Paranoid android: Gert of the Well (AKA Dan Wheeler) fuses with alien technology *Image created by AI

On Monday we welcome back Dan Wheeler and Joseph Chance from The Apocalypse Players for round 2 of PastMaster’s occult nightmare.

Something horrible has just been revealed (listen to part one of The Arkham Investigation first!) and time is running out for our blackjack-wielding duo to turn the tide.

Tune in to find out, among other things, who killed Christopher Marlowe, what the good people of Deptford think about foreigners and to hear the trailer for a new, ultra high budget Netflix show starring TG and Gert.

Episode drops on Monday 21st July.

PS The Apocalypse Players have an exquisite library of episodes that demand to be heard - start with Bleak Prospect.

Playing with fire: TG Wells (AKA Joseph Chance) *Image created by AI

AI in the news

Fingers on buzzers: science secretary Peter Kyle switches on the UK’s new super computer

The UK has switched on a super computer called Isambard-AI, which is expected to usher in a wave of fancy tech breakthroughs.

Solving everything from how to spot sick cows to detecting early stage skin cancer, the megabot will make available to academics and public bodies the kind of computing power previously the preserve of tech malefactors like Elon Musk and Sam Altman.

The computer, named after 19th century engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, is rumoured to use a million pounds’ worth of electricity per month, and has more than 5,000 Nvidia computing chips.

The most wonderful detail is that it apparently sits inside a black metal cage topped with razor wire, somewhere “in the north of” Bristol, locked away like a comic book supervillain.

With this kind of set up, surely this signals the rise of the machines.

Isambard Kingdom Brunel: gave his name to a super computer

Netflix admits using AI to make TV show

Bugs: bad

Streaming giant Netflix has said its Argentine series The Eternaut was partly made with generative AI to cut costs.

The show, which chronicles an alien invasion of the planet Earth and stars lots of giant bugs, features a scene of a building collapsing which was created with AI. It’s the first time Netflix has used AI this way in one of its own shows.

For many that will feel like a slippery slope towards AI being used to replace set designers, stunt coordinators and even actors in film and TV.

How do you protect the sanctity of human creation against the rise of AI? I don’t know what the answer is.

But imagine a future in which musicians and actors have by necessity all retrained as AI prompt engineers. For me the world would be a poorer place.

Human after all?

The Velvet Sundown: so AI it hurts

Speaking of AI imitating art, here the brilliant Rick Beato examines a ‘band’ with 474k monthly listeners and uses his musical knowledge to try and unpick whether the band is real or completely AI generated.

There’s a lot of speculation that this ‘band’ has been created and pushed by Spotify. I really hope that’s not the case. It would be such an own goal if that were proven to be true.

What do you think?

UNTIL NEXT TIME

Tan and the PastMaster crew.

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