Christopher Howse has narrated this article for you to listen to.
I was growing impatient with a recent blog by Sam Altman, who runs OpenAI, promising progress, universal prosperity, ‘a space colony, and the discovery of all of physics’ through artificial intelligence. I won’t go over that ground now, because I suddenly sat up at a passing remark he made: ‘Nobody is looking back at the past, wishing they were a lamplighter.’
Stephen’s task for Paddington council was to cycle round with his ladder fixing street lamps on the blink
I’m not so sure. I used to know a lamplighter and I miss his company. His name was Stephen Fothergill, and in the 1980s he was a welcome sight in the French pub in Dean Street, Soho, late in the evening. Tall and grey-haired with a sharp nose that often seemed nipped with cold, he would be dressed in a long drab raincoat.
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