Editorial – July 2026: How To Lose Your Individuality.
Hello everyone,
For me, reading is a habit. I spend a couple of hours a day reading, although not all at the same time. I can, rather scarily, read two books at around the same time. Not simultaneously, of course, just a few chapters from each, provided they have different subjects. It keeps each one fresh and allows my unconscious mind to do some analysis when I switch between them, which is a rather useful skill as a reviewer. Not all the time, mind you. It depends on the reading matter.
I never expect any of my review team to have that particular skill, only the ability to form their own opinions. I’m still looking for more reviewers. I’m just not sure whether it’s the lack of variety in our genre books these days or fewer people wanting to express their own unfettered opinions.
The whole point here is to ask: is the art of reading dying out? Obviously not entirely. Reading is still handy for using the Internet, especially if you can spell properly when you’re Googling something, even if AI now corrects many minor mistakes. Mind you, you still have to recognise whether it has selected the right word or sent you off on the wrong trail. Do we really want to be corrected that much by AI? Can you always tell the difference if its choice isn’t the one you intended? So you still need the ability to spell. If you rely on spoken AI instead, you also have to assume it understands every word you say. The same problem still exists.
There’s a lot to be said for regular reading. It widens your vocabulary and lets you see how different writers express their ideas without interruption. You can’t get that from reading only a few paragraphs. It’s only one stage further to analysing and testing their arguments or spotting mistakes. Knowledge is power. So is experience. Do we really want to lose these skills simply because we don’t make time to read for its own sake?
Do we really want to hand over our ability to choose to AI rather than make our own decisions? We won’t have to worry about the likes of Skynet getting rid of mankind. It has a far easier job of turning us into mindless zombies by making AI do all our thinking for us and homogenising us because it would be easier to direct everyone towards the same things than to cope with genuinely diverse choices. No more nerds. No more freethinkers. If that trend continued, perhaps no more science fiction. AI would have achieved exactly what so much SF has warned us about. Ironic, isn’t it?
We are already walking into an AI-driven reality without really noticing. It quietly squirrels itself into everyday life without always revealing who made it, who owns it or whose interests it serves. Its accuracy still isn’t particularly good and, from what I’ve seen of Google’s AI, there often seems to be no obvious mechanism for correcting its mistakes.
The thing is, AI is improving all the time. I might make a song and dance about spelling and speech recognition, but those areas are advancing rapidly. It’s when AI starts making choices on your behalf that it enters more dangerous territory. Is the selection based on what is genuinely best, or on the interests of the company behind it? Does it freely include competitors? More importantly, does it even know whether the information it is presenting is accurate?
I put that very question to Google’s AI and received this response:
“Always verify my answers using trusted sources, especially for critical decisions. To help you evaluate my information, I provide citations, quote original sources, and cross-reference multiple platforms. For subjective topics, I attribute opinions to their specific communities. However, always double-check important claims with established, official bodies.”
So, how many of you actually check elsewhere after receiving an answer? Therein lies the problem. Despite seeing errors creep into conventional Google searches, and now into its AI-enhanced versions, many people still rely on them as their primary source of information and then have to decide which answer is correct. Few people check the original source material, let alone evaluate how reliable it really is. Can you honestly see that changing?
It’s different for people of my generation. We learnt to think before computers became part of everyday life. Much of the time, looking something up on Google is simply a way of verifying information we already half remember. Younger generations don’t necessarily have that same knowledge base, nor always the same interest in history to provide context. We’ve already seen in some countries how easily people become tangled because they struggle to distinguish real news from fake news.
The knowledge gap is becoming wider and increasingly specialised. How many of you who use social media ever stray very far beyond your own interest groups? If anything, that simply makes it easier for advertisers to target you, especially when your activity is monitored and increasingly guided by AI that often doesn’t even identify itself. Alexa and other home AI systems are always listening. They may help some people feel less alone, but AI isn’t actually your friend. It’s a monitor. It doesn’t truly understand the difference.
Within a few generations we could easily end up with people who no longer recognise genuine free will, even if they stumbled across it.
The obvious question to ask is whether mankind really deserves this. As I said, we’re already seeing examples of it. We need established international rules governing AI use. We certainly need AI systems to identify themselves whenever they are being used, along with some sort of credibility rating showing how accurate they are and how much trust you should place in their responses. If nothing else, it would encourage the various manufacturers to raise their game and improve accuracy beyond where it currently stands, because it still isn’t good enough. You only have to try searching for a photographic reference to see how variable the results can be.
The human race has various rules, covering everything from grammar to acceptable behaviour. AI needs rules as well, together with better supervision. One AI had to be taken off-line because of inappropriate dialogue, although I doubt it understood the difference as it was simply copying its users. With multiple users interacting all the time, patterns of usage need to be monitored, while still preserving confidentiality where appropriate. Such statistics should be available to users. We need responsible AI and responsible use of it, not for it to usurp mankind.
It will happen if we allow AI to become too involved in our lives and, really, do we want to be surrounded by people who can no longer make up their own minds? Mind you, it certainly makes people easier to manipulate. Assertiveness is part of what makes us human. Doing something that doesn’t leave you beholden to a computer or mobile phone screen is one way of showing you still have some independence.
Thank you, take care, good night, and watch what you tell any AI about yourself, because it may well tell others.
Geoff Willmetts
editor: www.SFcrowsnest.info
A Zen thought: I’m not over the hill. I haven’t even reached the top yet.
What Qualities Does A Geek Have: The right to question AI supremacy.
The Reveal: Age is only a number governed by retirement age.
Observation: This might only be me, or perhaps anyone with Irritable Bowel Syndrome who has a limited diet, but I stopped eating up to a dozen raspberries a day last year because I thought they were causing me problems. Having recently started eating them regularly again, my maths mojo, memory and attention span all seem to have improved. If you have a balanced diet, you’re probably already getting enough manganese. If this works for you, let me know using the email address at the bottom of the editorial.
Observation: Has anyone ever wondered why you have to take care when posting social media handles?
Observation: You do have to wonder what the other Predators were doing aboard their starship while their sibling was out hunting in Los Angeles in the 1990 film Predator 2. Maybe they were practising their dance moves. While we’re on the subject of that film, Scorpio’s gang seem rather fond of sherbet, don’t they? By the way, Google’s AI gets it wrong. “Shit happens” beats all of its suggested alternatives by several years.
Observation: This is probably a UK thing, but how many of you actually read the small print in advertisements? The advertisers might be required by law to include it, but not to make sure you can read it quickly enough.
Feeling Stressed: Wait until the sun comes out.
Submissions:-
If having free books to review isn’t enough, how about reading them months before everyone else? Real months. Beats owning a time machine.
I originally thought that having lots of text explaining how to submit material to SFcrowsnest would attract the sort of people who compulsively read everything and understand things the geek way. The main problem with the Internet is that it encourages people to read less, so perhaps it’s time for a different approach. The original notes will remain on the July 2009 editorial, although the links there are unlikely to work now.
When you send your covering email, tell me something about yourself so I’m not working in a vacuum. The boss in the tower, also known as Stephen Hunt, describes me as a “Dutch Uncle”, meaning I’m good at giving advice and explaining where I think something has gone wrong. Leave your ego at the door. I’m interested in your talent and how to help you improve it.
Reviews
I always have a clarion call for new reviewers. If you have the desire to learn, you’ll quickly pick up the ropes, even if you’ve never reviewed before. However, you must first show me a sample of your writing, especially if you think you can follow our review guidelines. We can usually obtain paper books in the UK, but if you live overseas you may have to stick to ebooks.
If you’ve chosen a book we haven’t already reviewed, it stands a much better chance of being assigned, so use the SFcrowsnest search engine first. More importantly, I need to see how you would write for us.
The obvious qualification is a desire to read regularly and to tell others about a book without giving away too many spoilers. The reward is access to free books in exchange for the price of writing a review.
I want to give you every opportunity to get things right, so please read our Review Guidelines first:
Fiction
Although we can’t pay for submissions, we do offer exposure. Only the Sci-Fi Channel receives more hits than we do, so it’s worthwhile having SFcrowsnest on your writer’s CV.
Please avoid sending extracts from books you’re currently writing or have already had published elsewhere, as I do check. New, original work is always preferred. Whether I accept or reject a submission, I’ll explain any problems I find so you can improve your work. You’ll also get a grammar check that is on a professional level. Even the boss finds me scarily accurate.
Flash or One-Page Fiction
Speaks for itself. The shortest fiction is often the hardest to write because not a single word can be wasted.
Details can be found here:
Short Stories
My definition of a short story is anything up to about 30 pages. Beyond that, you’re really writing a novella. Bear in mind that you want people to read your work online, so somewhere between five and twenty pages is probably ideal.
Digitally, you don’t need to double-space your manuscript because HTML takes care of the formatting automatically, but do think about being concise. If you want to send an attachment, ask first and send it as a TXT file, as that removes most troublesome virus macros.
You can read the short story guidelines here:
https://www.sfcrowsnest.info/so-you-really-want-to-write-an-sf-story-an-update-by-gf-willmetts/
Finally
The biggest problem I see in submitted samples is poor grammar. I don’t expect perfection, but the less time I have to spend correcting grammar, the more time I can devote to helping with other aspects of your writing. Good grammar will also serve you well if you ever submit to traditional publishers, because poor grammar is one of the quickest ways to have a manuscript rejected.
Good grammar is one of the essential tools of any writer. Don’t rely solely on what you remember from school. There are plenty of excellent grammar books available, so refresh yourself on the rules. If there seem to be too many to remember, master the major ones first before moving on to the finer points. Eventually, they become second nature.
This guide covers many of the most common problems:
https://www.sfcrowsnest.info/the-guide-to-better-grammar-from-the-harrowed-hand-of-gf-willmetts/
To submit material, use our email address by removing the spaces shown here: letters @ SFcrowsnest.info. Please make the subject line clear about what you’re submitting.
If you have any hobbies or pastimes that help pass the time in captivity, let me know and we’ll see if they can be turned into an article.
Comments directly on reviews should continue to work as before.
Good luck.
Geoff
