Articles By This Author

A path to the end of animal testing in drug discovery?

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I recently wrote a column about the impact that AI is already having on drug discovery, particularly in the early part of the process where researchers try to find a molecular “key” that fits a biological “lock”. The article described how a painstaking and torpid process is now being sped up by orders of magnitude in silico, with AI sweeping through a zillion virtual combinations before handing over a few high-probability candidates to human scientists for molecule assembly, wet-lab tests and, eventually, trials.

What’s with Peter Thiel and the Antichrist?

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Peter Thiel, the billionaire venture capitalist, technology entrepreneur and political powerbroker (and one of the mega-tech-bro cabal), has developed a weird preoccupation, even an obsession. It is the Antichrist. So disturbed is Thiel by him (it?) that he now frequently gives alarmist talks about the subject in private forums, lectures and interviews. The subject is obviously increasingly near and dear to his amygdala.

AI agents – the sucking sounds of emptying bank deposit accounts?

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I am writing a series of columns looking at the effect the sudden flood of agentic AI capabilities will have on the rest of us.

Can the midterm elections really be rigged?

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There are three ways to sow distrust in an electoral system that purports to be a democracy. You can sow distrust in the mechanics of

What does “slow down” even mean? (and Elon Musk’s big idea)

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Keeping up is exhausting. The constant flow of WTF stories out of the global AI technopolitical ecosystem has rendered both the commentators and the curious (including this writer) a little punch-drunk.

Bernie Sanders and AI – serious or cynical?

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I have always sort of liked Bernie Sanders, even though my politics and his rarely align. I liked the way he attracted support from both the left and the right wing, particularly during his presidential runs in 2016 and 2020. I liked his dishevelled look, his growly New York accent, his gruff attitude, and the fact that he could hew to an unpopular political position and hold fast, no matter what the political cost. He seemed to be a politician from another time, a 1960s firebrand, now greying, but still bursting with fervour.

Five days in July – the bizarre paradox of an obedient AI

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By now most people have seen the media reports of an unauthorised hack by a swarm of OpenAI-created AI agents into an external site called Hugging Face. The details of how this hack happened are technical and gnarly and multilayered (the tech post-mortems started coming out last week).

A cancer breakthrough and the second coming of mRNA

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There can be few technologies in modern history that have travelled so quickly from scientific triumph to political tribalism as mRNA.

Monty Python and the great energy marketplace

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If we ignore fossil fuels (and we really shouldn’t – they are still the dominant energy source and will be for some time) and try to cut through the extraordinary amount of energy-tech hype spewed out by various true believers, it is easy for confusion to reign. Solar will save us! Biowaste! Power plants in space! Sodium-ion batteries! Wind, waves, geothermal, hydropower, fusion, natural gas! Drill, baby, drill!

The great AI data centre allergy of 2026

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Last week a popular local radio station was looking around for someone who might defend the proposed construction and operation of an AI data centre in the city in which I live (as a counterpoint to previous guests who were apparently vocal data-centre resisters).