In your briefing today:

👋 Good morning, Early Liners! Shortly before Christmas, I asked a question of you: did anyone know Renee Hulk?

I knew Hulk was the pseudonymous author of a buzzy new book, Dear Future: You Can Keep the Change, which surveys the emerging AI landscape and examines how it will impact society. It's good (I review it below). As for Renee: I knew they lived in Edinburgh. But I was keen to find out more.

Clearly, you’re all madly well-connected: barely 24 hours after sending my plea, Hulk was in touch. We had a fascinating exchange over the holidays, and I’m delighted to say they agreed - while maintaining their anonymity - to do a Q&A with Early Line readers.

So here's another plea, today: do you have any questions about the AI revolution? Take a read of the review below if you’re looking for ideas. Then send me your questions, hopes, and fears (which can be used anonymously, on request). Renee will respond in an AI special in the days ahead. Just hit reply on this email to respond.

Best, NM

📣 There is now a “perpetual crisis” in Scotland’s A&E departments, Scottish Government ministers have been told, after figures revealed a soaring number of patients forced to wait longer than the government’s target time.

Public Health Scotland data shows that, in the week ending February 8, 61.4% of A&E patients waited more than four hours to be either admitted, transferred or discharged. That’s well short of the Scottish government target of 95%, which was missed for 10,195 patients in the week ending February 8. (Scotsman)

📣 Reform UK unveiled its top team yesterday - all recent defectors from the Conservatives. But Nigel Farage insisted they were the voice of opposition, now, to Labour - and his party continues to ride high in the polls. (Independent)

Today, the party’s “Shadow Chancellor” Robert Jenrick will use a speech in the City of London to promise to retain the Office of Budget Responsibility and the independence of the Bank of England should Reform come to power. (The Times - gift link)

📣 UK inflation has fallen to 3%, according to figures released at 7am this morning. The drop for January leaves the rate above the Bank of England’s 2% target, but has raised hopes of a cut in interest rates as early as next month, with economists expecting inflation to continue to slow through the year ahead. (Guardian)

📣 The cash-strapped City of Glasgow is considering borrowing £30m and raising council tax by 5% to tackle the refugee homelessness crisis and a £50 million budget black hole. (Daily Record has the exclusive)

📣 Scottish supplies of co-codamol will be limited until the summer because of supply problems in India. (BBC)

📣 One of Brewdog’s “equity punks” has spoken of his fears he’s lost all of a £12,000 investment in the Scottish brewer. (BBC)

📣 The Conservatives are calling for the renovation of the Houses of Parliament to be "refocused" over fears about spiralling costs. (BBC)

📣 Iran said it had temporarily closed the Strait of Hormuz: a show of force as negotiations with the United States continue over its nuclear ambitions. (AP)

📣 Christine Lagarde is expected to leave her role as president of the European Central Bank before her term expires to prevent far-right politicians expected to be elected next year from having a say in picking her successor. (FT £)

📣 Three former Presidents have led tribes to Jesse Jackson, one of the most significant Black voices in American politics for decades, who died at the age of 84. (Guardian)

⚽️ Dundee United hung on to beat fourth-tier Spartans 2-1 in the Scottish Cup, despite being reduced to 10 men. (BBC report & 🎥 highlights)

⚽️ A racism row overshadowed Real Madrid’s 1-0 win over Benfica in their Champions League play-off match. Benfica boss Jose Mourinho attempted to blame Vinicius Junior for the trouble. (Independent)

⚽️ Galatasaray came from behind to thump Juventus 5-2 in the first leg of their tie (BBC)

Dear Future: You Can Keep the Change, by Ronee Hulk

🗣️ Futurist Roy Amara came up with a now-famous aphorism: we tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run, and underestimate the effect in the long run.

Edinburgh-based Ronee Hulk's position in this perceptive book defies Amara's Law: Hulk thinks we may be underestimating the impact of AI in both the short term and the long run.

You might have guessed, then, that this is a challenging read - both in terms of its breadth, and the gloom it might provoke to read that much of humanity's work is about to be displaced.

Confident this doesn't apply to you? Hulk has an early word or two for you: "Speak to a teacher, a lawyer or a GP and you'll often hear the same refrain: 'AI can't do what I do.' Confidence and ignorance in equal measure".

Luckily, Hulk has a light touch. The bulk of the book is an impressively read-in tour de force of human endeavour, and AI’s impact on it. Healthcare, education, the arts, manufacturing, the military, questions of God Himself: it's all here. That said, given Hulk's utter conviction in the direction of travel, it all ends up in a very similar place: under the cold, odds-running eye of the AI Panoptes.

An ancillary website at roneehulk.com lets you enter your own profession and discover its fate. The first version of that site was rather gloomy: it seemed all professions would die, five years from now. A new version is more nuanced. Even this book's website is making exponential leaps.

There's the issue, in all of this, of who Hulk is. I don't think their real identity matters, except to offer some validation of expertise. And the book offers plenty.

But Hulk does drop a reasonably big clue to their identity late in the book, and it hints at someone in technology, possibly in a specialist form of tech, who understands investment and entrepreneurial spirit.

That spirit comes through clearly in the book, especially when Hulk begins to examine humanity's responses to what it has wrought and calls on individuals and society to meet AI head-on to shape it in a human-friendly way.

To that end, Hulk proposes a "charter" system that requires AI developers to be transparent about their intentions before deploying new systems, "temper[ing] it with responsibility." That would be a big change to today's "build first, seek forgiveness later" Silicon Valley model.

Or, as Hulk puts it, "it would create a structured expectation that progress must be explained before it is unleashed, that invention carries obligations as well as rewards".

"In effect, the heads of today's AI giants would start looking less like entrepreneurs and more like politicians; albeit unelected ones," writes Hulk. "That shift already feels underway."

Yet, at the last, Hulk yanks the carpet out from under our feet: Hulk no longer believes in this future, and the supporting belief that "while we can no longer slow the pace, we can control the wheel".

Instead, Hulk points to one asset that will remain scarce: land. In a world of climate change, they suggest, quality land "will mean control of food, and food means survival. In many places, it also means control of water rights, which may prove even more valuable than the soil itself."

Maybe now we understand Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg’s New Zealand estate in a clearer light.

If that seems a shock, Hulk sounds a caution that brings to mind that adage I started with here: we underestimate the longer-term change. And in this accelerated world, the longer-term is nearer than we'd like.

"The jigsaw is not missing a piece," Hulk writes, in one striking passage. "It is complete. The unsettling truth is not that we lack clarity about what is happening, but that we dislike the clarity we have.

"The truth is most of us remain blind to how easily the familiar can vanish. In the early 1900s, the streets of New York teemed with horses. A decade later they had vanished, replaced by cars. We are those horses now, but acting as though we are unaware that the world has already moved on."

Hulk concludes with a hark back to that moment of optimism - the Charter idea - saying "the choice left to us is not whether to stop it, but how we can shape it. So go forth and create".

But, amid the tumult, it remains obscure where we horses of the near future start, or if our attempts will matter.

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