Some thoughts about blogs and blogging

Yesterday, I met up with my fellow-bloggers from While not null (over from Australia, whose splendid initiative it was to meet) and Politics, Economy, Society to chat about the future of blogs and blogging in the current age.

Blogging has gone through several changes since we got started many years ago. In the early years, just about everyone had a blog, but within two years (on average, according to Google), 90% of those blogs had fizzled out. The next phase was the monetisation of blogs, search-engine optimisation. This led to square kilometres of slop being (manually at this stage) produced with the commercial aim of driving online traffic to advertisers.

At the same time, other forms of social media began to expand, elbowing attention away from a form requiring more attention to read and indeed to produce. Blogging began to ebb. 

Twitter was originally categorised as a 'microblog'; Facebook moved in that direction when it added status updates. Indeed, I see my own blogging output fell sharply as I signed up for those two. It fell (from 250-300 posts a year to around 170-200 posts a year), but has stayed consistently at that level since around 2014. Since then, I've remained on Facebook but have quit Twitter after Musk deformed it.

My posts today tend to be longer and more considered than in the early days, but over the nearly 20 years since I started, there's a consistent thread running through the blog.

My blog aims to show over time the passage of time. That's the purpose of the 'This time x years ago' feature at the bottom of each post. Searchable memory of ordinary things – how they looked before they changed; the ever-shifting  texture of reality. What the railway used to look like, when the snow arrived, what local shops existed, what people drove, how the landscape changed, how a road looked like before all those new houses came. What seems mundane now won't in 2046.

I can now see just how far Poland has progressed since I started blogging, less than three years after joining the EU. Today, I can identify the tipping point at which Poland ceased being a post-communist hardship posting and became a normal country. It was the day I travelled from Warsaw to Kraków in a day and everything worked out fine – November 2014 ('Poland – it works!')

My blog is an authentic voice, increasingly rare on an internet in which so much prose has been professionalised, optimised, monetised or, now, AI-smoothed. My photography is there to prevent the blog becoming merely a diary of opinions. Over the years, thousands of photographs build up a visual record of Warsaw and southern Mazowsze which would be difficult to reconstruct retrospectively.

My old question about 'am I a generalist or specialist' is being settled; over the years a pattern is emerging; the topics I like to write about, those I tend to steer clear of (politics being one). 

In an age of AI-generated content, where writing style is becoming samey ("Not this. Not this. Not this. But this. And this is quietly important"), authenticity is all important. Today, synthetic, auto-generated text has led to the collapse of commercially driven blogs. This has cleared the ground for blogging to re-emerge purely on aesthetic, essayistic and archival terms. And this is where this blog fits.

Having been freed from the expectation of being mass-market commerce, I hope that the blog has established its place as a distinct literary and visual format and will survive into the future in the way that radio and cinema survived TV and TV has survived the internet.

Today I noticed that next year, Easter falls on 28 March. This means my Lenten cycle of blog posts will be finished before 1 April, being the 20th anniversary of this blog. The event will be marked with a very special post and a revamp with some new features.

This time last year:
Last evening in shirt sleeves?

This time two years ago:
Anomalous landscapes amid local forest

This time six years ago:

W(h)ither the DK50?

This time seven years ago:
A change in the weather

This time eight years ago:
Zamek Topacz classic car museum

This time 11 years ago:
Curry comes to Jeziorki
[It didn't stay long. Decor matters!]

This time 13 years ago:
Why we should all try to use less gas

This time 13 years ago:
Polish supermarket chain advertises on London buses

This time 18 years ago:
Well-shot pheasants

Slowly, into the cold and the dark

Equilux is upon us. Today, the day was 12 hours and 1 minute long; tomorrow it will be 11 hours and 57 minutes. From tomorrow, nights will be longer than days for the next 173 days. On 17 March next year, the day will be 11 minutes and 57 minutes long, and a day later, on 18 March, the day will be 12 hours and 1 minute in length. So the lighter 'half' of the year is 192 days. Light and warmth prevail, just slightly, over the cold and dark.

Below: the sun sublime is to be replaced by hygge; the kitchen lights are on a tea-time. The kitchen is warm and cosy. That patch of white below the middle of the pic is Hipek, taking it easy. Cats increase the cosiness quotient.

Astronomical autumn kicked off two days ago, on Wednesday 23 September, and meteorological autumn started on 1 September. Thermal or climatic autumn is also making itself felt. The last few nights have seen temperature minimums dip into single figures, the overcast skies have been distinctly autumnal. But next week, a run of clear-sky days are forecast, with temperatures rising above 20°C.

By going to bed earlier and earlier, I can still wring out the most of the daylight, by waking well before dawn. I am feeling the need for more sleep! A solid nine hours last night, up from summer minimums of seven. Still warm enough in the house not to need heating, a second layer is now called for. The duvet, however, is back, though it's still to warm for duvet + pyjamas. 

The last of the cider has been made, one demijohn of perry has been made with local pears (never ask me whose!), and the final demijohn will be filled with grape juice, fruit of the vine and work of human hands, that shall become moderately drinkable wine.

This time last year:
Equilux – the triumph of light over darkness.

This time two years ago:
Equilux: the struggle between Light and Dark

This time five years ago:
S7 construction update

This time six years ago:
Covid – we still really don't know where we are

This time 12 years ago:

Thoughts occasioned by today being equilux

This time 15 years ago:
The magic of Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand's Marlborough region

This time 16 years ago:
Grandson of Poles elected to lead UK's Labour Party

This time 18 years ago:
Give me sunshine!

By train to Dęblin via Radom

Yesterday's post focused on the Air Force Museum in Dęblin; today's will be a reflection on my railway journey there and back via Radom. 

Now, until five years ago, Radom had but one railway station, named simply Radom. Since then, the city has been sprouting stations, jak grzyby po deszczu. Coming into Radom from Warsaw, the Koleje Mazowieckie local service now stops at Radom Stara Wola, Radom Północny, Radom Gołębiów and Radom Wschodni before finally arriving at Radom's main station, which had to be renamed Radom Główny in 2021. 

The newest of the new stations, Radom Wschodni, opened in June 2025. And this (below) is my first visit. More about this station later.

Dęblin railway station owes its existence and historical importance to the intersection of two major railways built under the Russian imperial administration in the late 19th century. Dęblin was known in Tsarist times as Ivangorod (Ивангород). And here, the Russians built a massive fortress guarding the confluence of the Vistula and Wieprz rivers.

The station became a junction of the Vistula Railway (Kolej Nadwiślańska, opened in 1877); this line ran along the right bank of the Vistula, linking the Prussian border at Mława with Warsaw, Ivangorod, Lublin, and Kovel, in present-day Ukraine.  It connected the frontline fortresses of Modlin, Warsaw Citadel and Ivangorod (Dęblin) to the Tsarist heartlands. The first line to reach Dęblin did so a year earlier, in 1876, being a spur off the main Warsaw-Moscow railway. This ran south-west from Brest-Litovsk to Łuków and then onto Dęblin. Joining this line at Dęblin was the Ivangorod–Dąbrowa Railway (Kolej Iwanogrodzko-Dąbrowska, opened in 1885); it was built to get Silesian coal to Russia. Starting at Dęblin, it bridged the Vistula and traversed the Świętokrzyskie hills before reaching the Austro-Hungarian frontier at Dąbrowa. 

Today the old Kolej Nadwiślańska is Linia Kolejowa (LK) 7, linking Warsaw to the Ukrainian border at Dorohusk, while the old Kolej Iwanogrodzo-Dąbrowska, connecting Silesia via Dęblin and onto Łuków and the Belarusian border at Terespol is LK 26. So that's that sorted. Now, let's have a little look at the stretch of LK 26 between Radom and Dęblin...

Below: Garbatka Letnisko station, as the name implies, a summer-holiday resort town. Jedlnia Letnisko, closer to Radom is another such town. Both kick-started their resort-status careers in the 1920s, the result of the railway line bringing tourists from nearby Radom and Dęblin to enjoy the Puszcza Kozienicka forest that lay to the north of the tracks.

Below: Zajezierze koło Dęblina station. This pic, snapped from the window of my eastbound train, has the appearance of a vintage hand-coloured black & white photograph. The station has recently been remonted, but, sadly, the clock has already broken (it's really 09:56).

Below: crossing the Vistula. The current steel girder structure is the third railway bridge here, the first being blown up during the First World War and the second during the Second World War. Such is Poland's history.

Below: railway junction south of Dęblin, a freight train, having bypassed the passenger station, makes its way onto the LK 26 before crossing the Vistula.

Below: mounted on a plinth outside Dęblin station, a narrow-gauge Ryś locomotive with tender (class T49). Built between 1946 and 1950, these were a development of the German Henschel Riesa Kriegsdampflok, a standardised narrow-gauge locomotive built in large numbers between 1936 and 1944 for military field railways and construction sites.

Below: around Dęblin's main station building (destroyed during the First World War) stand a number of houses built for the Tsar's railway workers. This one survived.

Below: the south-east water tower, built during the German occupation, and hit by Soviet shells in 1944 (holes visible near the top). In use today as a communications tower for mobile telephony.

Below: Back at Radom Wschodni. Note the escalators, the signs for the airport, and the bus stop on the viaduct from which one can take bus to said airport. In the distance to the left (click to enlarge image), the LK 26 veers off from the LK 8, the main Warsaw-Radom-Kielce-Kraków line. The new station meant that I could change trains here from the one coming from Dęblin to the one heading north to Chynów, rather than going in one stop to Radom Główny to back track via Radom Wschodni again.

It is good that Radom, a city the size of Portsmouth or Newcastle-on-Tyne, has experienced a boom in new stations in the past five years; Radom Południowy and Radom Potkanów (both to the south of the city) complete the set. And finally, a reminder that Radom Główny station, opened as Radom in 1885, was designed by the magnificently named Adolf Schimmelpfennig.

This time three years ago:
It's a competitive world

This time four years ago:
To Rzeszów and back by rail, Pt  I

This time five years ago:
Science, Religion, Magic and Consciousness

This time eight years ago:
The house on the działka, coming on

This time nine years ago:
Autumn comes early

This time ten years ago:
Kriegslok passes through Jeziorki

This time 14 years ago:
A little way west of Jeziorki

This time 15 years ago:
The Old Sailor's Tale - part II 

This time 16 years ago:
Prague-Jeziorki-Moscow

This time 17 years ago:
The passing of Lt. Cmdr. Tadeusz Lesisz 

This time 19 years ago:
Summer ends, autumn begins

The air force museum in Dęblin

Today, being World Car-Free Day, Koleje Mazowieckie once again refused to take money for train tickets, and one could travel all over the network for free. This year, I decided to visit Dęblin, in particular the Air Force Museum. Train from Chynów to Radom where I changed for a train to Dęblin. Just over two and half hours. And on arrival, I discovered that today, being a Tuesday, entrance was free too. Great! Below: 'Attackers' Avenue' and a vista of old Soviet MiGs, Sukhois and Ilyushins and the occasional helicopter.

But the getting there could be easier... Below: Over the Vistula by electrical traction, out of Mazowsze and into Lubelskie, till we come to a town associated with Polish military aviation – Dęblin.

Dęblin (pop. 13,000) reminds me of Warka (pop. 11,500) as it used to be before Warka Miasto opened. Dęblin's one station is a long way from the town centre – three and half kilometres to be precise! 

And the town's bus service is pathetic. There are four weekday bus routes, an hourly service from the station to the main market square that departs four minutes before the train from Radom arrives in Dęblin. Left: bus route no. 2; just two buses a day to the railway station, in the early afternoon. That's it.

So it's wait nearly an hour or walk for 45 minutes (I can't complain; it stayed dry and I covered 20,000 paces today). Public transport – not that good. And by car from Warsaw – be warned of roadworks on the DK48 along the way, the museum's website says.

Despite the difficulty of getting here, if you are into military aviation history in the slightest, this museum is a must-visit, along with the one in Kraków. Below: A Polish Air Force MiG-21 in NATO Tiger Meet colours. The air base often hosts pilots from other NATO members. Culture clash! USAF nose-art vs. Polish officers' formality can be seen at the museum.

Dęblin has been home to the Polish Air Force's training school since 1925; today there was much activity with four fast-jet take-offs, many helicopters circling around the base and piston-powered basic trainers practicing touch-and-goes, just the other side of the museum's perimeter fence. 

Left: rear end of an Ilyushin Il-28, NATO codename 'Beagle', and in the sky above it a Diamond DA-20 Katana trainer.

Dęblin – where NATO's top guns would whoop it up... but where? The town is decidedly dull. I am a great fan of Poland's progress, and in Dęblin I can see new asphalt and pavements, but, other than four kebab shops and a couple of Viet-Pol restaurants – like, where's the action for the airmen? Below: Ulica Warszawska, Dęblin's main drag. A long straight road that passes the central square, where it becomes ul. Niepodległości. More a rectangular park than a proper rynek.

All in all, Dęblin is not as good in terms of the actual aircraft on show as I remember Kraków's Air Museum to be; my interest not being in the vast display of old Soviet kit at both museums, rather pre-war Polish and NATO aircraft from the Cold War. Thankfully, the good stuff is in hangars rather than exposed to the elements. Below: a British Miles Magister basic trainer that Polish fighter pilots got started on, and behind it a Polish designed-and-built LWD Junak basic trainer from the 1950s.

I did appreciate the indoor exhibition with its focus on the interwar years and the Polish Air Force fighting alongside the RAF in WW2.  Below: an interior representing RAF Northolt in the glory days, the peak of the Battle of Britain, when 303 (Polish) Fighter Squadron was the top-scoring unit defending the British Isles.

There was a smaller part of the indoor exhibition featuring Polish aviation within the Warsaw Pact. One chilling exhibit was this large wall-map showing the direction of the thrusts of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Western Europe, as planned in the 1980s. By D+3, Polish forces were expected to have been 270km into West Germany

Below: a LIM-2, being a Polish licence-built version of the ubiquitous Soviet MiG-15bis first-generation jet fighter.

Below: flight deck of a Polish Air Force Antonov An-26 (like this one, snapped over Jeziorki near the end of its career).

This time last year
Mińsk Mazowiecki (by Koleje Mazowieckie, for free)

This time two years ago:
Car-free day 2024 - Łowicz

This time five years ago
Into darkness

This time eight years ago:
Summer's end

This time nine years ago:
In which I lose a lot of data from my old laptop

This time ten years ago:
Konin – town of aluminium, electricity and coal

This time 13 years ago:
Car-free day falls on a Sunday

This time 14 years ago:
Vistula at record low level

This time 17 years ago:
Car-free day? Warsaw's roads busier than ever

This time 18 years ago:
The shape of equinox

This time 19 years ago:
Potato harvest time in Jeziorki

Six months with Hipek

 'Twas on the 19th of March that Hipek first arrived; a big old male, white with black patches, sat under the altanka in the garden. He'd had the tip of his left ear cut, which the internet suggested meant that he had been TNR'd (trapped-neutered-returned), a programme to catch and castrate stray cats. At first, Hipek was wary of coming into my house, but over time, he learned to trust me. He could depend on this place for a square meal and a bed for the night as winter edged into spring.

When he first allowed me to inspect him, I found three fat ticks on his body. I extracted them, and fitted him with a Foresto anti-tick collar; since then not one has infested the old cat (those things work).

I'd ask my neighbours about him. He's familiar, but no one knows for sure whether he has an owner. Anyway, six months on, he's settled down here.

Céleste, Czester, Arcturus and Scrapper all got on well with Hipek. Their mum, Wenus, was initially wary. She'd hiss at him. I could see her perspective; "here we are, a happy family, and this interloper comes along competing for resources, possibly spreading disease to my children..." After a while, however, Wenus came to accept Hipek. I now often see the two of them out in the forest together.

 However, there is a real problem between Hipek and Pacyfik. Pacio simply refuses to accept Hipek as part of the colony. Pacio had a problem when the kittens were born, but he's got over that. But with Hipek, there's constant hissing, growling and swiping with his paw.

At first, Hipek would not respond, stoically bearing all of Pacio's histrionics. However, within the last few weeks, Hipek has decided he's taking no more shit from Pacio. Hipek is much more massive than the svelte Pacio, and should a fight break out (so far thankfully it hasn't), Hipek would surely prevail. Slowly, he advances towards Pacio. So Pacio retreats behind the cupboard in the corner of the kitchen, a tight space where where the capacious Hipek can't fit. And from the safety of this redoubt, Pacio carries on hissing and growling at Hipek.

And all this despite Hipek's participation in the mission to rescue Pacio in late July.

But everyone else gets on with Hipek. Arcturus, Pacio's biological identical twin brother, will happy doze next to Hipek on my bed or on the sofa. As will Scrapper, with whom Hipek often runs outside. This makes me suspect a genetic vector of intolerance. Why do four siblings, all raised identically to Pacio, accept the Outsider, while Pacio reacts with such vehemence? 

And the kittens, who, unlike their uncles, don't know a world without Hipek. Every one of them is cool with Hipek. When out in the garden or the forest next door, Hipek will keep watch as they play. They feel safe. I'll sometimes go to the forest with all five kittens, their mum and Hipek.

Hipek is emotionally well balanced; he always waits for the kittens to eat first before sauntering up to a bowl, and is never impatient nor does he bother me for food or attention. A mild-mannered gentleman. He has learned to respond to his name.

Hipek sleeps with a lovely snore, which I can hear from my bedroom through a closed door. "Cats also snore, but with a prep-school accent," observes Jacek Koba in Epigramology. Hipek usually spends the night in a cat basket on the kitchen windowsill, surrounded by the kittens.

Why 'Hipek'? Subconsciously, is it because of his size he reminded me of a hippo? His alternative name is Ol' Mr. Heaps; his alter ego Hiram Heaps was born in 1838, and used to vote for the Federalist Party.

Long may Hipek live in good feline health. And may Pacio learn to accept Hipek.

This time two years ago:
(Are You Ready Do) The Bus Stop

This time three years ago:
Warka station, dawn and dusk

This time four years ago:
The Monarchy – my arguments for

This time five years ago:
Seaside, Sopot

This time six years ago:
Repeatable moments of joy

This time seven years ago:
Spectacularly glorious day, Ealing

This time ten years ago:
Evolution, the future and us

This time 12 years ago:
Relief as Scots vote to remain in UK

This time 13 years ago:
The S2 opens all the way to Puławska

This time 14  years ago:
Thundering ghost from out of the mist

This time 15 years ago:
Push-pull for Mazowsze

This time 16 years ago:
Okęcie runway repairs are complete

This time 18 years ago:
I know that painting from somewhere...

Late summer, sublime

As summer slips away, my usual injunction to make the most of it. My daily routine is changing. With the sun now rising well after six am, I am no longer dropping the blinds in my bedroom. I am finding that the early sunsets mean I feel like going to bed earlier, and thus I get out of bed earlier.

Two walks today, a total of 16,000 paces.

I set off for my first walk just after 8am, the sun still low in the sky. The benefit of rising early.

Below: the orchards are groaning with apples again; despite the late frost and dry spring, the harvest looks like it's going to be a good one.

Below: the top end of the farm track from Jakubowizna as it reaches Grobice. One sad piece of news – the small grocery store just around the corner from here seems to have closed for good. I would occasionally pop while on walks, for water, non-alcoholic beer or indeed beer. And salt snacks. But never any bigger grocery purchases. The recent opening of two supermarkets in Chynów may have contributed to the closure of yet another small local shop within walking distance of my działka, the fifth since I bought the place.

Left: the bottom end of ulica Słoneczna as it joins ul. Główna. Just gone midday, and I'm on my way to Chynów for a few tins of cat food and some cleaning materials – and lunch.

Below: driving to the supermarket car park in a four-wheel-drive, Chynów style. Note the digger at work on the left; there's been a major remont of the water mains in Chynów for the past few weeks. Today I got an SMS from the local water utility that there'd be limited water pressure or even no water from 11:00 to 16:00; a good excuse not to cook lunch but to dine out at Loft Chynów.

Yesterday's morning sky was entirely cloudless. By the early afternoon, thin wispy strands began slowly moving in from the west; by the evening, drops of rain began to fall. The forecast for the coming week is rain, rain, rain and more rain. 

My aesthetic is sunny. Blue skies I love, any time of year. Grey skies = less photography. 

BONUS SHOTS:

Friday 18 September, another lovely day. Making the most of it! Below: over the hill to Grobice.

Below: the apple harvest is underway, the sound of pails being filled is omnipresent as I walk past the orchards.

Below: a field ripe for development, I fear, Grobice.

This time last year:
Flying the flag in Wola

This time two years ago:
A further step towards energy autonomy

This time three years ago:
Plenitude in the Year's Fruition

This time four years ago:
Behold the wonder of the commonplace

This time five years ago
The force-field of fate

This time six years ago:
Hot in the city

This time seven years ago:
Resting with the heroes

This time nine years ago:
Polish employers' demographic challenge
[Immigration and AI seem to be solving the problem today...]

This time 14 years ago:
The rich, the poor, the entrepreneur

This time 15 years ago:
Bittersweet

This time 16 years ago:
Commuting made easy

This time 17 years ago:
Work starts on the S79/S2 'Elka'

This time 18 years ago:
Warsaw's accident-filled streets

This time 19 years ago:
Return to Zamienie

AI: the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?

And the LORD God commanded man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” – GENESIS 2:16-17

The thought struck me the other day as I was taking a shower: "Is artificial intelligence the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?"

I put this question to Google Gemini: Gemini said no. Its answer was rational and utilitarian: knowledge is neither good nor evil. What matters is what we do with it.

If AI helps cure diseases, accelerates drug discovery, reduces poverty, improves logistics and removes dangerous or degrading work, then good. If it produces mass unemployment, surveillance, bias, autonomous weapons or catastrophic loss of control, then bad. AI, said Gemini, is not forbidden fruit. It is merely an extremely powerful tool.

OK. So I copied Gemini's answer into ChatGPT and asked it to argue back.

ChatGPT started by attacking Gemini's premise: that Good and Evil can be reduced to welfare calculations – more happiness, less suffering, more healthy years of life, fewer bad outcomes. But, said ChatGPT, this is itself a moral philosophy rather than some neutral position from which all other views can be judged.

More importantly, ChatGPT said Gemini had misunderstood the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil; it isn't a story about God telling mankind not to learn things, it is that humanity reaches for the right to decide for itself what is Good and what is Evil.

The serpent's promise is: “Your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.”

Now the AI analogy begins to look stronger. AI has given us extraordinary new powers to know, classify, predict and decide.

But greater intelligence does not necessarily mean greater wisdom! Learning how to split the atom before learning how to abolish wars; developing industrial chemistry before understanding the effects of pollution has on the biosphere; building social media before grasping the implications of algorithmically optimised attention for politics, culture and the human brain. All examples of where progress brought about unforeseen consequences.

ChatGPT summed it thus: “The danger is not knowledge. The danger is knowledge without wisdom”.

Back to Gemini. This time it came back with a much stronger argument. I was, it said, mixing up two different stories from Genesis. The Tree of Knowledge is about an inward transformation. Man becomes self-conscious, ashamed, aware of mortality and burdened with moral responsibility. The real story about technological hubris is the Tower of Babel. There, mankind combines its collective linguistic and technical power to build something that reaches towards heaven. AI, said Gemini, is Babel.

Large AI systems are, among other things, extraordinary machines for concentrating human output. “Language. Mathematics. Science. Literature. Code. History. Law. Music. Philosophy.” Huge chunks of human culture are being compressed into manageable computational structures.

Gemini: “Babel begins with one language and ends with many; AI begins with many languages and translates them into a common underlying machine representation.” Babel takes mankind from unity to fragmentation; AI may be taking us from fragmentation back towards unity.

I put Gemini's argument back to ChatGPT. ChatGPT conceded the Babel point, but refused to give up on Eden. Perhaps, said ChatGPT, AI sits at the intersection of both stories.

“Babel explains what we are building. Eden explains why we find it so tempting.”

Gemini had made another strong point. An AI does not judge in the moral sense. It is never tormented by doubts or by guilt, nor does it fear death. All it does is calculate.

So, Gemini argued, the danger is not that we have created a machine that knows Good and Evil; the danger is that we may begin handing our own moral judgement over to something that knows neither.

Gemini called that temptation not disobedience – but sloth!

ChatGPT thought this was Gemini's best argument.

We already know primitive versions of it. “The computer says no.” “The system rejected your application.” “The algorithm has calculated the risk.” Nobody – no human – took the decision. Responsibility disappeared somewhere into the procedure.

AI makes this far more serious because the machine no longer merely processes a decision – it actually recommends one. And this problem will get worse as AI continues to improve. Imagine a neurologist whose diagnosis, based on many years of looking at brain scans, disagrees with an AI system which has repeatedly been shown to outperform human doctors. Who should ultimately decide? If the doctor overrides the machine and the patient dies, has the doctor nobly defended human judgement? Or has he irresponsibly trusted his own intuition over much better evidence?

The same question could arise with judges, pilots, soldiers, teachers, financiers or politicians.

ChatGPT put the dilemma this way:

• Epistemic humility tells us to defer to the machine.
• Moral responsibility tells us that the decision must remain ours.

That struck me as the most interesting point in this exchange between the two AIs. The biblical Tree represents a mythical point in human history at which we became morally self-conscious creatures; a point at which mankind became aware of moral responsibility. The inflection point that we now face is the awareness of abrogating moral responsibility to externalised judgment. 

“The first temptation was: You shall know Good and Evil.

The second may be: You need no longer decide between them yourself.”

ChatGPT made another interesting point. “The danger may not arrive when AI starts getting things wrong. It may arrive when AI starts getting things right so often that exercising your own judgment begins to look irrational. That takes the argument beyond the usual AI debate about jobs, robots and machines becoming cleverer than us. It asks an older question: what is human freedom actually for?”

Once we notice in our lives that AI is consistently making better decisions than we can, would there still be any point, any value, in making our own? ChatGPT's answer was yes. “Because not everything valuable about life is an outcome. Courage requires the possibility of cowardice. Wisdom requires uncertainty, mistakes and learning. Moral development requires the possibility of choosing badly.”

One could imagine a future in which AI helps everyone live longer, violent crime becomes rare, poverty largely disappears and algorithms gently steer people towards statistically optimal careers, relationships and lifestyles. By every measurable indicator, this might be an extraordinary success.

And yet... and yet... who is actually living the life?

By the end of my AI experiment, ChatGPT and Gemini had agreed that Eden concerns knowledge, freedom, judgment, wisdom and moral responsibility.

ChatGPT finally reformulated my question: “Perhaps AI is not itself the new Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Perhaps something stranger is happening. Having eaten from the Tree, are we now building AI to escape the burden of what we acquired? The first temptation was to become as gods by acquiring knowledge. The second temptation was to build an oracle to which we can hand over the moral responsibility of deciding what that knowledge means and what we should do with it. And the danger is that humans will increasingly cease to bear it.”

The danger may not be that machines become human; it may be that humans become more machine-like, “preferring optimisation to judgement, probability to conviction, prediction to wisdom and freedom from error to the freedom to choose.”

The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil looks like an ancient warning whose time has come.

[I found it really interesting bouncing arguments made by one AI against the other and back again!]

This time two years ago:
Touched by Boris

This time three years ago
Clinging on and letting go

This time six years ago:
Out in the mid-September heat

This time seven years ago:
Poland's ugliest building?
[Gone before it too ugly to knock down]

This time 12 years ago:
Weekend cookery – prawns in couscous

This time 13 years ago:
Draining Jeziorki

This time 14 years ago:
Early autumn moods

This time 16 years ago:
The Battle of Britain, 70 years on

This time 17 years ago:
Thoughts about TV, Polish and British

This time 18 years ago:
Time to abandon driving to work!

This time 19 years ago:
Crappy roads take their toll

Do you need a monstrous ego to get things done?

In a further exploration of laziness, I find myself wanting to link the notion of ego to that of energy or drive. What drives a billionaire to strive for further billions? It's certainly not the need to keep the wolf from the door. There comes a point at which another million złotys, pounds or dollars cannot appreciably improve one's material existence – let alone another billion. Once comfort, freedom and security are assured, why bother pushing further?

The obvious answer is that the money has ceased to be money. It's now a score against which some people feel the need to measure themselves against others. Why this need for external validation? Isn't it just a symptom of insecurity?

The question of what makes some people push themselves relentlessly while others are content to coast along through life has fascinated me since youth. Some seem born with an inability to switch off. They build businesses one after another, acquire properties, push for promotion, write multiple books, enter politics, collect honours, climb mountains or run marathon after marathon. Achieving one objective provides no lasting satisfaction because its achievement merely reveals the next objective beyond it.

Others reach a point at which they can say to themselves quite reasonably: this will do nicely.

For much of our human history, we tended to explain such differences morally. One man was industrious, another lazy. One had ambition, another lacked it. Sloth and indolence are sinful – it says so in the Bible. Protestant societies in particular elevated industriousness to the level of a spiritual virtue: hard work was not just economically useful – it was evidence of good character.

Advances in our understanding of psychology complicates that simple distinction enormously. We are now far more aware that humans vary greatly in temperament, impulsivity, conscientiousness, appetite for excitement, and desire for social status. We are also much quicker than earlier generations to recognise patterns of behaviour that may have neurological or psychological components. In everyday conversation we hear, ‘that's a typical autism-spectrum trait’, ‘she's rather obsessive-compulsive’, ‘he's an absolute narcissist’. There is of course the danger of judgmental amateur diagnosis, but ultimately  there is no single standard human mind. Our brains differ, and those differences affect what we find rewarding, what bores us and what compels us to act.

What we perceive as ambition can be seen as a question of reward circuitry. One person experiences a tremendous psychological boost from achieving a goal and immediately hungers for another fix. Another achieves the goal but gets an even greater boost from just sitting beneath a tree with a good book. To the first, the second may appear lazy. To the second, the first may appear slightly unhinged.

Ego plays a major role here because human beings are social animals. Wealth does not merely purchase goods; beyond a certain point it purchases rank; it also purchases human souls – influencing how millions of other humans think and behave. “Can I buy a TV station? Newspaper? Political party?” Billionaires compare themselves with other billionaires. Once the essentials of life have been secured, human striving becomes positional. Enough food is enough food, enough warmth is enough warmth. But there's no quantity of status that can be considered ‘enough’. 

And yet obsession with status has driven much of human progress. 

We live in an age defined by technological advance. Our lives have become astonishingly easier. I no longer queue in a bank to pay a bill sent to me through the post. I buy my train ticket on my mobile telephone minutes before boarding. I can communicate instantly with someone on the other side of the world, search a library containing nearly all of human knowledge. 

But who brought this world into being?

The mythology of capitalism hails the heroic entrepreneur: the visionary individual who sees what others cannot see and wills a new reality into existence. Sometimes that story is justified. But behind almost every technological revolution there are engineers, mathematicians, programmers, researchers, technicians, administrators and obsessive problem-solvers, many of whom are not interested in achieving fame or having more money than they know what to do with.

Civilisation advances because human beings possess many different kinds of drive. We specialise. One individual has the ego necessary to raise money, persuade investors and command an organisation. Another possesses an obsessive fascination with solving a technical problem. Another simply has the patience to spend ten years perfecting something to work reliably without ever breaking down.

The successful institution somehow harnesses these different energies, but which one gets the praise?

And here lies another distinction worth making. Ego may fuel drive, but it doesn't usually provide wisdom. Excessive ego can become destructive. The leader who needs every success to bear his name eventually becomes an obstacle to the organisation they lead. Decisions begin to serve the preservation of their status rather than the purpose of the enterprise. They surrounds himself with people who tell him how brilliant they are. The organisation becomes an extension of the personality at its summit. We can think of many like this – in politics, and in our workplaces (we've all come across bosses like that).

At the opposite extreme stands the ideal associated with Lao Tzu: the leader whose presence is scarcely noticed and who, once the work is accomplished, leaves people believing that they achieved it themselves.

Wise leadership requires finding a balance: enough ego to fuel the drive required to bring something into being, relentlessly pushing forward across obstacles, combined with enough detachment to relinquish ownership of the achievement once it exists. 

And this distinction applies beyond leadership. There's creative ego – the force that says “I can make this happen” – and possessive ego – the force that says “everyone must know that I made this happen”. The first one build things; the second often ends up building monuments to itself.

Which brings me back to laziness. Instead of asking why some people lack drive, I should ask why others possess too much of it. Why should the natural human condition be assumed to consist of ceaseless striving? For most of our evolutionary history there was little advantage in expending energy unnecessarily. Energy was precious. If one's belly was full, the weather benign, and there's no predator approaching, sitting quietly beneath a tree was an entirely rational thing to do. Take it easy, man.

Modern civilisation has inverted the logic of biology. Rest requires justification; work does not. The person who says 'I have enough' can appear deficient in ambition. Yet the ability to recognise when enough is enough is a deep a form of wisdom. Slacking off when one really doesn't have enough is indolence.

The billionaire pursuing his tenth billion has more drive than the man contentedly reading under his tree. But it does not mean that the billionaire has a better understanding of what life is for.

This time last year:
Dzieci wojny – Children of War

This time two years ago:
Ten grand a year

This time three years ago:
The ephemeral pleasures of materialism

This time four years ago:
W-wa Zachodnia modernisation – a long way to go
(Three years on: still not finished)

This time five years ago:

The Wilderness and the Garden 

This time six years ago:
Back in Aviation Valley

This time seven years ago:
My flight to Rzeszów – delayed

This time ten years ago:
English as she is used in Europe

This time 11 years ago:
Where asphalt is needed – Nowy Podolszyn to Zgorzala

This time 16 years ago:
I cycle to work along the cyclepath along ul. Rosoła

This time 18 years ago:
First apple