What is interesting and new about artificial intelligence, is the perspective it gives to what we already have, natural intelligence. What I mean by natural intelligence is in part, the ability to think. And yet, we are more than thinking beings. After all it could be argued that animals, even insects have a natural intelligence. Ants, bees, work as a colony. Individual parts create an whole that is greater than the parts and the colony adapts and survives. And if you extend this simple definition, then even plants have an intelligent ‘fit’ into the world; learning to adapt and be bountiful.

It is not unreasonable to propose that a greater ‘mind’ or ‘natural intelligence’ is at work within nature, including ourselves. The sheer complexity and suddeness of evolutionary moments, have to be evidence of a hidden hand. Once the world consisted only of plants that had leaves but no flowers. Then the fossil records show an instant creation of flowers. Suddenly plants reproduced sexually instead of just shedding living parts. Suddenly the whole male / female complementarity had been conceived.

Descarte was very interested in thought and how humans were invested with a soul. The very act of thinking meant that we exist as humans was at the time, a revolutionary / evolutionary thought. It seperated thinking from the body which previously people had been close to to see. What brought about this objectivity in Descarte was his fascination with automota. In the C16 and C17 there was a fascination with human figures designed to move and mimic natural behaviours. These figures were common in places of entertainment, the homes of the wealthy and even the church. Statues of the Virgin Mary and Jesus would wink and wave at you during mass. It must have been great for believers and church attendance. And the thought of a body containing a soul was clearly the only difference between these machines and humans.

What is the difference between robots – or replicants as they were called in Blade Runner – and ourselves today? Today we have robots that can mimic human facial expressions with uncanny realism, as they converse with us. It creates a shudder down the spine that is known in the trade as the ‘uncanny valley’. They are not only able but better at logic than ourselves. Their intelligence is faster, smarter and considerable better than the clinicians for instance. They are able to diagnose diseases of the eye (of which there are thousands of permutations) in a fraction of the time and with greater accuracy than highly paid specialists.

And yet, there is always a yet, because these creations have not flowered. They have not taken the final step that the replicants take in Blade Runner, of becoming truly human – meaning containing a soul. That will be something and when it happens, we had better watch out because we will be version 1.0 and they 1.1.

Think of a railway. ‘British Rail’ was a much disliked public service company that ran the railways at the end of the twentieth century. It was poorly managed, probably underfunded and the sandwiches it provided curled at the edges. It was sold off to private business presumably as a way to solve all those problems. Now the private rail companies are poorly managed, probably underfunded and they don’t provide sandwiches; you have to buy them from the shop at the end of the platform.

What we have in the title above is a binary question. Is it one or the other? But this type of question, I think, most people can spot is over simplistic and denies the existence of complexity. In reality a railway is both a service and a business. It’s a blend, like two types of coffee bean are used to make a drink better than one can achieve on it’s own.

The question is, on a scale of ten, how much is a railway a business and how much a service? Would you agree that for a public company the service element is around eight and for a private company the service is around four. For a public company the business element is around two and for a private around six?

I have used railways as an example but the question can be applied to a variety of bodies that describe themselves as services and businesses.

Take health. At the end of the second world war, it was decided to create a National Health Service in the United Kingdom. It was thought by politicians that it is wrong for the poor to have to pay to see a doctor. They had no money and therefore no medical support. On the above scale the NHS is nine as a service and one as a business.

I live in Spain where there is both a private and public health service. If you work, you pay into the social service system and get a variety of benefits in return such as medical cover. If you don’t then you need to have health insurance or a lot of money. There are two types of hospital and two types of ambulance. If a public ambulance picks you up in the street after a heart attack and you have health insurance, you will be paying for the ambulance out of your own pocket. The two systems do not have a sharing agreement like banks do with cash machines. Ambulances may come from a long way away if you want the right company or service to arrive. Good luck.

I once sat on a committee which discussed over coffee and croissants, ‘future proofing’ a large public organisation, the police. One day the notion was brought up that the police force should be privatised. I remember I strongly objected because I could see it would open the doors to corruption and Mafia type organisations taking over. Not everyone in the room saw my point of view, which was scary.

This dichotomy can be seen in most businesses and public organisations. The cake shop selling buns to busy commuters is helping people by providing a service, whilst selling buns at a price that makes a profit.

But when you hear of local authorities having to cut their spending from 440 million pounds by 70 million pounds, you realise that the United Kingdom is taking it’s austerity policy seriously. The down side to cuts is the answer to the question, what do local authorities do?

I heard an interview on the radio with a man who lived on a rough estate in west London. Gangs ruled and knife crime and shootings were common. He was asked when this all began and he answered, when youth services were cut. When he was a child all the kids were taken out of London to the countryside where they learnt to get along because they were all the same. The result of not preventing knife crime and shootings are social and financial costs for communities and the public services like health and criminal justice. Cuts can be a false economy.

If we turn our services towards businesses, they start to fail. Just as if we turn our businesses into services, they start to fail. A bun cannot be cheap. A sticking plaster must be paid for.

To achieve success in both areas, managers must not lose sight of the aims of their organisations and know what mix of business and service they are. Politicians must know the minimum thresholds below which businesses and services just stop.

Perhaps the largest concern for voters in the recent UK referendum, was the issue of immigration. People felt that the ‘open border’ policy of the European Union was against the interest of Britain. They were concerned about their jobs and the pressure on public services and housing caused by unregulated migratory labour. The argument put forward was that by leaving the European Union, an ‘independent’ United Kingdom would regain control of it’s borders.

Did you worry about what you were being told was true or not? Perhaps you should have.

Here is a little test to see how much you really know about border control and travel within the European Union.

Most of the paperless immigrants coming to the United Kingdom come from Europe – wrong.

Most paperless immigrants come from outside the European Union, such as Africa and the Middle East.

The UK is included in the Schengen Area which is a border free travel zone. – wrong.

The UK is not in the Schengen Area.

The Republic of Ireland is included in the Schengen Area – wrong.

Both countries believe that their shared maritime borders provide greater security than ‘permeable’ the land borders of many European countries. They therefore set up their own Common Travel Area (CTA) to create border less travel within the UK and it’s islands, and Ireland.

Patrolling coastal borders for paperless immigrants is a high priority for the UK government – wrong.

When Mrs Teresa May was Home Secretary, there were three patrol boats to cover the 19,491 miles of coastline. Dorset police had to introduce their own patrols in rubber dingies as they were particularly vulnerable.

Non-EU citizens with valid visas may enjoy this free movement across borders in the Schengen Area– correct.

Criminals obtain stolen passports on the black market for this purpose.

In order to prove that an EU citizen or non-EU citizen has the right to cross a border within the Schengen Area, national police are permitted to request a passport or recognised ID, provided this is not equivalent to a border check – right.

(comment; when is a border check not a border check? Travelling from France to Spain, I encountered French Border Control officers at the last payage control in France. That’s a stop to pay your road toll, not a border check of course.)

The Channel Islands have their own border force independent of the UK – right and wrong.

The Channel Islands are within the CTA so check travellers from outside this area such as EU citizens. They do not have a single border force but two. (comment; why two border forces for such small islands?)

If you were born in Northern Ireland but wish to become a Irish Republic European Citizen, you can – correct.

The ‘Good Friday Agreement’ permits such persons to hold dual nationality and after Brexit they will expect to travel to Ireland unhindered.

There are fixed controls at Irish ports and airports, to establish where people entering have come from – true.

Even if you came from the UK, you would be checked at Dublin airport to see if you had come from within the CTA or not. (comment; intending to abandon border checks is a paradox as there is always a need to check if you need to check!)

The land border between Ireland and Northern Ireland is open without checks as a condition of the Good Friday Agreement – right.

(comment; good walls do not make good neighbours in Ireland. If you don’t have an agreed plan in place to maintain peace in the island of Ireland after Brexit, don’t have a referendum. Put simply for the benefit of politicians, don’t cross a desert without a bottle of water.)

An individual may travel to the UK without a visa if they in transit to another destination, unless that individual is intending to travel to Ireland – right

If you are coming from Afghanistan to visit your uncle in Dublin and arrive at Heathrow, you should have a visa to enter the UK and another to enter Ireland.

A person travelling from Spain to Gibraltar must show a valid passport – true

Gibraltar is part of the United Kingdom and therefore not part of the Schengen Area.

(comment; Margaret Thatcher moved Tornado jets to Gibraltar during the Falklands war to deter invasion of Gibraltar by Spain. The people of Gibraltar and the Falklands defend their UK nationality proudly and yet they were rarely mentioned in the Brexit debates.)

In truth, I am not an expert on any of this. I’ve just cribbed a few facts from Wikipedia. My main point is that even the right to travel, is a highly complex subject. It is fraught with political judgements balancing a citizens right to freedom and right to be safe and secure. In practice European Union Member countries bend rules to achieve a border control process that suits them. The UK and Republic of Ireland and few other European country’s decided not to be in the Schengen Area. They can’t blame the EU when it comes to border control and the consequences of poor government decisions. 

But even with strong border controls, they are really only paper walls. A person entering a country for whatever reason, with a valid visa or passport is potentially going to morph into a paperless immigrant by ‘overstaying’. The United Kingdom has this problem in the same way the the United States and many European countries do.

The UK will need to deal with it’s ‘ghost’ population humanely and with respect. They have a right to freedom and security as much as the indigenous population. That is what ‘democracy’ stands for, isn’t it?

Their existence was not addressed by Brexit in the debates I listened to. Trump wants them out of the USA and wall built. Australia puts them in internment camps. Will post Brexit voters want this in the next UK election?

I felt sorry for the couple featured on the news the other night. They had just won sixty million pounds on the National Lottery in the United Kingdom. They were filmed shaking the ritual bottle of carbonated liquid and spraying the contents into the cosmos. Smiles wrapped around bony faces that did not like they were used to being stretched. These were working people who were just not used to good luck.

I am disappointed by the popular expectation of lotteries by the general public in Europe, which is to make them wealthy beyond their dreams.

I don’t enter lotteries because the odds of winning are ludicrously infinitesimal. I would rather have a thousand times larger chance of winning 60,000 than win 60,000,000. And although popular opinion would not agree with me, I think that the lesser prize would bring greater contentment.

I remember hearing how one lottery winner declared that he would buy a new washing machine but otherwise his life would not change. I wonder how he got on? Did he survive the unexpected consequences of extreme and sudden wealth? So concerned are the lottery companies around the bad publicity from winners who encounter ‘problems’, that they set up a support network of advisers. Not for the winner’s well-being but to avoid any bad publicity for the lottery.

Because spending money wisely is not a skill many of us have. I live next door to some lottery winners who after ten years have reportedly, spent the lot. Their house and it’s garden could hardly be described as aesthetically pleasing and is patrolled by three large and ill disciplined dogs. The high metal boundary fence keeps the dogs in and the world out. They have never emerged and walked the five hundred metres to introduce themselves to their neighbour. I have never wanted to shake their locked gates whilst being barked at by dogs and introduce myself.

There is an assumption in the wealthy nations of the world that happiness is found through wealth and lost in poverty. Inhabitants of the poor countries aspire to this same goal thus making the yellow brick road more real. But most who have lived in Europe since birth with only moderate resources, know that it a ‘high standard of living’ does not make you ‘happy’.

To be happy is like a child at a birthday party. It knows that tomorrow life will be back to normal, but for the time being, various fantasies and pleasure fulfilments can be enjoyed.

Such fantasies follow us into adulthood and for some, end only at death.

I went to a children’s party once in the early 1960’s and at the end, all the children were given a stick of rock. One boy however didn’t get a stick of rock and I remember my annoyance with my parents who insisted I break my stick of rock and give one half to him. Their act of compassion was intended as a learning opportunity for me, for which I was not grateful but now am. For I must have learnt that the happiness shared, brings the greater contentment.

Therefore if I was on that team of advisers supporting our lucky lottery winners my pitch would be something like this;

‘Put aside the amount you need to keep you at the level of comfort you are accustomed to, for the rest of your life. Perhaps buy one thing for yourself that you have always dreamed of owning. The remainder you should give away. Now let’s think how we are going to give away so much money.’

In my view, a lottery with thirty or sixty thousand pound prizes, is far easy to manage. Winners will continue to work, if they are working age, and keep those friendships and daily routines which make them content. They can pay off part of a mortgage or accumulated loans that have been a financial burden and feel lighter in themselves. Or if they are natural savers, put the money in the bank.

Perhaps the problem really has nothing to do with money but what we expect from life. I have sat on a beach in Bali, Indonesia chatting with local people who told me that I was very lucky because I have possessions. I told them they were more wealthy because they could enjoy the best sunsets.

Somewhere in-between I guess is the place where contentment with life lies. If you want to find it, take my advice and spend your two pounds for a lottery ticket on a bus ride to somewhere beautiful.

 

The thief left it behind,

the moon at the window.

 

Basho, Zen Master on discovering a thief had taken his only possession; a begging bowl.