Category: Life

It’s not wrong to be rewarded for working hard…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Business, Life, Information Technology, Human Resources, Backlash

Over the years, the Badger’s been an independent observer in numerous formal meetings dealing with an employee performance or disciplinary issue, or employee complaint. There were robust procedures for these, and HR always ensured that a record was kept of what was said at the meeting. Many of those the Badger attended were memorable, not because of the particular issue, but because they provided an insight to the character and attitude of the employee concerned.

With elections in the UK imminent, the Badger recalls one employee complaint meeting which highlighted that people not only make different life choices, but they also have different reasons for why they work. The Badger was asked to be the company’s independent observer at the meeting which involved HR, the complainant’s boss, the complainant, and a friend supporting them. The Badger didn’t know any of them; they were all from a different part of the company. The complaint seemed straightforward. The complainant had asserted that they were being unfairly treated because another colleague of the same age and length of service working on the same project had a higher salary. There’d been a previous meeting, but the issue was unresolved because the interactions between the individual and their boss became antagonistic.

The Badger quickly tuned into the complainant’s attitude to work and life. They were intelligent, articulate, likeable, and passionate about their many costly interests and hobbies outside of work. They always arrived for work on time and always left on time. They never worked extended hours even when incentivised financially to do so. It was obvious that their hobbies and interests outside of work were their priority and that work was simply the vehicle to fund them. Also, they had no interest going the extra mile at work to earn a higher salary because they believed that salary progression came primarily with length of service. Their project colleague with a higher salary was the opposite and motivated to do what needed to be done to build a career and accumulate the benefits that come from going the extra mile.

The meeting concluded with the HR person pointing out that the complainant and their higher-paid colleague had made different lifestyle choices, and that a complaint about someone else’s choices had no validity. They added ‘It’s not wrong for your colleague to be rewarded for going the extra mile. This country and this company were built by people who did just that’. The complaint was closed with no further action. For the Badger, it was memorable because it highlighted that people make different choices and have different motivations, attitudes, and views about working hard to build wealth. As the UK goes to the polls, the Badger senses that the HR person’s words capture a sentiment which the country needs to revive in order to be great again…  

AI in the dock?

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI, Business, Information Technology, Legal matters, Life, Technology

Consider this scenario. Someone approaches an individual and asks them to provide answers to some questions. The individual performs some Google searches of the internet, consults books in a local library, and then pieces together the answers to the questions. These are then communicated to the requestor face to face, or by phone or video call. The requestor uses the answers to commit a wicked crime for which they are prosecuted. The person providing the answers to the requestor’s questions is deemed by law to have some culpability for the crime and so they are prosecuted too. Now consider the same scenario but with the perpetrator directly asking ChatGPT (or similar) the same questions. The AI’s answers are used to commit the same wicked crime for which the perpetrator is prosecuted. The AI, however, does not have the same legal culpability for the crime as the individual noted above.

Reports that Florida’s attorney general has opened a criminal investigation into whether ChatGPT provided advice to a murdering gunman last year, see here for example, made the Badger wonder about the following question: ‘Are people using AI professionally or personally really aware of where the boundaries of responsibility sit?’ Probably not, was the conclusion after musing in the Spring sunshine. If a doctor follows a wrong diagnosis delivered by an AI, is the doctor responsible or the hospital, the engineers who built the AI model, or some other organisation in the chain? Some who build and deploy AI models appear to think such responsibility questions can be sorted out later when something goes awry and causes a crisis. This is never a sensible approach.

The more AI develops, the more it impacts important aspects of everyone’s life. However, it isn’t obvious, at least to the Badger, that professionals or the public understand much about how AI arrives at its answers. The Badger, who’s not a lawyer, thus spent a little time exploring how the law deals with the question of responsibility when someone takes action guided by AI’s output. It appears that you – not the AI vendor nor the algorithm – but you the user are legally responsible. This means that anyone – organisations, professionals, or members of the general public – using AI is always responsible and liable for the actions taken on guidance from AI. Organisations and humans can be sued, but AI cannot. When AI makes a mistake, liability flows to the humans and organisations that deployed it and used it,

That’s not really a surprise, but it’s a reminder for all users that they are more likely to find themselves in the dock than AI. It’s also a reminder that proper human consideration and diligence is imperative before acting on AI’s outputs. The Badger also thinks it’s a reminder that we must never allow AI to autonomously rule the world…

Digital backlash…

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI, Backlash, Digital technology, Information Technology, Life, Online Services, social media, Technology

The Artemis mission around the dark side of the moon, the sight of humanoid robots running a half marathon (here and here), Anthropic’s Claude Mythos AI model and comments by ex-PM Rishi Sunak, all illustrate the power and relentless advance of digital technology. Having a decades-long career in the IT industry, it’s been routine for the Badger to deal with perpetual change in digital technology. The rapidity of that change kept the Badger and his colleagues motivated, challenged, learning and eager for new skills, and greatly satisfied when systems were delivered to clients and put into operational use. With this background you might think the Badger is an ardent digital technophile today, but he’s not. He’s ‘neutral’ with no strong affinity for, or aversion to, digital technology. He’s not overly enthusiastic about digital technology’s constant impact on our lives, but not overly critical of it either. Why is that?

The answer lies in three points: there’s no putting digital advances back in the box once they exist, not all digital technology is good for society, and digital technology dominated by a handful of individuals, corporations, or countries does not lead to a focus on benefiting humanity as a whole. Regarding the first point, innovation is a human attribute that will always produce advances, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s the second and third points which have moved the Badger to ‘neutral’ over the last decade, because digital technology has taken over our lives by stealth, driven ostensibly by agendas set by giant US and Chinese corporations controlled by a handful of individuals. Regulators have been slow, and tech giants have strongly resisted the introduction of sensible new laws that benefit wider society at every turn because of the threat to their own agendas. Digital advances have infiltrated society by default and diffusion without too much regard for the impact on the public. AI simply illustrates the point. Philosophical objectivity is thus at the heart of why the Badger’s become a neutral rather than ardent technophile.

Everyone today is more aware than ever before of digital technology’s downsides. There’s a growing willingness for the public to push back on the digital world. The UK government backtracked on Digital ID ambitions after a backlash, there’s a growing backlash against AI in the US (see here, here, and here), Swedish schools are cutting back on digital learning and returning to books, pen, and paper, numerous countries are  moving to ban social media for under 16s, a ban on children using smartphones at school has just been announced in the UK, and big tech has just lost a landmark social media addiction case. Society’s pushing back and questioning an unrestrained digital world more and more, and this backlash seems likely to grow with time. Indeed, with the world as it is today, the Badger’s unlikely to move from a neutral affinity any time soon…

Rage against the screen…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Education, Engineering, Information Technology, Learning, Lego, Life, Online Safety, social media, Transport

The Badger’s 6-year-old grandson likes trains! Books about trains, Brio train sets, and Lego trains are favourite toys, but seeing and riding on real trains brings a special sparkle to his eyes. He loves to watch steam engines chuff along the Watercress Line, see historic locomotives in museums, ride miniature railways at visitor attractions, and travel on the regular trains that commuters use every day. He’s fascinated by how trains work, which is great, but his persistent questions about ‘how’ and ‘why’ can sometimes be wearing!

Last weekend the Badger and his grandson did something that didn’t relate to trains. We visited the Tangmere Military Aviation Museum, a small place with a number of static military jets as well as memorabilia from when Tangmere was a World War II RAF fighter base. The visit spawned an observation about 6-year-olds that he had not anticipated. At each exhibit there’s a computer that can be used to engage with the exhibit’s story, pull up photographs, and watch film clips. At many exhibits it’s possible to sit in the cockpit, peer into the fuselage, and use a computerized simulator. The Badger’s grandson observed that planes are engineered and work differently to trains!

It was all fun, but the Badger noticed that his grandson preferred using the computers rather than engaging physically with the exhibit itself. For example, the Canberra has part of the fuselage removed so visitors can easily lean in to see the environment around the pilot and crew. Adjacent to the jet is a computer showing images streamed from a camera mounted inside the fuselage. The camera can be panned through 360 degrees using a mouse and the user can zoom in on any part of the pilot and crew area. This 6-year-old used this computer rather than physically looking inside the fuselage. This preference was clear with other exhibits too. Seeing that ‘the screen’ had a greater pull with the youngster than exploring the exhibit physically made the Badger uneasy. If youngsters in their early formative years prefer screens to engaging with the physical real world, then we should surely all be worried.

On the car radio driving home, the Badger listened to the CEO of Mumsnet, being interviewed about Mumsnet’s ‘Rage against the Screen’ campaign which is calling on politicians to ban social media for under-16s, stop Big Tech using data to target children with addictive algorithms, and to put children’s safety and wellbeing ahead of platform profits. The Badger found himself agreeing with the points made. In the UK, you must be 16 years or older to do many things (see here), so why not ban social media for under 16s? If the Badger’s grandson is already ‘virtual rather than physical world first’ at the age of 6, then ‘Raging against the Screen’ is surely a campaign that needs to succeed…   

Drone – The word of the decade…

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI, Automation, Conflict, Defence, Drones, Information Technology, Intelligent machines, Life, Security, Technology

Most people try to live the best life they can, and most want to live in a world where rules help their chances of doing so. Most don’t want to live in a world dominated by those who ignore or flout rules to suit their own purpose. The world order, however, is changing, the United Nations appears toothless, and disruptive geriatric leaders are making life hard for everyone. Conflicts around the world are making ordinary people increasingly worried, but anyone who wants to live their best life must focus on the things they can control and change rather than worry about the things they can’t. That’s sound guidance, but easier said than done.

The future is more uncertain today than for many years, and so when an old IT colleague asked what the Badger’s word or phrase of the 2020/30 decade would likely be, they didn’t get the answer they expected. They anticipated phrases like ‘Artificial Intelligence’, ‘machine learning’ or ‘deep fake’, but the Badger’s answer was one word, namely ‘Drone’. There’re still some years of the decade to go, but on the evidence so far, and with further rapid tech advances inevitable in the coming years, the Badger feels that he’s unlikely to change his mind about his choice of word.

‘Drone’ is a word that’s growing in importance for anyone who wants to live the best life they can. It’s a fascinating word with a range of biological, sonic, technological, and metaphorical uses. For example, drone is a function, a sound, and a warning and a weapon. It can describe the buzz of a bee, the whirl of a machine, a worker, some of humanity’s most advanced tools, and a shadow overhead to be feared by civilian and military personnel alike. Ten years ago, it was mainly used to refer to bees or the experimental technology of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), but at the start of this decade it became used mostly as a descriptor for any autonomous or remotely controlled civilian or military flying object. Today it is a blanket term for any man-made, autonomous, or remotely controlled flying object that can perform any civilian or military function. When someone uses the word today, it will mostly be in the context of weapons used in Ukraine and the Middle East, and not bees!

Declaring ‘the word of the decade’ halfway through a decade might be foolhardy, but the Badger’s sticking with it, because he feels that clever, man-made, affordable, flying objects for civilian and military purposes will continue to evolve rapidly and become a historically significant feature of this decade. Meanwhile, the bee population, essential pollinators in nature, is in decline. Somehow the word ‘drone’ highlights that humans have their priorities the wrong way round. If you want to live your best life, then change something – plant something in the garden to attract bees…

Electricity – The lifeblood and Achilles heel of the modern world…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Disaster recovery, Electricity, Information Technology, Life, Online Services, Risk, Technology

Risk, an unavoidable aspect of daily life, is the possibility of something bad happening. Every personal activity and decision we take involves some level of risk. Understanding this, and managing risk responsibly, builds self-confidence, resilience, independence, and fulfilment. Risk is inescapable for businesses and governments too. Most maintain risk registers and have plans to manage the consequences should they happen. The public version of the UK’s National Risk Register, for example, is here.  A few days ago, the Badger’s home experienced a power cut following heavy rain in the area. It was the first for many years and so it reminded the Badger of just how dependent we are in today’s world on electricity. It’s the lifeblood of the modern digital world, but also its Achilles heel. The Heathrow  shut down of March 2025,  the Iberian grid collapse of April 2025, and Russia’s relentless attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, all illustrate the chaos that can be unleashed when electricity supply is  seriously disrupted. 

The Badger’s power cut set him thinking. In an age of global belligerence, could an enemy bring societal chaos to the UK without using cyber techniques or nuclear weapons? Well, yes. Simply knockout a significant number of the nation’s electricity production sites. The country’s electricity supply is vulnerable due to many things, including outdated infrastructure, and so an unexpected coordinated attack using conventional weapons on the  top dozen or so non-nuclear generation and interconnector sites would cause havoc with our daily lives. If there was also a simultaneous attack on the undersea data cables connecting the UK to the world digitally then we would experience chaos like never before.

At this point it’s worth emphasising that this is the output of the Badger’s own musing. It is not derived from having any particular insight into the measures the nation uses to protect its critical national infrastructure. But if the Badger thinks this scenario is plausible, then our defence forces and our enemies will have too, and so hopefully something similar will already be on the country’s private version of the National Risk Register. But here’s the thing. As an individual, do you spend any time thinking about how you would function during a prolonged loss of electricity and online services? Probably not. Should you? Yes, because you’ll get a flavour of the likely impact of a nationwide blackout here. 

Is it prudent to have some appropriate fallback items and mechanisms ‘in the back of a cupboard’ to use if such a scenario occurred? Of course it is. When the Badger was a child, before the modern digital world existed, one of his father’s mantras was ‘Always have something to fall back on because you never know what calamity will unfold tomorrow’. These words seem even more relevant today when electricity is the lifeblood of a modern world that’s more dangerous than it’s been for decades.

A smartwatch for wellbeing and health?

Posted on by The Information Badger in Health & Social Care, Information Technology, Life, Online Services, Privacy and Surveillance, Smartwatches, Technology

Last week the Badger attended his uncle’s 90th birthday. He sat with a group of mostly millennial adults and found himself watching how often they checked their smartphone or smartwatch, and sometimes both. Before the Badger’s uncle blew out the candles on his birthday cake, conversation in the group was convivial and centred on catching up since the last time everyone was together. A smartwatch noisily tinkled and buzzed, and the person sitting opposite the Badger got up and announced to everyone that their watch had told them they’d been sitting for too long! They walked away and returned a few minutes later. When they took their seat, they began talking in a way that sounded like a commercial for smartwatches equipped with health and wellness tracking apps.

A discussion ensued. People in the group were asked if they had smartwatches and found their health apps useful. Most younger adults nodded. A few admitted to being addicted to the well-being and health metrics their smartwatches provided. A couple said they had a smartwatch but rarely used the health and well-being functions, and the remainder, including the Badger, did not have a smartwatch. The Badger was asked why he doesn’t have a smartwatch given his IT/tech background, especially when, as the questioner put it, the health apps ‘would be beneficial at your age.’  In reply, the Badger made two curt points. The first was that his solar powered but otherwise conventional watch and the smartphone in his pocket met all his needs to function while out and about in today’s world. The second was that smartwatches are not approved medical devices, and so their health metrics fundamentally provide the same health guidance that doctors have given for decades – walk more, don’t drink too much alcohol, and maintain a healthy weight. You don’t need an expensive device and constant checking of metrics to comply with that advice. The cutting of the birthday cake stopped further discussion.

While the well-being and health functions on smartwatches do, of course, encourage good health and lifestyle habits for those individuals that need such prompts, many who glance at their smartwatch dozens of times a day to check their metrics are doing so unnecessarily. Does this habitual attention to the likes of step count, heart rate, sleep quality, and sitting too long simply illustrate that people are becoming needlessly addicted to another digital device? Possibly. Smartwatch firms are profit-motivated businesses not health services, and concern about profiling, advertising, and losing control of sensitive personal data would be prudent. Remember, it’s cheaper and better for privacy to simply do what the doctor’s ordered for decades, namely walk more, drink less alcohol, and maintain a healthy weight. Concentrate on living life rather than being a slave to metrics provided by your smartwatch. After all, the Badgers sprightly uncle has reached 90 years of age by doing just that…

The Future; microchipped, monitored and tracked?

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI, Automation, Ethics & Regulation, Information Technology, Life, Privacy and Surveillance

The Badger sank onto the sofa after his infant grandson’s parents collected the little whirlwind following a weekend sleepover. The Badger had been reminded that Generation Alpha are the most digital-immersed cohort yet. Born into a world full of tech, they are digital natives from an early age, as was evident during the activities we did over the weekend. Struck by the youngster’s digital awareness and especially their independence, curiosity, and eagerness to grasp not just what things are, but also why and how they work, the Badger found himself wondering about the digital world that his grandson might encounter in the future.

From his IT experience, the Badger knows that change is continuous and disruptive for IT professionals, organisations, and the public alike. Change in the digital landscape over the last 40 years has been phenomenal. All of the following have caused upheavals on the journey to the digital world we have today: the move from mainframes to client-server and computer networks, relational databases, the PC, spreadsheets and word processing packages, mobile networks and satellite communications, mobile computing, image processing, the internet, online businesses, social media, the cloud, microchip miniaturisation, and advances in software engineering. These have changed the way organisations function, how the general public engages with them, and how people interact with family, friends, and others globally. AI is essentially another transformative upheaval, and one that will impact Generation Alpha and future generations the most.

Data, especially personal data, is the ‘oil’ of today’s and tomorrow’s digital world, and the entities that hold and control it will use it to progress their own objectives. With AI and the automation of everything, the thirst for our data is unlikely to be quenched, which should make us worry about the digital world for Generation Alpha and beyond. Why? Because humans in the hands of tech, rather than the other way around, increasingly seems to be the direction of travel for our world. The UK government’s announcement of a digital ID ‘to help tackle illegal migration, make accessing government services easier, and enable wider efficiencies’ has made the Badger a little uneasy about the digital world his grandson will experience. A backlash, as illustrated by this petition to Parliament, illustrates the scale of worry that it’s a step towards mass surveillance and state control. Governments, after all, do not have good track records in delivering what they say they will.

As the Badger started to doze on the sofa, he envisaged a future where humans are microchipped and have their lives monitored and tracked in real time from birth to death, as happens with farm animals. He resolved to make sure his grandson learns about protecting his personal data and that he values a life with personal freedom rather than control by digital facilities. The Badger then succumbed to sleep, worn out from activities with a member of Generation Alpha…  

A week without access to the online world…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Information Technology, Internet, Life, Online Services, social media, Wellbeing

Are you brave enough to survive for a week without accessing the online world using your personal smartphone, tablet, laptop, or desktop? This was the question asked by the Badger’s wife shortly before the Badger and his millennial son departed for a short adventure on the North Devon coast last week. We answered affirmatively but decided to take our smartphones, which would remain switched off all week, in case they were needed in an emergency. We all saw this as commonsense given our intent to walk the rugged North Devon coastal path which, at the time, was covered by a yellow weather warning for high wind and rain. With a little trepidation about relinquishing personal access to the virtual world by taking no laptops or tablets and only having switched off smartphones in our pockets, we departed for North Devon wondering how long it would take before we succumbed to turning on our phones. Did we survive the week without succumbing to temptation? Of course we did.

The first evening at our destination was unsurprisingly difficult given that everyone today has become conditioned to having instant access to communication, banking, shopping, social media, and the internet through personal devices. People in the UK, for example, apparently check their smartphones every ten minutes, so imagine how you’d feel if this wasn’t possible. It took an iron will, some beers, and some proper conversation about the world that evening to keep our discipline and not succumb to switching on our smartphones.

The subsequent days were easier. Walking the coastal path in blustery, variable weather concentrated the mind on real, rather than virtual, world matters. The dormant smartphones in our pockets provided reassurance as we walked, but they stayed unused because no emergencies arose. In fact, we never turned them on all week. On the final night of our stay, we visited a bar and reflected on our week of virtual-world disconnection while watching a magnificent sunset over a choppy sea. We realised that our ‘fear of missing out’ from having no access to the virtual world had disappeared within 48 hours of arriving in Devon. We were proud to have resisted the temptation to use our smartphones, and we felt that detachment from the online world, and its pushed content, had contributed to how refreshed we felt mentally and physically.

We drove home the next morning and then ceremonially turned on our smartphones. We had, as expected, missed nothing of substance by our detachment from the virtual world for a week. This prompted the Badger’s son to state that although the online world has its place in modern life, real life will always go on if it’s not there. That’s a truth. The question is, are you brave and disciplined enough to survive without access from personal devices to the online world the next time you take a short break? If not, why not?

Nuclear reactors on the moon – a geopolitical investment in future dominance of Space…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Information Technology, Leadership, Life, Nuclear Power, Satellites, Space, Technology

The building of software and systems for Space missions, and to control satellites and process associated data, was an interesting and  fascinating area throughout the Badger’s IT career. Today it’s easy to forget that the imagery we take for granted with the weather forecast is produced by systems and software created by developers with excellent science,  engineering, and computing credentials, most of whom have little interest in working outside the Space sector. The Badger observed, over the years, that developers in this area often preferred to leave for another Space sector company rather than be assigned to a project outside the sector if there was a lull in available projects.

The Badger thus had two initial thoughts when the US announced an acceleration of its plans to put a nuclear reactor on the moon. The first was ‘Great. More opportunities for developers in the Space sector if AI hasn’t taken their jobs’. The second was more philosophical and about the tension between visionary ambitions and pragmatic, grounded responsibility. The US plan, and the equivalents of Russia and China, is driven by a mix of strategic, technological, and geopolitical motives. However, is it sensible and in humanity’s interest for the Earth’s most powerful nations to spend huge amounts of money on Space endeavours when there’s a pressing need for it to be spent resolving problems on our planet? Should there be investment in long-term Space infrastructure that might, a long time from now, redefine humanity’s future? The answers depend, of course, on your perspective on life and our world.

Some see Space endeavours as a driver of innovation and ultimate human survival, whereas others see them as distractions from addressing real problems here on Earth. To the Badger, all plans for a nuclear reactor on the moon simply illustrate the shift away from an ethos of inquisitive exploration to one of establishing national strategic dominance making Space a domain of economic leverage, diplomacy, and warfare. Regardless of who does it, putting a reactor on the moon is an outright geopolitical investment in establishing future dominance. The prospect of the geopolitical tensions we see on Earth playing out on the Moon and beyond seems, at least to the Badger, grotesque.

Investments in Space endeavours push technological boundaries, reshape thinking, and stimulate innovation, but the fact is that humans are biologically unsuited to the environment beyond our planet is undeniable. So, in an age of automation, robotics, and AI, why spend huge sums sending and supporting humans on the Moon and beyond when robots can do the same job and the savings can be used to address humanity’s issues here on Earth? Is that idealism? Perhaps, but all it would take is leadership on behalf of all of humanity rather than individual nations. And there’s the rub, the likelihood of that ever happening, of course, is…er…zero.