My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels

The Eureka Moment

I’m sat here dripping wet. It’s not raining. Nor has a pipe burst. No. I’m sat here because I’ve just had a moment of clarity — my Eureka-in-the-bath moment — and in such a hurry to share it, I rushed down to my faithful Mac to start typing before it vanished in a puff of seppuku.

The Joy of Discovery

I was lying there soaking away, listening to Nosliw — you must try it: reggae in German. It sounds mad, so disparate, like that could never work. But it does, like toasted Chaource and tomatillo sandwiches — the kind of random human connections that make life such a joy. So, so human.

The Nature of Humans

Humans, so many years of programming, so many years of learning. Learning how to use tools. Don’t work harder; work smarter. Like rats in a maze. Learning how to take the path of least resistance. Learning how to get lazy. Like natural selection in reverse.

The Shift in Perspective

So, just what has shifted me from the bathroom to the computer as swiftly as dropping a cattle prod in the suds? It’s just that thought. Humankind is inherently lazy. Fine. It has been for ages, yet never before has such conditioned complacency been so intrinsically dangerous. Let’s take me, for example.

The Laziness of Convenience

I love words, so much so that I have a collection of dictionaries and thesauruses — massive tomes. The ones with tiny print and big magnifying glasses. Stacked like breezeblocks and about twice as heavy. Gathering dust. If I need inspiration or a definition, do I use them? No. I’m an idler. Like everyone else, I use the internet instead.

The Corruption of Knowledge

So, and run with me on this. What if there was a single online dictionary, one incorruptible font of knowledge, a universal lexicon? But it was corrupted. It could be hilarious. Just like the Monty Python sketch “Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook”, where a dodgy phrasebook means that instead of asking for matches, our protagonist proclaims, “My hovercraft is full of eels.” It is funny. But perhaps the joke’s on us.

The Reality of Online Knowledge

Imagine a world where, rather than a single online dictionary or phrasebook, we have a single online repository of knowledge; it could never happen. Think again — something like ChatGPT, Deepseek or Gemini. And instead of the harmless fun of eel-laden amphibious vessel puns, facts are being corrupted.

The Slow Corruption of Truth

Slowly, insidiously, and almost innocently, the truth is bent out of shape. You start with the simple stuff at first. Nothing too big or unbelievable. But to an agenda and a timetable. As time passes and no one notices, the lies get bigger and the falsifications more fanciful. Still no one notices.

The Loss of Fact-Checking

There is no Dad’s Army of fact-checkers, just fat cats with an eye on the cream. No legions sat at home blowing the cobwebs off rows of Encyclopædia Britannicas. So slowly and surely, the truth becomes a lie right in front of your eyes. What’s next on the agenda? History, of course.
It’s said that history is written by the victors. And it is.

The Power of AI

So here’s my Eureka moment — the reason I bolted down the stairs dripping wet: no wonder everyone wants to be the master of AI. The winner doesn’t only get to redefine the rules. The winner takes it all.

The Realization

It was not fear but this dreadful realisation. Whoever controls AI will control knowledge and control memory. The ability to rewrite history itself! That, my friend, is the power of gods. And if that does not get you out of the bath, I don’t know what will.