I'm interested in why people believe odd things (and ignore the science), so I thought I'd give the podcast  Marianna in ConspiracyLand a try. This is the work of Marianna Spring, the BBC's 'disinformation and social media correspondent', who has the cringe-making habit of referring to herself as 'A.K.A. Miss Information.' The first series follows the rise in support for conspiracy theories in the West Country town of Totnes, boosted by a conspiracy-spreading newspaper called The Light . Despite a certain naivety in the interviewing, I found the series interesting for two reasons. The obvious one is the nature and danger of conspiracy theories, particularly around subjects like vaccination and climate change. I'm always looking for ways to get scientific views across and (as demonstrated so well in the book I recently reviewed, Science with Impact ) , it can be really hard to get past conspiracy viewpoints. When someone can claim, as they do in one of Ma...

One of Wolfe’s specialities is to keep the reader unsure of what’s happening - and this 1988 novel is probably his greatest example of this particular fantasy mode. The central character (we don’t even discover his name until well through the book) has fallen deeply in love with a woman he has only known for a few days - but she has disappeared leaving behind a mysterious note about doors he should avoid (or back out of if he accidentally goes through one). Inevitably he goes through such a door, into what appears to be an alternate USA, where there are references to people and even dolls who resemble the missing Lara, who he is obsessive to find. But is any of this real or is he mentally ill? This is an idea that isn’t pursued enough in real world fantasies (though done beautifully in Buffy ). It has been a long time since I last read this book, but I’ve always remembered it as one of Wolfe’s best. I was disappointed when I’d got well past halfway through and nothing was becoming clea...

I've already mentioned my own experience with artificial intelligence hallucinations when Google's AI got the facts wrong about the BICEP2 telescope , and when ChatGPT made up an entire industrial accident when asked to provide details of one at the BBC. But if an article by Amanda Guinzburg is true, the ability of AI to mislead and directly lie is even worse that many of us thought. I use that 'if an article... is true' format because I don't know Guinzberg and have no way of verifying the truth of the experience she describes - but if it is real it surely should put a significant nail in the coffin of using generative AI for many text-based purposes where an accurate response is essential. In the article, Dialbolus ex Machina , Guinzberg describes asking ChatGPT to select from a number of online articles she has written to include as examples in a query letter. ChatGPT makes suggestions with explanations as to why it has chosen these articles. So far, apparently s...

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Authors have mixed relationships with book covers. Some publishers give us full right of veto on what a cover looks like, others simply show us what it's going to be. Some covers are great - others are, frankly, dull. There have been covers I treasure (for example, when I was still writing business books, the Spanish translation of my book Capturing Customers Hearts took the title literally, featuring a scarred chest with the heart removed), while others I'd rather ignore. It is also possible to be misled by the appearance of covers on well-known online bookshops. I've recently had published a book called Navigating Artificial Intelligence - a highly-illustrated overview book that gives you (I hope) a good introduction to the topic and its significance: and let's face it, there isn't much that is as significant as AI at the moment. To go along with some fun illustrations inside (who wouldn't want to see a dog dressed as Henry VIII?), the cover is impressively ...

This is a real oddity - in my quest to re-read my Gene Wolfe collection and review the books I hadn't covered so far, I'd mentally pigeonholed this 1990 book as urban fantasy, but it's actually a murder mystery. Being Wolfe, things aren't as straightforward as you might imagine, though. The book is allegedly written by the seventeen-year-old Holly, just edited and smartened up by Wolfe. It's set in the 1980s, but the feel of the place (and this teen's viewpoint) is very much not post-punk - it's more like something from the Mad Men era. Trivial example: Holly and her friends never cuss (as she would probably put it). Like Castleview this is a slice of small town American life, but here seen through the eyes of a young would-be author. The Pandora reference is to a mysterious box, to be opened at the town fair, with a prize if anyone guesses what's in it. At this point there's a sudden transition to murder mystery, with Holly both injured and acting...