Is it overstating to say that AI is on a par with the invention of fire, electricity, flight, or the Internet in its ability to transform our lives?

You Go players were pissing your pants laughing at the chess boys, weren’t you? “Ultimate test of cerebral fitness my arse” you were saying, weren’t you? Until somebody had the bright idea of using a Monte Carlo Tree and then pairing it up with deep learning to kick your cock-of-the-walk squarely in his knackers in 2017.

So for the Chess and Go boys, it certainly has transformed their lives, yes. From being feted kings, they now sit in the back of the tavern, drinking a whisky drink, drinking a vodka drink, drinking a lager drink, drinking a cider drink, and singing songs that remind them of the good times, singing songs that remind them of the better times (oh Zugzwang ploy, Zugzwang ploy).

Unless you play Chess. Then it has rendered your whole devotion to shoving carved bits of wood about sixty-four squares in a very skillful way utterly pointless. No honestly. Not even Carlsen (2830) could beat a top chess machine at full whack. I can’t beat one running at half steam.

Short story writers, what is your favorite character you've created and do they appear in more than one of your works?

Yes.

Well, they get knocked down, but they get up again. You are never gonna keep them down. Checkmated yes, down, no.

But for the rest of us, bugger all important, really. In fact where AI has been deployed it’s generally made things worse as it’s just as stupid as people but much, much quicker at being completely boneheaded.

How can you maintain self-control?

I blame the EU. Ursula von der Linesearch.