CARPING POINT: What would happen if we let AI give us its version of the New Dawn – or even of Cyril the Meek himself? asks Kevin Ritchie.
ARTIFICIAL intelligence (AI) is going to create a final Beatles song off fragments of notes and a couple of choruses on tape of the late great John Lennon.
In other Beatles news, South African cynics this week posted a picture of particularly glum Cyril the Meek to the tune of the Fab Four’s “Nowhere Man”.
For the unenlightened, the lyrics are particularly apt:
He’s a real nowhere man,
sitting in his nowhere land,
making all these plans for nobody …
And that’s just the first verse.
There are plenty of plans – and often it seems like a commission of enquiry and/or a committee for each. It’s not to say that some aren’t working either – like load shedding.
Contrary to widespread opinion beforehand*, we seem to have been spared much of the worst that the doomsayers said would befall us as the mercury dropped.
But, in an ANC-run administration on the threshold of its fourth decade in office, it’s a little like Whack-a-Mole; each time one problem appears to be being addressed another one raises its head.
In this case it’s the state of our water. Up in Gauteng, we tend to ignore the appalling state of the Vaal, as it flows past Emfuleni and into the relatively uninhabited hinterlands of the Free State and the Northern Cape.
It’s a bit different for Gautengers wanting to escape the mid-year chill and head off to Durban, for the traditional beach break. Unfortunately, the ANC can’t get its s*** together – or anyone’s else’s for that matter – as raw untreated effluent is pumped straight into the sea.
The net result is that the beaches are unsafe to take a dip in for the umpteenth time and a row. Whether executive mayor Mxolisi Kaunda will take his health in his hands and dip his head beneath the brine, like he did in December, is unclear.
But if it’s tough for the visitors, it’s even harder for the residents. As comedian Rory Petzer tweeted this week: “Some people bungee jump, some skydive and some even BASE jump or cliff dive. The rest of us just live in Durban.”
He’s right. If tired surfers aren’t grabbing a stool to catch their breath, they and their loved ones are trying not to be swept into the sea by cyclones and tempests – or (as happened in July 2021) an Msholozi-inspired mass looting orgy.
That’s over and above the load shedding and the Covid-19 lockdowns that have affected the entire country, which the people of Durban weren’t spared either.
Elsewhere State Capture 2.0 trundles on apace with a steady drip feed of revelations of the latest ANC leaders to be seen unduly benefiting from the influence of their office, while the lead characters of the first season mope about off camera trying to formulate their own moon-shot pact of the disaffected to rid themselves of the Ramaphosa administration.
The question is, what would happen if we let AI give us its version of the New Dawn – or even of Cyril the Meek himself? Could it be any worse?
* Beware the columnist’s curse.
** Kevin Ritchie is a seasoned former newspaper editor and current media consultant. He writes the weekly Carping Point column.
