At City St George's University this week for a discussion on Truth, Trust and Tricksters in the Age of AI, organized by Index on Censorship, the Institute for Creativity and AI and Global (Dis)Order.

One of the panelists, Kenneth Cukier of the Economist, recounted his attempt to get an AI tool to produce an image to illustrate a point about silo-busting. The tool refused on the grounds that this would be an image of destruction. Cukier regarded this as an example of censorship - the tool was denying his ability to express his ideas freely.

As I suggested in the subsequent discussion, we might also regard this as the tool censoring itself. Self-censorship has been a feature of many authoritarian regimes in the past, and is perhaps emerging in new forms today, especially as people may fear the consequences of their words being taken out of context and blasted around the Internet.

One of the features of agentic AI is presenting the AI device as an autonomous agent. It may appear to be working for Crukier, but it is ultimately controlled by whichever big tech assemblage has developed and disseminated it. Which brings me to a critically important question I have asked several times previously - Whom Does The Chatbot Serve? (Towards Chatbot Ethics, May 2019)

In any case, all communication and creation is necessarily selective. However many images the AI tool does in fact produce, there is a much larger quantity of possible images it has decided or been programmed not to produce. There must be huge amounts of material that the editors of the Economist choose not to publish, for whatever reason, and it would be absurd to frame all these editorial decisions as forms of censorship or self-censorship (although of course some of them may well be).

However, attempts to reduce the quantity and reach of misleading content will often be framed as censorship by those promoting such content, as Jacob Weisberg's latest article demonstrates. There are some difficult issues here, and it is sometimes hard to avoid taking a political side.

See also Thinking with the Majority (May 2021), Amplification and Attenuation (October 2021)

Jacob Weisberg, Algorithm Nation (New York Review of Books, 23 October 2025) 

   

In his latest article, David Robert Grimes traces the history of the anti-vaccine movement. Ever since Edward Jennner's early experiments, using a relatively mild disease (cowpox) to protect against a much more serious one (smallpox), people have expressed scepticism, fear, scorn and outright opposition to all forms of vaccination.

Vaccine hesitancy has increased significantly in the last few years, especially during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, and Jim Reed's article also notes that the sheer quantity of vaccinations that are being pushed onto people has resulted in a degree of vaccine fatigue, even among NHS workers.

Those who believe in the efficacy of vaccines, and in the important contribution that vaccine makes to public health, tend to see the anti-vaccine movement as fueled by conspiracy theories, immune to scientific argument because the adversary in this game plays according to rules that are not generally those of science WHO 2007.

In relation to another area that has promoted strong opposition in some quarters, the idea of eating insects as a source of protein, Riley Farrell's article quotes Stephan Lewandowsky, who suggests arguments based not on the content of the beliefs but on their purpose. You're not going to be successful if you say, Uncle Bruce, you're crazy… don't believe this utter nonsense. But instead, you can ask: What function do your beliefs serve? Why are you believing this?

Many politicians and internet celebrities take strong positions on vaccines, bug eating and other topics, and some of these may be cynically driven by the desire to build support and revenue rather than their own private beliefs - for example vaccinating their own families while attacking vaccines for everyone else. For such people, the purpose of these positions may be clear, although they probably won't acknowledge it. But as for Uncle Bruce, it's not at all clear what kind of answer Professor Lewandowsky would expect or accept, or what arguments this would lead to.

Underpinning all of these movements is a distrust of authority, especially governments, big business and scientists. And yet a willingness to trust the biggest businesses on the planet - the tech platforms and their Generative AI tools that add fuel to these theories, and generate income for themselves. Obviously.

Riley Farrell, How eating insects became a conspiracy theory (BBC 4 September 2025)

David Robert Grimes, The strange history of the anti-vaccine movement (BBC 5 September 2025)

Jim Reed, Rise of vaccine distrust - why more of us are questioning jabs (BBC 16 January 2025)

WHO Bulletin 27 November 2007 86(2):140–146. doi: 10.2471/BLT.07.040089

   

As previously noted on this blog, lists may be constructed for various purposes, but the list then becomes a thing in its own right.

One of the open questions of our time appears to be the existence or non-existence of a list, supposedly maintained by Jeffrey Epstein, possibly with the assistance of Ghislaine Maxwell. And the presence or absence of certain names on this list, if it exists. Interviewed in prison recently, Maxwell has denied the existence of such a list.  

Fintan O'Toole notes the obsession of conspiracy theorists with the supposed existence of documentary evidence.

This naive faith is the other side of the American paranoid imagination. Even while it conjures the vast potency of the conspirators, it also takes it for granted that, inside the archives of the deep state, they have carefully preserved detailed proof of their plots to assassinate JFK, hide the visitations of aliens, and enable the satanic child abusers. Crackpot realism has a strange trust in the bureaucracy. In it, that most dully bureaucratic of words—files—becomes a magic elixir of truth.

But surely the more important question is about the relationships that Epstein maintained with a number of wealthy and well-connected people, and the extent to which he had any kompromat over them. Not whether he kept all their names in a grubby little notebook, like he was a villain in a B-movie.

If the list only ever existed in Epstein's head, as suggested by the satirical website Newsbiscuit, does that count?

Wikipedia: Jeffrey Epstein client list, 

Luc Cohen, Andrew Goudsward and Jack Queen, Ghislaine Maxwell told DOJ she is unaware of any Epstein 'client list' (Reuters, 23 August 2025)

   

Interesting piece by Deena Prichep, in which clergy agonize as to the ethics of using a chatbot to construct a sermon.

The first point is that it is easy - perhaps too easy. ChatGPT currently advertises its sermon-writing services as follows: 

Your preaching companion. Transform Your Message into Impactful Sermons. Just provide your topic, choose from three tailor-made outlines, and let's co-create a captivating sermon. Fully adaptable to your congregation's needs - denomination, duration, tone, and language.

And for busy clergy the results seem almost touched by the Holy Spirit (aka Ghost in the Machine). Prichep quotes a Lutheran pastor whose first reaction was Oh my God, this is really good. (I may be doing my own research here, but I think there may be something in the Bible about taking the name of the Lord in vain.)

But just because you can doesn't mean you should. One of the arguments in favour of letting a large language model write your sermons for you is that it frees up your time to do more important things, like pastoral care. But are these things really more important? Brad East argues (following Calvin) that the primary task of ministry is the service of Word and sacrament, and that use of Artificial Intelligence shortchanges something essential.

So the underlying principle here seems to be that it might be okay to use AI tools for less important tasks but not for your most important task.

However, there are some other issues with the use of AI tools, including the environmental cost. And East notes the possiblity that large language models might fabricate material as well as pushing a particular agenda, although one might think preachers have always been able to do this without the aid of technology.

Brad East, AI Has No Place in the Pulpit (Christianity Today, 27 September 2023)

Deena Prichep, We asked clergy if they use AI to help write sermons. Here's what they said (NPR 17 July 2025) HT Carissa Véliz

Deena Prichep, Encore: Religion and AI, what does it mean when the word of God comes from a chatbot? (NPR 19 July 2025)

John Rector, The Ghost in the Machine (19 June 2024) 

Brad Turner, Beatitudes or Platitudes (Milton Church of Christ, 19 December 2021) 

   

As well as being a pioneer of heavy metal, Ossy Osborne was one of the early stars of reality TV. The MTV show The Osbornes, running from 2002 to 2005 and featuring Ossy, Sharon and two of their teenage children, was described as a reality sitcom. Previous fly-on-the-wall programmes had been presented as documentaries, albeit with some dramatic elements, but this one was edited for drama.

Reality TV receives a lot of criticism and disparagement. Some people have commented on the relationship between Sir Joseph Bazalgette, the Victorian engineer who build a system of sewers to pump effluent out of Londoners' homes, and Sir Peter Bazalgette, the creative director of Endemol responsible for Big Brother.

The BBC reports some sociologists as arguing that reality TV can have some social value.

Reality TV ... can be a tool for greater social understanding. Danielle Lindemann

It can potentially offer benefits to viewers and society because it can lead to wider conversations about the world we want to live in. Jacob Johanssen

However, Dr Johanssen has previously expressed criticism of the way participants in reality shows are exploited and shamed, both by the programme makers and by the audience (via social media). He frames reality TV as a neoliberal update on Guy Debord's notion of the spectacle.

Nathan Briant, The sisters from UK's first fly-on-the-wall series (BBC News, 21 June 2024)

Jacob Johanssen, Immaterial Labour and Reality TV: The Affective Surplus of Excess. (In: Briziarelli, M. and Armano, E. (eds.). The Spectacle 2.0: Reading Debord in the Context of Digital Capitalism. pp. 197–208. London: University of Westminster Press 2017). https://doi.org/10.16997/book11.l 

Alex Taylor, How reality TV changed the way we think - for the better (BBC News, 26 July 2025)

Caitlin Wilson, Ozzy Osbourne: From Prince of Darkness to reality TV's favourite dad (BBC News, 26 July 2025)