Josh Fehnert

First things first: the fear of AI writing replacing that of humans is a big, over-cooked, red herring. A new study published in the Journal of Judgement and Decision Making in the US is being picked up by the panicky press to suggest that humans can’t always tell the difference between human-penned and machine-made prose. Shock horror. Can you hear the novelists and the journalists quaking in their boots yet? I can – but I’m not sure they should.

Members of Monocle’s editorial team were in Paris last Thursday but the hottest topic in town wasn’t Fashion Week or fresh collections – it was air conditioning. As the mercury crept towards 40C, meetings were moved, school closures accommodated and cool glasses of wine sought (many at our event on Rue Bachaumont). Was there panic? Not really. The attitude on the streets was chiefly one of Gallic insouciance. “We’ll get through it,” the city’s bustling terraces seemed to murmur through the heat haze.

Journalists have been scribbling worrisome screeds about their industry’s imminent demise for as long as their job has existed. Before the arrival of social media or AI, frighted writers feared rolling news, radio broadcasts and even the dizzying speed of the electric telegraph. It’s the same with our current collective unease about AI.