Catholic and serious researcher into early Christianity? (ChatGPT)

---

In the previous post, we reviewed Geza Vermes' book, Christian Beginnings. Vermes writes as a Jewish scholar — not as a Christian — but I believe that John Dominic Crossan would substantially agree with Vermes' thesis.

Crossan continues to consider himself Catholic.

So for those Catholics who take seriously historical investigation into the Jesus movement, and the formation of the early Christian church, how is it possible to reconcile that research programme with being a current member of the Catholic Church? Let's ask ChatGPT.

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1. Faith Is Not Fundamentalism

Neither Crossan nor serious Catholics confuse faith with textual literalism.

Crossan does not believe that to be a Catholic one must assent to every metaphysical elaboration hammered out by the bishops of Nicaea, Constantinople, or Trent as if they were merely the procedural minutes of an ancient committee.

Instead, he sees Catholicism as a living tradition, a communal memory — a grand, broken, glorious, human attempt to live toward the mystery of God revealed, however imperfectly, in Jesus.

The tradition may have misunderstood Jesus, reinterpreted him, even betrayed aspects of him — but that does not annul the reality of the original encounter.

It means that two thousand years of Christianity is historical — evolving, flawed, adaptive — rather than a once-and-for-all doctrinal dogma from Heaven.

Faith, then, is trust in the meaning glimpsed through the cracks, not a blind loyalty to the specific, contingent architecture of doctrinal development.

2. Christianity Is the Result, Not the Betrayal

Another way to put it: Even if early Christianity transmuted the original message (as Vermes and Crossan agree it did), it did so out of a profound and desperate desire to keep the meaning of Jesus alive in radically changed circumstances.

The Kingdom of God did not arrive — at least not in the apocalyptic immediacy that Jesus appears to have envisaged — and yet the Christian communities continued to believe that something of it had happened and would happen. They adapted the form (myth, metaphysics, liturgy) to preserve the kernel (radical trust in God’s transforming love).

From this perspective, orthodoxy is not so much a betrayal as a creative, sometimes fumbling continuation.

You can love Catholicism because of this broken, striving humanity — not despite it.

3. The Mythos Is Truer Than the History

There is also the ancient idea that myth — in the proper sense — can convey truth deeper than bare fact.

The high Christology, the creeds, the liturgies, the soaring metaphysics — they are not "true" because they correspond to what Jesus of Nazareth literally claimed about himself; they are "true" because they continue to point to the transformative encounter with the sacred that his life, death, and resurrection (however understood) initiated.

Crossan accepts the mythology as metaphorical structure — a cathedral of meaning — even if he does not accept it as literal blueprint. Thus, he can recite the Creed and mean it poetically, even as his historian’s brain is saying, "Well, not exactly."

4. Humility About History

Finally, even Crossan and Vermes (though Vermes is more hard-edged) recognise that historical reconstruction is itself partial and fallible.

Truly, we peer through a glass, darkly.

The Jesus of the historians is a scholarly approximation, not a resurrection of the man himself. Thus, it is reasonable — and indeed intellectually humble — to say:

"I trust in this tradition not because it is flawless, but because it contains something luminous that cannot be fully captured by critical method alone."

Crossan can remain Catholic because Christian faith is not identical with historical literalism. You may believe, not in the seamless factuality of doctrine, but in the living, broken, evolving, Spirit-haunted community that still bears the mark of Jesus — even through all the distortions of empire, philosophy, politics, and time. Or even: you stay because even a Church built by committee, mistake, ambition, and hope is a better house for the Spirit than the cold flat of rational scepticism alone.

---

Faith is not fidelity to the minutes of ancient councils, nor blind loyalty to imperial theology. It is the stubborn trust that beneath the compromises, betrayals, and metaphysical flights of Christianity, there remains the dangerous memory of a man who pointed to God and called it a kingdom.

To stay Catholic is not to deny the distortions, but to recognise that even broken vessels can carry living water — and that, sometimes, despite itself, the Church remembers what it cannot forget: a man who pointed to God and called it a kingdom.

Christian Beginnings according to Geza Vermes (ChatGPT review)

 

Amazon

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Geza Vermes' Christian Beginnings: A Historical Summary

In Christian Beginnings, Geza Vermes strips away two thousand years of doctrinal varnish to reveal a story not of timeless divine certainties, but of historical contingency, improvisation, and ideological evolution under pressure — a story as messy and human as history always is when honestly recounted.

The arc begins with Jesus of Nazareth, not as the "Word made Flesh" of later creeds, but as a gritty, charismatic Jewish prophet. Initially a follower of John the Baptist, he became an itinerant healer, exorcist, teacher, and eschatological herald in his own right, proclaiming the imminent arrival of God’s kingdom. His message was urgent, moral, and thoroughly Jewish. He gestured toward God, not toward himself. Divinity was not in his claims but in the power he channelled.

After his death — a humiliating Roman execution — his followers, buoyed by their conviction of his resurrection and interpreting it through the lens of Hebrew scripture, regrouped. But they did not yet preach the God-man of later orthodoxy; they proclaimed a vindicated, exalted man of God.

From this sprang the early Jewish Christian Church, centred in Jerusalem under James, Peter, and John — a rigorously Jewish sect, practising Temple worship, observing Torah, and awaiting the consummation of Israel’s destiny. The Didache — that earthy instruction manual for early Christian communities — captures this spirit: low Christology, high ethical seriousness, no Platonic metaphysical gyrations at all.

But a new dynamic was already abroad: Pauline Christianity. Paul, an outsider even in his own time, tore Christianity away from its Jewish rootstock. To Paul, Jesus' death and resurrection were not mere eschatological signs but cosmic events, redeeming all humanity. The traditional Law was no longer necessary. Faith in Christ, not fidelity to Torah, was the gateway to salvation. Paul’s Jesus hovers in a strange intermediate state: human enough to die, exalted enough to save the universe.

Meanwhile, in another key, the Johannine tradition emerged. Where Paul stretches Jewish categories, John snaps them. Jesus becomes the Logos — the pre-existent divine Word. Here is the full Hellenisation of the Christian message: Christ as cosmic principle, enfleshed and moving among men. In John’s Gospel, the carpenter of Nazareth fades into the eternal light of Platonic abstraction.

Yet all this might have remained theological squabbling in obscure communities, had not history itself swept in like a desert storm.

The First Jewish War (AD 66–73) ended with the destruction of the Temple in AD 70. Judaism without the Temple was a shipwreck. Rabbinic Judaism emerged from the wreckage: Pharisaic, textual, diasporic, resilient. But the Jewish Christian sects, marginal and suspiciously heretical, were cut adrift from this evolution.

Meanwhile, Gentile Christianity, with no stake in the Temple, expanded freely into the open spaces of the Greco-Roman world.

The Second Jewish War (Bar Kokhba Revolt, AD 132–135) delivered the coup de grâce. When Rabbi Akiva proclaimed Bar Kokhba the Messiah, Jewish Christians could not follow. They were anathematised, expelled from the synagogue, cut off decisively from Judaism. Simultaneously, the crushing Roman victory obliterated any remaining Jewish political autonomy.

Jerusalem became Aelia Capitolina, a Roman city forbidden to Jews.

Thus, by the second century, three distinct religions stood in uneasy relation:

• Rabbinic Judaism: resilient but battered.
• Jewish Christianity: fading into obscurity, fragmentation and extinction.
• Gentile Christianity: increasingly Hellenised, ambitious, as broad as the Empire.

Meanwhile, Gentile Christianity flourished. It absorbed Greek metaphysics, adopted Roman administrative structures, and reimagined itself not as a Jewish sect but as a universal, spiritual empire. The Gnostics, Marcionites, Montanists, and others offered competing visions, but through the many disputes the mainstream Church hammered out a tentative orthodoxy: increasingly high Christology — increasingly hostile to its Jewish roots and to the Jewish people.

Finally, under the looming shadow of the Roman state, the decisive moment arrived. In AD 312, Constantine’s imperial embrace transformed Christianity from persecuted sect into favoured religion. At the Council of Nicaea (AD 325), Jesus was declared homoousios — of the same substance as the Father. The human prophet of Nazareth was replaced by the cosmic Christ, eternal, begotten not made.

Christianity, in Vermes’ telling, was thus not the smooth flowering of an unbroken truth but the battered, hybridised survivor of historical maelstroms. It was a faith hammered into shape by catastrophe — the destruction of the Temple, the obliteration of Judaea, the Hellenisation of thought, and the demands of imperial unification.

The Underlying Thesis

Vermes’ unspoken but unmistakable message is that orthodoxy was not inevitable. It was the fossil record of historical survival, not the pure transmission of Jesus' original message. The victorious Christianity of Nicaea was a product of necessity, political compromise, and philosophical drift — not a simple unfolding of divine plan.

In that sense, Vermes’ Christianity is deeply tragic: the vivid, dangerous, radically-Jewish eschatological movement of Jesus transmuted into a temporal imperial metaphysics, a faith which, in conquering the world, progressively redacted its origins.

AI in the Battlespace: complete text - Adam Carlton

You may have been following this story serialised here over the last week. But sometimes it's good just to have the PDF of the whole thing, 6,000 words. Here's the link to the complete text PDF version.

'AI in the Battlespace' (PDF).

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8: The Golden Lotus

AI in the Battlespace: Chapter 8

8: The Golden Lotus

It’s getting late in the bar. Kee tries to remember how many whiskies he’s had, how many glasses of wine Lin has enjoyed. She’s sitting close on his right; he watches with detachment as his hand moves to cover hers. She does not draw away.

He thinks it over in a tired and muzzy way. Everything he’s said tonight is in the public domain - he has not been indiscreet at all. He has nothing to be concerned about. He’s unattached and so is Lin, there are no personal barriers or difficulties here.

But they’re both Chinese-American: he’s a senior military officer, privy to many secrets; she’s a reporter. The powers which keep an eye on such things might take a very dim view.

The hell with it.

He squeezes her hand, says, “Want to come up to my room for coffee?”

She gives him a wonderfully warm smile.

---

Before she met up with her old friend in the hotel bar, Yuan Lin had already discovered there were a number of Chinese-Americans at the ‘AI in the Battlespace’ symposium. Given the current state of US politics, the bullying stance taken against China, it was not hard to get an impression as she circulated amongst the delegates afterwards. No-one ever said anything classified, it was all general stuff. They’d all been incessantly warned about that. They all knew to be careful with a reporter.

And she’s quite open about that. Her job isn’t covert, she’s not an operative, she's just there to get background, a sense of where the effort's going. She would never dream of getting her friend Kee into trouble. He’s a nice guy and surely has a bright future ahead of him.

---

Kee lies on his side in the sumptuous double bed feeling Lin’s hot smooth skin pressed into his back. Her arm curves possessively around his waist. He’s warm, comfortable, tired and happy.

Lin, it turned out, was a serious student of the sixteenth century Chinese classic, Jin Ping Mei by Lanling Xiaoxiao Sheng. It has become notorious in the English-speaking world for its fetishistic passages; Americans knew it as The Golden Lotus. Kee had been astonished and impressed by her knowledge, application and enthusiasm. Now all he wants is to get some sleep: busy day tomorrow.

Lin’s mind, however, still appears to be racing.

“There was this piece in The Onion,” she says, “about Putin addressing Ukrainian oligarchs in the Donbass, the part the Russians occupy. He talks about all the support, the cash and the business the Russian government is going to push their way. He's really buttering them up.”

Kee grunts half-heartedly. Trying to decide whether she’s going to stop so he can slide into welcome sleep or whether he’s going to have to wake up a bit and concentrate.

Lin continues implacably.

“This piece, I know it's meant to be satire, said there was a video of Putin making all these promises in some hotel in Donetsk. A smartphone clip. It was circulating in Moscow amongst business leaders who hadn’t been invited. They reckoned they were being pretty badly short-changed by all this selective largesse.”

Kee abandons immediate hopes of sleep. She's impossible to be angry with.

“What of it?” he says.

“Well, it was a real piece of work. They said the clip was factually accurate but that it wasn’t made by anyone in attendance. The security inside was absolute. Some distant drone bounced a laser off a window and that’s how they got Putin’s words; and then someone got into the room later and took pictures so they could get the interiors right. Ironically, they used AI to do Putin giving the speech Putin actually gave. Fooled everyone. Only a state actor could have done such a pro job.”

Kee looks at her in the dimly-lit room. The duvet has fallen away as she faces him resting her weight on the pillow, her breasts obscured by the ebb and flow of her long fine hair. It’s hard to concentrate on what she’s saying.

“They claimed the Israelis did it. Is that right, d'you think?”

Kee actually knows quite a bit about this. The idea came from a state-of-the-art military AI called Argos. The resulting discord in Putin’s support base made the operation a real political success story. Cyber Command, which developed Argos, has shared in the glory. It’s all super-secret.

He permits himself this: “Hey kid, if it was the Israelis, it’s only because we asked them to do it. For deniability.”

He laughs; it’s a joke. After a second, she laughs too. She's not going to push it. She leans over and kisses him. Not passion. Just an end to conversation. They snuggle down together.

---

Yuan Lin puts her arm around Liu Kee and squeezes him affectionately. In deepening slumber he is oblivious. Tomorrow she'll check Telegram where she'll find some new quixotic questions. These assignments are a delight. They're like that Onion question, so interesting and so unpredictable.

What will she be asked to do next?

---

Previous.

7: People wanted it hushed-up

AI in the Battlespace: Chapter 7

7: People wanted it hushed-up

Colonel Liu takes the final session himself and starts with an anecdote.

“Let me tell you about a wargame called ‘Millennium Challenge 2002’. With 13,500 participants and live plus simulated training sites, it featured a simulated Iran (the Red Team) against ourselves, the Blue Team. We were using advanced weapons not planned for real deployment until at least five years later.

“In the stories afterwards the Red Team, Iran, was said to have used an advanced AI which thought outside the box. This wasn’t actually true. The strategist and leader was Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper, a Marine Corps veteran with 41 years experience. Once battle had commenced, the Blue Team issued a surrender ultimatum. Van Riper turned them down. Since the Bush Doctrine of that period included preemptive strikes, Van Riper knew that Blue Forces would now be coming to get him.”

Liu looks out from the lectern. Most of his audience will not have heard of this war-game and will be asking themselves: how could we not win against Iran?

“As soon as our carrier group had advanced beyond the point of no return, Van Riper hit them hard. Missiles from land-based units, civilian watercraft and low-flying planes tore through the fleet. Explosive-rigged speedboats decimated the Navy using suicide tactics. It was a saturation-attack which overwhelmed our defenses. Within ten minutes Van Riper was victorious. Nineteen US ships and 20,000 U.S. troops ended up at the bottom of the Persian Gulf.”

The audience is stunned.

“The exercise was rerun,” says Liu, “and the Blue Forces respawned. Van Riper was forbidden to  counter the subsequent Blue landing. He was denied radar and not allowed to shoot down incoming aircraft. The exercise was scripted to let Blue land and win. Van Riper walked out when he realized his commands were being ignored.”

He flips a new slide on to the screen. It shows a board position - mid-play - for the Chinese game of Go. The legend says: AlphaGo vs world champion Ke Jie.

“After the AlphaGo matches and the later AlphaZero successes in chess, Demis Hassabis, the founder and CEO of DeepMind, said they had peeked into the hidden layers of AlphaZero. They wanted to analyse the high-level game-concepts it had synthesised. He said DeepMind's program had developed game-plays which no human had ever conceptualised during thousands of years of study.”

He pauses, looks at the audience with a very straight face.

“You can imagine how interesting we found that. But the next steps were very far from plain sailing.”

Liu explains that some tech companies had scruples about working for the military - but were far from having a monopoly on AI talent. Cyber Command's own version of AlphaZero was tasked with defeating a hostile carrier battle group. It was told to be less aggressive than the traditional doctrine of area-denial using ICBMs with thermonuclear warheads.

“We gave the program new tools: opportunities with subsea-oil containers and submerged air-vents. It’s interesting what happens to a carrier when the seawater it’s floating in halves in density, or when the ocean around it turns to fire. Things do not end well.”

People are working through scenarios: giant steel warships falling into the abyss; steel and flesh vaporising in a two-thousand-degree inferno.

“So here's the take-home from our symposium today. The next-generation AI application is not the autonomous land-warrior. That’s way too hard. Look instead to creative AI battle-programs planning and directing theater operations better than any human being could. Thanks for attending and be reassured: we’ve got the best tech in the world and we’re on the case.”

---

The audience left feeling that this had been one of the better Pentagon one-day symposia. It had been interesting and had made a lot of sense. Now they knew where the serious military R&D was going they felt comfortable. There would be useful tech coming down the tracks: serious, world-beating force-amplification in troubled times.

---

Next     Previous.

Seismic Sensors at Fordow?

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Could Seismic Sensors Reveal the Fate of Fordow?

Could we have learned more from the tremors beneath the earth than from spies or satellites? In the aftermath of the strike on Iran’s Fordow uranium enrichment facility, a site buried deep within a mountain near Qom, that is precisely what may have happened.

Battle Damage Assessment (BDA) in the case of Fordow is no trivial exercise. The facility sits beneath 80-90 metres of rock, shielded against most conventional munitions and likely designed with internal blast-proofing. After the attack using Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs), satellite photographs showed entrance holes but nothing about whether the centrifuge halls remain intact, whether collapse has occurred, or whether radioactive material has been released.

So what else might one turn to? The answer lies in seismic waves.

---

Seismic BDA: What Could Be Learned?

Seismic data offers a unique means of peering inside the mountain post-strike. Properly interpreted, it can reveal:

• Impact energy and depth of penetration
  High-frequency signatures and time-of-arrival data across a seismic network can reconstruct where the bombs struck, where they detonated within the mountain and whether any fizzled prematurely.

• Structural damage and cavity collapse
  The waveforms of collapsing chambers differ markedly from mere overpressure events. Cavity collapses produce low-frequency “coda waves” and can, with a dense enough sensor net, be located and mapped with remarkable precision.

• Presence of volatile materials
  A secondary explosion involving uranium hexafluoride or hydrogen might be inferred from anomalous acoustic or thermal signatures, distinct from high explosive alone.

• Sequencing and success/failure analysis
  Given that multiple penetrators were used, seismic data can time their impacts and effects to the second.

---

Where Would the Sensors Need to Be?

To detect that something exploded, seismic stations at CENTCOM bases in Gulf states or Turkey - hundreds or thousands of kilometres away - are sufficient. The International Monitoring System routinely detects North Korean nuclear tests from across the Pacific.

But to resolve internal structure, track shockwave propagation, and identify which chambers collapsed?

That requires sensors within 1 to 10 km of the site, perhaps even closer. Ideally, a sparse seismic array would surround the facility, spaced in a horseshoe outside the most defended perimeter. The sensors need not be many - six to twelve would suffice for triangulation.

They would need to:

• Be sensitive to frequencies from 1 Hz up to 50+ Hz (for cavity resolution)

• Timestamp and locally store data with GPS precision

• Transmit data in bursts, intermittently, to evade detection

• Survive months in situ, in desert or mountain terrain

---

What Kind of Sensor? Could They Be Drone-Deployed?

This is the 21st century. A full seismic node with GPS, battery, memory, satellite modem, and camouflaged casing can weigh under 2 kg. About the size of a football. The oil and gas industry deploys thousands.

Miniaturised versions - MEMS-based seismometers, used in structural monitoring - can be as small as a bar of soap. Tuck them into a rock-shaped casing, power them by solar trickle or long-life lithium, and they’ll record and report for months.

Could they be deployed by drone?

Absolutely.

A small, autonomous quadcopter or fixed-wing drone, guided by inertial navigation or terrain mapping (no GPS needed), could have flown low at night and dropped or perched these sensors within a few kilometres of Fordow. Drop mechanisms could implant them shallowly into soil or crevices. Comms could be low-power burst transmissions via satellite or data-mule drones passing overhead at prearranged times.

The whole operation could be conducted without a single Israeli or American operative setting foot in Iran.

---

Has It Been Done?

We don’t know. But we do know this:

• Mossad penetrated deep into Tehran to extract nuclear archives.

• Israeli and U.S. drones operate over Iranian territory with impunity, including the famous RQ-170 Sentinel incident.

• The CIA spent decades tapping Soviet undersea cables, hiding recording pods under tonnes of seawater.

• Fordow was known, mapped, and inspected multiple times—perfect opportunities to slip a few toys in and leave them sleeping.

So when the bombs hit at Fordow, most likely some people were listening very carefully indeed.

---

6: The Crystal Gateway Marriott

AI in the Battlespace: Chapter 6

6: The Crystal Gateway Marriott

Liu Kee sits in his civvies in the bar of the Crystal Gateway Marriott. He has an evening of dead time ahead. The one-day conference was a solid success and he has meetings in the Pentagon tomorrow before heading back to his office at Stanford.

The bar is lined with discreet alcoves - the hotel's clientele craves private encounters. The lighting is subdued and in a distant corner a pianist plays smooth, tinkling jazz. Kee nurses a scotch, rattling the ice, wonders whether he should bury his face in his phone. Instead he scans the room ... and notices a woman making a bee-line towards him.

It’s Yuan Lin, a girl he knew in school in California. Hell, he dated her a few times. What did she end up doing? Journalism, he thinks.

She’s wearing a bright red dress - her lucky dress, he quips to himself - and a big smile. She’s a bit wobbly in those heels and Kee wonders whether she’s already had a few drinks or whether she’s just not used to them. He’s a little bit on his guard because he’s read too many thrillers where the military hero, bored and alone in a bar, is approached by a femme fatale journalist interested only in his secrets.

It turns out that Yuan Lin is a reporter on the Chinese Daily News in LA. Why is she in Washington? Covering this and that in town. And what is he doing here on the East Coast, something super-secret for the DoD?

They sit together as he tells her a story, carefully staying in the public domain. She sits close and any observer would think they were a couple enjoying their stopover in Crystal City.

“Don't want to bore you, Lin,” Kee begins, “Please tell me if I'm getting tedious but there's something I'm thinking about at the moment which is absolutely fascinating. It goes back to the 1970s and a guy called Donald Michie. He was a Scottish AI researcher with a background in computer chess but he was more interested in the human experience of dealing with very smart AIs.”

Yuan Lin is very attentive.

“Computers at the time were powerful enough to play perfect endgames in a variety of board positions. The plays in their endgame tables could be more than twenty moves long.”

“Oh,” says Lin, whose preferred game is Go, “I’m sure they can do better now.”

“Sure they can,” Kee says, “But the important thing here is how the computer plays. While you, as a human, are desperately worrying about your next move, considering all your strategic options, the computer is simply looking up the board-configuration in its database, which was compiled previously using exhaustive search. The database is just a list of pairs: board-then-move. Given the board position, the program just makes the corresponding optimal move it finds there.”

She nods: makes sense.

“But usually the computer's move makes no logical sense to the human player. It kind of looks like the computer is playing at random, making irrelevant moves disconnected from any strategy. You get these weird machine-moves and the person ploughs on, only to find that for no apparent reason the noose is tightening around their neck. Slowly, inevitably and incomprehensibly, they lose.”

Lin looks fascinated.

“That's a great idea. It's like the Terminator. An implacable opponent.”

“Michie said that it was like playing against an alien. Interestingly, that’s just what Demis Hassabis of Google’s Deep Mind said about AlphaGo when they analysed the concepts in its neural-net. He said it was like the mind of an alien.”

Kee takes a sip of his whisky: “Donald Michie coined the phrase ‘The Human Window’ for AI behaviour which people could actually understand.”

Lin has a thought: “People say that deep learning systems are incomprehensible to people. Does that mean they’re operating outside the Human Window?”

“Exactly,” says Kee, “That’s exactly what they’re doing. And it’s a real problem. Except in one line of work - where it’s an advantage.”

---

Next     Previous.

5: The Ethics of Utilitarianism

AI in the Battlespace: Chapter 5

5: The Ethics of Utilitarianism

It’s a scene different in detail but the same in essentials. This time a different girl meets the soldiers; there is a titanic detonation. The drone rocks in the shock wave, the camera tilts to the sky and then to the ground before reverting to the American patrol. The smoke clears to reveal bodies in pieces bleeding in the dust. Of the girl there is no sign at all.

Ursula's hand is over her mouth. Her slender body tightens with revulsion.

“I’m sorry to show you scenes this distasteful - both are genuine by the way, from the early days before the rules of engagement were changed - but they show the kind of dilemma faced by autonomous-soldier developers.”

She looks at him, still emotional, her mind still locked to the carnage they've just viewed.

“The AIs are trained on large datasets, operational clips like those we just saw. Specialised tacticians carefully annotate the clips with ground truths such as:

“If the girl is bearing a gift she should be allowed to deliver it.

“If she is delivering a bomb she needs to be stopped.

“What’s the difference, though? We can’t see the bomb, it’s under her robes. The intentions of the village leaders? Those we can’t see either. The AIs are stuck.”

He pauses, takes a calming sip of water and continues at a slower pace.

“You know, the Pentagon ran simulations. When they applied the rule: Never shoot a child, little girls and boys carried bombs more than 50% of the time - the insurgents had figured the cost-benefit. So then - in the simulation -  they changed the rule: always shoot the child. Soon no child ever appeared bearing gifts or bombs. Once the message hit home very few kids subsequently died. Ironic, isn’t it, that the more bloodthirsty policy saved many more simulated lives in the end?”

Ursula does not find this ironic or even thinkable. Her face mirrors her utter distaste.

“German soldiers will never shoot children. As a first resort or as a last resort.”

Alain sighs inside. He rather fears Ursula may be correct.

“Minister,” Alain says quietly, “let me tell you what US CENTCOM policy actually is. Firstly there's an obvious cost to not stopping the bomber-child: our people die, the child dies and the bad guys redouble their efforts.”

Ursula is now looking bored, wishing the meeting could just end.

“But there's a cost to shooting children too. The villagers are mostly related, all part of the clan. We kill one of their kids, they vow eternal vengeance. It's gasoline on the insurgency.”

Caron is silently pleading for the Minister's attention. He's coming to the important bit.

“So here's what happens in the field today. Analysts make an estimate of insurgent sympathies for each village based on recent events. Our commanders use that in selecting tactics. They make their best call - but sometimes a kid gets killed and in hindsight it was a terrible mistake.”

Ursula has a stubborn expression on her face. She doesn't want to hear any of this. Her ethics are absolute. She won't like what comes next, Alain thinks, and she'll draw the wrong conclusion.

“We tested the Russian software in a series of benchmark-scenarios, many with ethical dilemmas. The best way to describe the Russian soldier-drone is psychopathic.”

Ursula's harsh grin says it all: that’s exactly what she expected.

“Hold on, this is not a reflection on Russian military doctrine - don't be misled by our own propaganda. It turns out that if you only have local, tactical information, a psychopathic response usually is the best tactical response. Stalin said it best: no man, no problem.”

Ursula shakes her head in denial.

“You pay for local savagery with collateral damage - reputational hits, third-party criticism, increased hatred all round. But for the squaddies on the ground, those guys in the situation, it's usually better to go in hard. That's a ground-truth down the ages. The Roman Legions were seldom known for nuance. The Russian robots are locally optimising because their developers don't know how to do any better - and neither do we.

“Incidentally, when we ran the battle-sim between Russian autonomous soldiers and Bundeswehr troops operating under your rules of engagement, your guys got slaughtered. Every single time.”

The camera lingers on Ursula’s face: determined, not giving an inch. Unbowed.

---

The video comes to an end and Colonel Liu returns to the lectern, calm and competent, ready to draw lessons.

“Let me highlight the important issues from that sequence,” he says, “Firstly, are we being too ambitious? There's an analogy with self-driving cars where tech companies are spending billions. Their cars are way too cautious because they can't safely take the initiative, even in a defined situation like driving.”

Colonel Liu can’t see the audience, they’re lost in the blackness, but he can sense their interest.

“If we can't even get AI cars to work what chance do we have with AI soldiers? They're in an unstructured, complex and largely unknown terrain - where we want them to selectively deploy lethal force and meet ill-defined objectives.”

The auditorium is silent.

“Secondly, training,” he continues, “Our staff colleges don't show recruits endless YouTube battle clips. We teach tactics, strategy, case-studies; the controlled use of force for political ends.”

He waves an arm for emphasis, almost in exasperation.

“How would we do that with AIs today? In our incompetence we oscillate between ineffectual pacifism - the German idea that a soldier-drone is just an AI-car in camo - and the Russian model of counterproductive murderous lethality.”

He pauses, takes another sip of water.

“The Pentagon believes that the autonomous AI soldier is far from ready to rock and roll. We don’t know how to build it and neither does anyone else. There is, however, a place for sophisticated AI in military operations - and that will be the subject of our final session after lunch.”

---

Next     Previous.

4: A Green Politician

AI in the Battlespace: Chapter 4

4: A Green Politician

It's late morning. Colonel Liu checks the hall: most people are now seated but there is always that trickle of late-comers, people chatting or loitering in the passageways. He leans towards the mic, taps it, calls the meeting to order and shortly afterwards the lights begin to dim.

“This second session follows on from the events we’ve just reviewed,” he says, “You’re all aware of the tensions within NATO - we're not always the flavor of the month. We approached the Germans through a French security consultant. He's meeting Ursula Sagel, junior minister for the Bundeswehr who's an MP for Die Grünen. She's aligned with their liberal-ecological wing. Good choice for a defense minister you might say.”

This amuses his listeners.

“Ursula Sagel and Dr Caron are discussing the war game between NATO autonomous soldiers and their Russian equivalents. The meeting took place in her office in the Bendlerblock building in Berlin and was recorded.”

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Alain Caron has already made a good impression on her. He’s in his mid thirties - my age thinks Ursula - and somewhat stocky. He’s a little taller than she is - Ursula is slim and willowy - and he looks very French in his smart jeans and casual jacket.

Gallic-casual, Ursula thinks.

Her office is in one of Berlin's large and ornate buildings, one of those which survived two world wars. The high ceiling has functional chandeliers but today's illumination comes from wall-mounted uplighters. Ursula steps from behind her solid wooden desk and shows her visitor to a side area where she can watch the presentation.

The two guys with the recording equipment position themselves discreetly behind them.

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Ursula has already been briefed about robotic land-warriors. Today's meeting is policy, not facts.

“Before we get to what the Russians may or may not have programmed into their robot-soldiers,” she says, “I want to make our Government’s position clear. We abide by the rules of war; rules designed to prevent NATO drones from ever committing atrocities.”

Ursula is a conviction-politician: this is not just a formulaic recital.

The almost-pacifist ethos of the German Government places strains on the NATO alliance and prompts accusations of free riding from the current US administration. Caron's job here is not to change Ursula's mind about anything - he knows that’s impossible - but to place another brick in the wall, to build a gathering case slowly and logically.

“Put the Russians to one side for now,” he says, “I want to highlight some of the genuine problems with land-drones, or robot-soldiers or whatever we want to call them.”

The screen shows an aerial view of American soldiers driving into a dusty village. It could be anywhere in the Middle-East or Central Asia. The humvees stop in a large clearing surrounded by mud brick dwellings. The scene is a chiaroscuro: etched in deep shadows and scorching light by the searing sun overhead.

“They don’t know this village,” says Alain, “they've never been here before but they’re prepared for ambush. This imagery is from their drone.”

The soldiers dismount and form up around their vehicles. The camera pans to the largest hut, zooms to a group of bearded men with a small child. An elderly man gives the child flowers and directs her towards the troops.

The little girl slowly and carefully walks the fifty metres to the nearest soldiers under the barrels of their guns. She is quite alone. Apart from the small group of elders, the village seems deserted - but who knows what’s going on inside, or behind those trees and agricultural piles?

“You see their dilemma?” whispers Alain as they both watch. Ursula’s looking tense.

The girl is allowed to approach and a soldier is deputised to meet her. Unarmed he advances, arms held wide and they meet. He takes the flowers, smiles and she shyly returns a smile. The tension eases away and the elders drift into view, ready to meet the incomers.

Alain is still watching Ursula intently. Unusually for a politician, her expressions match how she’s feeling. He can see her smile of relief, her pleasure as the child offered the flowers.

“Don't be misled. These villagers really don’t like American soldiers,” Alain says, “Despite any illusions back in the States. This is really just the deference the weak give to the powerful, trying to mollify them, get them off their backs.”

The clip ends. Alain prepares to run the next.

“Try this,” he says.

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Next     Previous.

'The Taming of the Shrew' - Wells Theatre Festival

 

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The Taming of the Shrew at the Bishop’s Barn
Wells Theatre Festival, June 22nd 2025

How does a fashionably progressive amateur troupe engage with The Taming of the Shrew in 2025 without dying of embarrassment or being cancelled? They can’t directly, so they attempt to outflank it.

Before the play even begins, we are confronted by a disruptive “audience member” in the front row: a shaven-headed, flabby, middle-aged figure brandishing beer in a plastic cup. He’s pretending to be a slightly-drunken 'anti-woke' bloke proud of his 'theatrical review blog'  -  twenty subscribers!  -  who loudly warns us that this play is nowadays branded by the woke as misogynistic, offensive, and therefore shouldn’t be staged.

We are meant to recognised the type: Brexit-voting, Reform-supporting, implicitly racist, homophobic and misogynistic - yes, it's the stereotypical, mostly mythical, 'extreme-right' hate-figure.

Subtlety has clearly come here to die.

The cast, already milling around on stage, break character (or rather begin with no character at all) with performative outrage: “We’ll show him,” they say. “We're progressive enough to not be scared of this play: we’ll show you how progressives can handle stereotypes!”

This heckler, this grunting mouthpiece of reactionary idiocy, now segues into mouthing Shakespeare’s lines. Yes, he's transitioned into Christopher Sly, the play's drunken tinker duped into believing he is more important than he is. It’s all very clever, in the undergraduate sense of that word: the cast has grabbed the moral high ground.

The actual play, once it lurches into gear, is a more familiar kind of disappointment. Passages are recited as if in a memory test (those pauses: are they for dramatic effect or did he/she forget their lines?). The actors try their best but don't know what it would mean to inhabit the roles they've been given.

Kate is played as a sassy, knockabout feminist from a BBC3 sitcom; Petruchio, her foolhardy suitor, as a buffoon in silly clothing. Their dynamic is devoid of sophistication: just Punch and Judy (yawn). We are subjected to a parade of clunky, disjointed scenes in which nobody quite believes in what they’re doing, though plainly the taming of the shrew is intended to show the taming of the suitor.

Younger sister Bianca’s successful suitor, for reasons not wholly explored in the Bard's original text, is here rewritten as a woman... so the play will end with a same-sex marriage. One feels Bianca could equally well have partnered with her cat, her mother or the much put-upon horse for all the dramatic validity of this interesting choice. Who knew sixteenth century Padua was as rich in diverse coupling opportunities which no-one seems to feel at all odd? 

The fundamental problem here is not only ideological but also theatrical. The Taming of the Shrew is a very early play  -  probably 1590 or 1591  -  and comes from the period when Shakespeare was still writing in the idiom of broad farce and folk theatre. It’s full of commedia archetypes, exaggerated violence, and noisy, low comedy. Grumio, the fool, was almost certainly written for William Kempe, the Elizabethan equivalent of a stand-up comic in hose and slapstick shoes. There is no psychological realism, no domestic subtlety. The whole thing indeed plays out like a Punch and Judy show in iambic pentameter.

That doesn't mean it’s unplayable. But it does require clarity of vision: either lean into the grotesquery or interrogate it with intelligence. What this production offered instead was a mixture of self-congratulation, progressive-preening and timidity — a play about performing Shakespeare in a modern context, not a performance of Shakespeare himself.

We left at the interval. The ice-creams outside were nice.

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