that doesn't mean they actively supported dictatorial regimes and human rights abuses in the Middle East, they just didn't have a choice. So what can we do but speak out, be vigilant against AI slop and call it out when we see it (as I do on LinkedIn, frequently), boycott advertisers that use his platforms, and be open to using alternatives (though Zuckerberg has a habit of buying up the competition as he did with IG and WhatsApp - what are the odds on him buying TikTok in the US, eh?).

One of the most subversive things you can do right now is invest in physical media; read books, listen to CD's and watch DVDs without WiFi, tracking or commercial interruption because nothing offends the broligarchy more than doing something they can’t track or monetise. Buy media direct from authors and musicians, local bookshops and record stores. Visit your local independent cinema. Support campaigning journalism that holds billionaires to account. Support local businesses that contribute to jobs and create prosperity in your area whilst denying Zuckerberg your data all at the same time.

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To Do List

My recommendations for new things to read, watch, look at, listen to and do this week:

• Obviously I am going recommend reading ‘Careless People’ by Sarah Wynn-Williams. I haven’t yet but I have a copy waiting for me in London to read on my holiday in June and I cannot wait to steep myself in that steaming hot tea 🍵

• Singapore’s pre-eminent producer Leonard Soosay was on knob-twiddling duties for the debut EP by local, all-female rockers Taledrops and it shows. ‘Visions of A Dying Dream’ is an epically lush rock-opera that sounds like if My Chemical Romance soundtracked a Tim Burton movie - love it!

• I finally made a start on the new series of Black Mirror on Netflix and so far episodes 1 & 3 are the standout. The first being a scathing comment on the exploitative relationship between tech platforms, advertisers and users. The third relying almost entirely on a solo performance by Paul Giamatti with occassional support from Patsy Ferran. It just goes to show what you can do with great writing and acting and not a lot else.

• And finally the Straits Times announced today ‘Three Singapore artists earn posts at major international arts bodies’, further disproving the notion that Singapore lack creativity - which is always pleasing to the eye.

Right, that’ll do ya! Cheers, Nx

Share Neal Moore | Pro-Human

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You know Tristan Harris, he was the guy who tried to warn Google how dangerous their technology was so they promoted him to 'Design Ethicist' only he quit after three years of their complete failure to act upon any of his recommendations.

Determined to stick to his mission Tristan co-founded the Centre for Humane Technology but his name came to broad prominence after he appeared in The Social Dilemma, the documentary that revealed the indisputable harms of social media on society (and about which I wrote an op-ed for Marketing Interactive challenging the role of advertisers in funding such platforms here.)

That was five years ago. Now, in 2025 he has unsurprisingly, turned his attention to artificial intelligence and in so doing delivered an impassioned speech that expertly embodies this publication’s creed i.e. he is not anti-tech, he is just pro-human. He doesn’t believe AI can or should be stopped, he does believe it should be tempered, directed and, if necessary, regulated.

The talk is only 15 minutes long so I urge you to please watch it, share it, and become “part of the collective immune system” against AI’s worst potential.

To Do List

My recommendations for new things to read, watch, look at, listen to and do:

• First AI learned from humans but now the tables have turned. Victoria Turk explores the impact of AI on how we communicate in her compelling Atlantic article: The Great Language Flattening.

• And if we do start sounding and behaving more like AI, how will we tell the difference between it and ourselves? That’s the questions asked in this year’s brilliant Academy Award winning short film from The Netherlands, ‘I’m Not A Robot’:

• Speaking of films, throughout May SG arthouse cinema The Projector is running limited screenings of Michael Mann’s iconic ‘Heat’ - the first film to bring De Niro and Pacino together in same scene and one of the greatest heist movies of all time: https://theprojector.sg/films-and-events/heat/

• And finally, Wolfgang Van Halen’s (yes, Eddies’ boy!) Mammoth has released a new single with a brilliantly over the top 80s music video tribute to MJ’s Thriller:

Share Neal Moore | Pro-Human

Right, that’ll do ya! Cheers, Nx