Britain has become a pioneer in Artificial Unintelligence

In some countries, the study and pursuit of Artificial Intelligence (AI) proceeds apace, while in this country the practice of Artificial Unintelligence (AU) becomes ever more widespread.

AU is the means by which people of perfectly adequate natural intelligence are transformed by policies, procedures and protocols into animate but inflexible cogs. They speak and behave, but do not think or decide. They are always only carrying out orders and stick to them through thick and thin.

AU is much in evidence in the organisation of the NHS. Its great advantage, from a certain point of view, is the multiplication of job opportunities for bureaucrats that it necessitates. But for patients, it often turns the simplest of tasks, such as the obtaining of a prescription, into a nightmarish labour of Hercules.

My wife’s situation was simple. She had seen a cardiologist who prescribed a medication for her which was effective. He gave her a prescription for two weeks, to be repeated by her general practitioner.