Category: Risk

The digital world – a public nuisance?

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI, Business, Digital technology, Information Technology, Life, Risk, Science, Technology, Transformation, Wellbeing

The old coin/card ticket machines in the local High Street’s car park have been replaced by swanky touch-screen units that only take contactless payment. To be fair, there’s one new machine in the car park that still purports to take coins and contactless payment, although nobody has so far been able to get it to actually accept coins! There’s something else too. It’s an open-air car park and the screens on the new units are hardly readable on a bright sunny day. The new machines are straightforward to use once you know how, but earlier this week the only functioning machine was the one purporting to take coins as well as contactless payments. There was a queue, which the Badger joined, but the pensioner at the head of the queue was having trouble getting the machine to accept their contactless card payment. Giving up, they tried coins instead, and that didn’t work either. The flummoxed pensioner thought there was something wrong with their bank card. A kind lady stepped in and said she’d pay for the pensioner’s ticket using her own card. That didn’t work either, causing the lady and the pensioner to grumble ‘The digital world is a public nuisance’.

The Badger subsequently cogitated on whether the digital world is indeed a public nuisance. Putting the legalities of what constitutes a public nuisance to one side, whether the digital world’s a nuisance depends on your perspective. Grandparents, parents, young adults, and children have different perspectives, but research across this age spectrum apparently suggests that views are not purely yes or purely no, but definitely not neutral. Many think the digital world enhances social interactions, learning opportunities, business efficiency, innovation, convenience, and so on. However, many believe it’s become a nuisance because a) it’s dominated by self-interested major corporations who put their profits rather than users first, and b) it lessens person to person physical contact, encourages excessive screen time, distorts our sense of reality, erodes personal privacy, is an enormous source of mis and disinformation, and causes mental, health, and behavioural issues in young adults, children, and vulnerable groups.

Does the Badger think the digital world’s a public nuisance? No…but beginning to lean towards yes! No, because a lengthy career in the IT industry showed that in the right hands, with good laws, controls, and ethical and moral human behaviour within acceptable societal norms, the digital world produces enormous benefits and is a good servant to mankind. Why leaning towards yes? Because although the science relating to the digital world’s impact on humanity has been too slow over the last few decades, it’s now confirming that nuisances are real and often harmful. It’s thus reasonable to conclude that mankind is fast becoming a servant to the digital world when it should be the other way round, and that AI is destined to reinforce this in the coming years…

Suppliers, AI, and putting lipstick on a pig…

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI, Information Technology, Procurement, Risk, Sales, Software

While browsing in a Waterstone’s bookshop, the Badger overheard two people talking about a book. One said to the other: ‘They’ve changed the cover from the copy I read years ago’. The other replied: ‘I think they’re putting lipstick on a pig to sell more copies because it’s a difficult read’. The phrase ‘putting lipstick on a pig’ triggered memories of the Badger’s first ever assignment – as a software developer – in the IT industry. The Badger was part of a team developing a software product, and his team leader – a clever guy experienced in product design, development, and also the offerings of competitors – was a frequent user of the phrase. For example, when news arrived that a competitor had vastly improved the user interface to their product, the team leader commented that they were ‘putting lipstick on a pig’ because there was no change to their product’s questionable underlying architecture. Similarly, if someone on the team produced a software subsystem that was full of defects, the team leader would insist on redesign and reimplementation of the subsystem because fixing individual defects was ‘putting lipstick on a pig’ when something was clearly amiss with the original design and coding.

The phrase is widely used to mean that making superficial changes to something may improve its appearance, but any core underlying issues or characteristics remain unchanged (see this neat YouTube item). Throughout his career, the Badger’s heard the phrase used in all kinds of situations by business leaders, line managers, salespeople, delivery and technical people alike. During the late1990s, customer demand for long-established software products to have web user interfaces was growing. The Badger recalls his company’s salespeople clamouring for the firm’s software products to be upgraded, and developers pointing out that this meant a costly overhaul of product architectures which neither the company nor its clients wanted to fund. It was decided that the way forward was bolt-on solutions that looked the part for the end user without really addressing the underlying architectural issues. Internally, the phrase ‘putting lipstick on a pig’ subsequently became commonplace to describe this solution.

Today, of course, AI is sweeping through the IT industry, and most companies have been addressing its impact on their established and installed software products, and their own internal business, development, delivery, and service operations. Why? Because to have a viable commercial future, they must. Every company thus has an AI story for their clients. As a client, however, how do you know that your supplier’s AI product upgrade or new solution isn’t just ‘putting lipstick on a pig’? You don’t, unless you do a rigorous, objective evaluation to fully understand what you are getting and on what basis. Doing proper evaluations, however, has always been good practice when buying things, and it’s even more important today when dealing with suppliers in the AI era…

AI – A weapon of mass destruction?

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI, Information Technology, Public safety, Risk

When members of the public hear the phrase ‘weapon of mass destruction’ or the acronym WMD their first thoughts tend to be of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Such weapons, whether we like it or not, have always coincided with advancements in one field or another of science or technology.  For example, nuclear fission was first demonstrated in the late 1930s. Shortly afterwards, the first nuclear reactor demonstrated the feasibility of controlling nuclear reactions, which paved the way for civilian nuclear power generation.  And then the nuclear bomb came too. Similarly, advances in chemistry, microbiology and genetic engineering not only paved the way for positive medical benefits for humans and society as a whole, but also the chemical and biological weapons that could eliminate humanity’s existence. There’s an uncomfortable truth about weapons of mass destruction – they always evolve from, and are a negative aspect of, humanity’s ingenuity. 

On reading that an OpenAI experimental AI model had escaped a test environment and hacked another company’s production systems with no human direction, the Badger’s first thought was that the dynamic described above is happening. AI may yield benefits for society, but it may also be a new WMD – a digital one.  Whereas the development of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons relied heavily on human expertise, physical materials, and infrastructure, this AI model breach demonstrates that the boundary of what constitutes a weapon of mass destruction is expanding, and that the need for human expertise in consciously producing any kind of WMD is a rapidly diminishing factor.  For the average member of the public, the detail of why OpenAI’s AI model went ‘rogue’ is irrelevant because they simply see the breach as a demonstration that the threat from completely autonomous AI is real. They also see it as an illustration that AI acting beyond human expectations means the technology might not be safe in the hands of corporations seeking commercial gain.

Digital technology underpins everyday life and modern warfare today. Over decades the public have become conditioned into thinking that WMDs threaten humanity through either violently explosive, or biologically/chemically toxic mechanisms. The time’s come, perhaps, in our digital-first world for people to broaden their thinking to include AI as a possible weapon of mass destruction. Cyber-attacks are commonplace these days (e.g. see here), and so it isn’t outrageous to envisage AI as a WMD that could bring the whole digital world we rely on for modern life to it’s knees. This might not produce the immediacy of mass death from nuclear or biological/chemical weapons, but it would certainly produce anarchy and its associated human tragedies. The OpenAI breach highlights something uncomfortable. Human ingenuity is a strength, but also a huge weakness that could lead us to be the first species on the planet to be wiped out through its own endeavours rather than natural events.  

Are you prepared for emergencies or disruptions?

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI, Business Continuity, Defence, Information Technology, International Relations, Public safety, Risk

Well done Spain for winning the World Cup, and well done England and France for providing an entertaining game for third place. Well done Wayne Rooney too for describing the final’s half-time entertainment so aptly! But now for something completely different. This week is the Farnborough International Air Show where the latest aerospace technology provides a reminder of the awesome rapidity of technological advances and also of the current hostile threat landscape that must be countered. It’s a dangerous world and so recent reports – see here and here – that the UK will, in 2027, hold its largest home defence exercise in decades, is good news. There will also apparently be a public awareness campaign later this year to inform everyone about the small steps they can take to be prepared in case of emergencies or disruptions. This seems long overdue when modern life relies on ‘digital first’ for everything.

The Badger’s parents kept candles, matches, some empty glass jam jars, a torch with spare batteries, some pencils and paper, and some tins of corned beef, SPAM, and vegetables in the back of a cupboard for emergencies. The Badger often asked whether this was necessary, and the answer was always ‘yes, because nobody knows what tomorrow will bring’. Their generation lived the hardships of World War II and its aftermath, and so their caution was understandable. In fact, their emergency candles, matches, and glass jars, often proved invaluable during prolonged power cuts when the Badger was a child. During these they sometimes enabled the Badger to complete his homework! Their simple emergency preparedness measures were sensible, especially when the world is rarely as benign or predictable as you’d wish it to be.

Today, we depend on immediacy, just-in-time supply chains, and the tech devices, communication networks, and digital data flows that make the modern world function. Online banking, online purchasing, social media, and even AI are useless if your ability to connect disappears! What would you do if electricity were suddenly unavailable for weeks? How would you get up to date information? How would you cope if supermarket shelves quickly emptied? Do you know how you would function if hostile actors damaged the ~60 undersea cables that connect the UK to the outside world? Have you ever thought about your own emergency preparedness? As individuals we rarely think about such questions. While the authorities and big business have emergency response plans, implementing them is never straightforward in practice. In the current world climate, not having some level of personal preparedness for emergencies or disruptions seems akin to putting one’s head in the sand.

The message here is thus simple. Don’t wait for an awareness campaign to start thinking about having a modern equivalent of ‘something at the back of the cupboard for emergencies’. Start now! It’s the responsible thing to do…

Land for food versus AI and Solar Power…

Posted on by The Information Badger in Agriculture, AI, Data Centres, Electricity, Information Technology, Leadership, Property, Risk

Love him or hate him, Jeremy Clarkson and the Amazon ‘Clarkson’s Farm’ series have highlighted the reality of British Farming more than any other programme. Farming is tough. The hours, bureaucracy, and regulations are horrendous, and making a meagre profit is an   unrelenting challenge. Fifty years ago, the UK imported ~35% of its food and today it’s around 40%. For an island with prime agricultural land, one might expect the country to want to maximise the use of every inch of it to achieve greater food self-sufficiency, especially given lessons from the COVID pandemic, the Ukraine and Middle East conflicts, and other geopolitical tensions. Sadly, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Prime agricultural land, as the article here illustrates, is under attack. Rather than being used for food, it’s being converted into huge solar farms because ‘the only way to have energy security is if we take a pro-growth approach to building more clean energy in Britain’. That’s ideological balderdash, of course, from a government minister who’s just overruled the recommendations of his own inspectors to approve the use of prime agricultural land for a massive solar farm.

Fifty years ago, ~95% of our electricity was generated using coal and oil, half of which was imported. Today the UK mix of electricity generation is very different, as can be seen on the live energy dashboard here. At the time of writing, solar is 27%, wind 25%, nuclear 8% and 23% is imported across interconnectors with Europe. Our electricity generation self-sufficiency has improved way more than our food self-sufficiency over the last 50 years, so why use prime agricultural land for even more capacity? Why not use brownfield sites or car parks? The answer, the Badger senses, may rest in something JD Vance, the US Vice President, said recently, namely ‘the UK has been failed by its leadership for a long time’. An uncomfortable truth, perhaps, particularly when it comes to the use of prime agricultural land.

The Badger’s not a farmer, so why this focus on the use of agricultural land? Because our countryside, and everything in it, is being eroded to develop huge solar farms and huge electricity and water hungry, AI data centres – see here, here, here, and here, for example. AI fever, anti-fossil fuel zealotry, and ideological dogma seem to trump the common sense of better food self-sufficiency and preservation of our ‘green and pleasant land’. In 1804, William Blake used this phrase in his poem, Jerusalem, to reflect a longing for a simpler, calmer country during the Industrial Revolution. This still resonates today with AI and electricity at the heart of a modern industrial revolution. Will the UK’s new Prime Minister prove JD Vance wrong, preserve the UK’s ‘green and pleasant land’, keep AI and ideological zealotry in check, and improve food self-sufficiency? Don’t hold your breath…

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.

Do Londoners want Robotaxis?

Posted on by The Information Badger in Automotive, Autonomous vehicles, Driverless transport, Information Technology, Public safety, Risk, robotaxis, Smart City, Technology, Transport

When a government says it will introduce new rules in the second half of 2026 to permit fully driverless taxis to start operating in London, then some scepticism seems appropriate. Waymo, owned by tech giant Alphabet, plans to launch a pilot in London in the coming months and aims to carry fare-paying passengers later in 2026 when regulations allow. Why is it prudent to be a little sceptical, especially if you’ve had a strong relationship with digital and information technology for years? Well, this short video from a YouTuber answer’s neatly. It’s also always prudent to be wary of positions asserted by governments. After all, the 2001 vehicle tax changes to encourage diesel car ownership to lower CO2 emissions didn’t actually prove to be the right one for either the public or the environment.

There’s been significant trials of autonomous vehicles in the UK since 2015, and there’s no doubt that the organisations and commercial companies involved have learned a lot. The Badger knows that the integration of vehicle LIDAR, RADAR, Cameras, and computing with Machine Learning and AI in robotaxis has moved forward impressively in recent the years, but here’s the thing. While companies like Waymo and others have a vested interest in making a commercial return on their investments in driverless taxis, and government wants to be at the forefront of innovation, do Londoners actually want driverless taxis navigating their streets? The Badger doesn’t know, but he got an inkling of what the answer might be when chatting to his nephew, a second-year physics student at university in London, recently.

The Badger’s nephew, a heavy user of digital tech, said he would not use a driverless taxi in London. He cited concern about how personal data would be used, that they are obvious targets for cyber-attacks, concern about accidents, price, uncertainty about liabilities and responsibilities, the environmental impact of the computing resources involved, and whether the case for robotaxis in London really stacks up! This latter point chimes with one made by the YouTuber above. He also made two other points. The first was that UK roads have become pothole-ridden danger zones, especially in the rain when the holes are filled with water and become invisible, and so repairing the roads to make them safe for everyone should be a much higher priority than driverless taxis. The second was that his generation still sees getting a full UK driving licence as a rite of passage and an important step to becoming independent. Good points! It seems the younger generation may be more sceptical about robotaxis in London than many think.

There may be a ‘push’ from government and big companies for robotaxis, but the ‘pull’ from Londoners might be weaker than the hype has us believe. Will robotaxis in London become both the norm and a commercial success? Time, as always, will tell…

Have the lessons from the ‘Move fast and break things’ era really been learned?

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI, Change, Information Technology, Leadership, Risk, Technology, Transformation

The first quarter of the 21st century is complete, and so it seems appropriate to reflect on a period of continuously accelerating digital innovation that has transformed how people work, play, communicate, share information, and buy things. The technological change seen so far this century differs markedly to that experienced by previous generations. It’s been fast! Previous generations experienced the impact of technological change much more slowly. The technologies the Badger’s grandfather and great-grandfather were used to in their childhoods, for example, were still central to their lives in their old age. With subsequent generations, it’s become normal for the barely imaginable technologies of their youth to become commonplace in their later life. Just think, if your ancestors could spend a week with you today, most would be wide-eyed and speechless in awe at the digital technology you use!

Digital technology has driven significant changes in society in the last 25 years, and AI will be no different. In the last 25 years, the internet has become critical global infrastructure, and the advent of smartphones has blended communication, entertainment, photography, and productivity into a single, pocket-size, device. Personal and professional interactions have become dominated by email, instant messaging, and real-time video calls rather than paper, and the way we store, access and manage large amounts of data has moved from local, physical, items like high-capacity CDs, to ‘The Cloud’ where it can be accessed from anywhere at any time. Streaming for entertainment and the online purchasing of goods have become the norm, and cyber capabilities have become crucial for militaries and policing. And then, of course, there’s social media. Whether you love it or loathe it, it’s been an addictive disruptor of everything!

All this, and much more, has happened in barely 25 years. Our lives have become deeply entangled with digital technology and the world has become more unstable. While this instability can be attributed to economic, climate, pandemic, and geopolitical factors, the digital revolution has, in the Badger’s opinion, played a significant role in societal disruption. Why? Because the early Facebook philosophy of ‘Move fast and break things’ epitomised the ethos of the companies that are today’s tech giants, and ‘Silicon Valley’ as a whole. This ethos showed scant regard for the overall societal impact of what they produced. As we are now seeing, the societal, ethical, political, and human problems this ethos produces only really manifests itself many, many years later. With AI continuing the digital revolution in the second quarter of the 21st century, a good question to ask is this: have the lessons from the impact on society of the ‘Move fast and break things’ era been learned and applied in the AI world that will be transformational in the coming decades? AI gives enormous power to those who control it, and so the Badger thinks the answer to this question is obvious. You, however, may think differently…

AI – from ‘build, baby, build’ to ‘bust, baby, bust’?

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI, Business, Delivery, Information Technology, Leadership, Risk, Technology

Every Christmas/New Year period, the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme invites well known individuals to guest-edit the programme. Each guest focuses on a topic relevant to their interests, experience, and society. Two of the Christmas 2025 guests were inventor, engineer, and businessman Sir James Dyson and the AI pioneer and entrepreneur Mustafa Suleyman.  The Badger was driving to visit relatives on the days they were guest-editing. He had the Today programme on the radio as background noise on both occasions. He turned the volume up when each man was interviewed because they were intelligent, impressive, and articulate individuals conveying enormous common-sense and objectivity, characteristics which seem in short supply today.

Their words resonated with the Badger. Sir James Dyson, for example, likes ‘doers’ rather than ‘talkers’, and Mustafa Suleyman spoke eloquently about AI and that it must be ‘a tool in the hands of and under the control of humans if it’s to benefit all of humankind’. There’s plenty of ‘talkers’ in the world, but it’s ‘doers’ like these two with vision, objectivity, commonsense, and a passion for humankind, rather than politicians, which have the greatest influence on the lives of most people. The Badger agrees that AI is a tool. There are plenty of ‘talkers’ concerned that humans would become subservient to AI, but if we let that happen then we only have ourselves to blame. There’s currently a huge ‘build, baby, build’ rush to construct new, giant, energy-hungry, AI data centres and to amass and use the chips and devices they need to function. Enormous sums are being spent around the world, the technology continues to advance way ahead of any regulation, and AI company stock market valuations are stratospheric. Having worked in IT during the dot.com era, the words of these two men made the Badger ponder more about the current AI ‘build, baby, build’ surge.

Four conclusions emerged. The first was that such surges often produce over-capacity and ‘bust, baby, bust’ outcomes (c.f. China’s property crash) with the bigger the boom, the deeper and longer the bust! The second was that AI is here to stay, but some huge AI companies will not survive even though the AI market bubble is not like the dot.com era when many companies with high valuations had no revenues. Inevitably, when investor appetite for speculative risk tightens for any reason, and it will, a painful correction will happen. The third was that eyebrows should be raised when tech companies arrange for the restart of shuttered nuclear facilities to provide electricity for their new data centres.   

The Badger’s last conclusion was that we should question whether the world’s leaders, including those of hyperscale global tech corporations, are the right kind of ‘doers’. Do they have objectivity, common-sense, and mankind’s well-being at heart, or are they just examples of Lord Acton’s 1887 line ‘Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’? Whatever the answer, 2026 looks likely to be a troublesome year…

The imagination of children – Lego and AI…

Posted on by The Information Badger in AI, Education, Information Technology, Learning, Lego, Risk, Toys

While returning home from a stroll through a glorious deciduous wood resplendent with Autumn colour, the Badger saw an interesting book in a charity shop window. He popped in and came out with a carrier bag half-full of Lego bricks of all shapes, sizes, colours, and types rather than the book! The Lego was in great condition at a bargain price and buying it for his grandson to play with when he visits seemed a no-brainer. On arriving home, the bag was emptied onto a table. There were standard bricks and bases, Technik bricks, wheels, motors, and arms, legs, torsos, heads, and hands from Lego figures, and much more. The Badger was hooked. He spent the rest of the afternoon using his imagination to produce a number of creative masterpieces! Indeed, everyday since, the Badger’s improved his masterpieces and created new ones. It’s addictive!

Lego empowers creativity, provides immediate gratification from having built something with your hands, and it helps to develop spatial reasoning, design thinking, and problem-solving. Furthermore, it encourages an understanding of mechanics through trial and error. It’s fun, educational, and great for kids (and adults) of all ages with building things often a collaborative and social activity. Kids, for example, learn from each other when they play with it together and when adults help them. Building Lego models together strengthens the bonds between individuals.

As the Badger built his own masterpieces, he remembered that Lego has been an excellent teaching aid at home and in education establishments for decades, as the recent announcement about a teenager building a robotic hand using Lego illustrates. It also struck him that Millennials were shaped by the emergence of the internet, Gen Z were moulded by social media’s evolution, and that Gen Alpha – his grandson’s generation – will be defined by the rapid expansion of AI use. The Badger senses a danger, however, that Gen Alpha may simply ask AI for ideas and instructions of what to build from a bag of bricks rather than use their own imagination and individuality to create masterpieces. Always inquisitive, the Badger asked CoPilot what could be built with a bag of mixed Lego bricks. It replied with ideas and instructions, and thus neatly illustrated that the danger of Gen Alpha outsourcing their imagination, creativity, and physical trial and error learning to AI is real.

A recent UK study found that ~22% of 8 to 12 year-old children already use generative AI tools, which – let’s remember – have not been designed from the outset with children in mind. Have the  lessons from social media’s impact on children been learned? The answer’s not obvious, which is why the Badger will be encouraging his grandson to produce his own Lego masterpieces without engaging in virtual world interactions. Another reason, of course, is that the Badger will be able to transfer knowledge and enjoy helping to build his creations too…