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‘Artificial intelligence’ is a meaningless term. it is also the product of fiction.

By that I mean that the titans of the AI industry have a world view that is shaped by their reading of science fiction.

For thoughtful readers, fiction can be enlightening, can illustrate human truths, and make us ponder our place in the universe.

Alas, the AI titans are not thoughtful readers. Rather, they have a laughingly dumb and adolescent read of fiction.

I’ve long had a vague understanding of this — I knew Elon Musk’s take on The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was 180° opposite that intended by the books’ author, Douglas Adams — but it wasn’t until I read Teresa Heffernan’s articles on the subject that I knew just how deep and pervasive the terrible read of fiction is among the tech entrepreneur class.

Heffernan works at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax. She is a professor of English Language and Literature. She’s studied literary theory, critical posthumanism, feminist theory, and the novel, and more recently she has concentrated on how the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence are shaped by fiction.

In preparation of my interview with Heffernan, I read three of her papers. One, ‘Orga is not Mecha: How Literal Readings of Fiction are Damaging the World,’ is readily available online. The abstract:

This paper traces the fictional roots of recent claims by those in the AI industry that superintelligent machines pose an existential risk. This irrational anxiety, given that fiction is not science, that grants AI agency is not only a distraction from real concerns, but a psychological displacement, an unconscious defense that substitutes a new object, autonomous machines, in place of one that cannot be acknowledged: responsibility for the environmental and societal damage caused by a resource-intensive industry that persists, despite the climate catastrophe, with a mechanistic worldview, one that treats nature, including humans, as a lucrative commodity. Initially seduced by the story of AI evolution, Stanley Kubrick consulted computer scientists when he was making 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was released a year before the moon landing. In the problematic cycle of fiction directing science, the film’s depiction of AI has, in turn, shaped research in the field. Yet, if at first Kubrick embraced the scientists’ vision of evolving, intelligent, immortal machines, by the time he was working on A. I. Artificial Intelligence in the 1980s, the field was entering one of its many winters and environmental concerns had dampened faith in technological progress. Kubrick again consulted AI scientists, but this time he returned the field to its fictional roots and presented AI as a dark fairy tale about a corporation that persists with the myth that it can turn ’mecha’ into ‘orga’ despite the climate crisis.

I also read two papers that are behind academic journal paywalls, so not freely available. The first is ‘The imitation game, the “child machine,” and the fathers of AI,’ with this abstract:

Alan Turing’s “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” published in 1950, is one of the founding texts in the field of artificial intelligence, although the term was not coined until 1958, 4 years after his death. From the treatment of human intelligence as computational and the brain as mechanical to the comparison of animals to machines to the disregard for the materiality of computers to programming as a stand-in for procreation to fiction-inspired science, many of the core tenets that have shaped the field of AI have their origins in Turing’s paper. A close analysis of the paper exposes some of the problematic logic underlying these tenets that are now proving damaging for both society and the planet.

And ‘The Religious Roots of AI and the Rise of Neo-Feudalism,” with this abstract:

Discussions of immortality, the raising of the dead, magic, demons, and the divine permeate the global AI industry. Although positioning itself as a technoscience, it has long animated its technology by appealing to religious rhetoric where men imagine themselves as gods birthing human-like machines. This paper considers the industry’s promise to usher in a “magical” age, as it concentrates wealth and power in the hands of an elite, in the context of some of the debates about modernity, secularization, enchantment, and disenchantment. It warns that the return to literal readings of stories, which sweep away the complexity and nuance of fiction in favour of the totalitarian potential of myth, helps facilitate the rise of neo-feudalism.

I was fascinated by these papers, and took meticulous notes as I was reading them. I truly learned a lot from them, and I’ll be reflecting on them as I do more reporting on AI.

There are so many important points in the papers that I could pull out, but I’d like to highlight this from the ‘Orga is not Mecha’ paper:

While AI science mimics scientific argumentation, as we have seen, fiction often stands in place of any proof.

In contrast, for decades, climate science has been gathering empirical evidence about the impact of the fossil-fuel industry, including plastics and petrochemicals.

The scientific method involves the rigorous and reproducible testing of a hypothesis, based on observations, to find causal connections and to predict future patterns. Species loss, environmental degradation, and extreme weather can all be traced to the rapid industrialization and urbanization that has been enabled by petroleum products, climate scientists have found.

Over the same decades that transhumanists have been mobilizing, instead of investing in the low-hanging fruit of proven technologies to address this escalating ecological crisis (to name a few: bicycles, renewable energy, affordable public transportation, electric trains, heat pumps, tree planting, habitat restoration, repairable electronics, and environmentally responsible materials) venture capital has financed high-tech sectors, with consider­able support from tax dollars, the military, and heavily lobbied governments, and invested in resource-intensive “superintelligent” machines, from autonomous cars to robot soldiers.

Billions of dollars have backed AI and the immortality industry with their fiction-fueled dreams of sentient robots, space colonies, uplifted animals, and downloaded brains while science-based climate research has met resistance, deferral, and denial as the world burns.

Heffernan was gracious with her time, and patient with me. Here’s our conversation:

I’m new to the video interview, and still learning. I watched a few videos yesterday about technique and editing, and hope to get better at it. Let me know what you think of this format, and whether I should continue. (I have one more interview already scheduled and several other interview requests out.)

The interview with Heffernan was part of the Halifax Examiner’s series looking at AI, which is the hook for our November subscription drive. Previous articles in the series are:

What is ‘artificial intelligence,’ anyway? The confusion is the point Resisting the AI push into education Ed Zitron calls bullshit on AI hype I’m with Emma Thompson. I don’t want AI to ‘fucking rewrite what I’ve just written’ either

I hope you value this work, and value it enough to support it with your subscription or donation.

Thank you!

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NOTICED

Saying plainly what is true versus ‘opinion’

Credit: Iris; background by Hamish/Unsplash

Wednesday night, I attended a panel discussion hosted by the University of King’s College School of Journalism, entitled “Can We Talk? The Uneasy Relationship between Journalism & Government.”

Panelists were recently retired CBC Province House reporter Jean Laroche; former deputy minister of everything (including the premier’s office), former CEO of Communications Nova Scotia, and current president of ACOA Laura Lee Langley; and Acadia University prof Alex Marland.

I was hoping that, remembering some past slight, Laroche would throw a chair or something at Langley. But alas, no. Everyone was polite and the conversation went placidly along pretty much as expected: lamenting the ever-tightening grip governments have on information, but also acknowledging the reasons for that.

Left to right: Laura Lee Langley, Alex Marland, Jean Laroche. Credit: University of King’s College

Unfortunately, so far as I know, the event wasn’t livestreamed or videotaped. But I did use my little hand-held audio recorder to record it, so if want to spend two hours listening to it, you can, here.

As usual, I was That Guy. I don’t really cherish being That Guy, but I took a little offence when Alex Marland said this:

I’ll just make a quick comment on social media because I really think journalists have made a grave error with social media. When social media emerged, I think a lot of them thought, this is a great way to show my personality, to engage, and that’s where they started really destroying the trust that people had because people now started seeing them as people who have opinions and who are biased. And then it becomes very hard to detach from somebody’s sort of hard-edged persona online And then to see them reporting, and thinking that they’re reporting in an objective manner. So there’s more public engagement, we have more sense of personalities of certain journalists online. But it’s really made the entire profession of journalism come down quite a bit.

I waited until the Q&A session, which was also said to allow for commentary, and said this:

I just want to gently push back a bit on the disdain I heard for opinionized news. I came of age as a reporter in a world of lefty news organizations and alt weeklies. And I think both of those — there’s some overlap there — brought a lot to journalism that was missing, especially on a local level with alt weeklies, and I like to think that my own contributions at alt weeklies were significant.

I think, from that time, I was in my 20s in the Reagan and Thatcher years, we’ve seen our society go one direction towards now fascist regimes and increased inequality and extreme wealth at the end. And through that process, the mainstream media has failed, several different ways. One, it’s taken this voice from nowhere kind of, you know, the man from Mars comes to Earth and reports dispassionately on what’s happening. There’s been consolidation [of media outlets], the kinds of controls Jean just said on reporters [related to the CBC regulating social media use] — they can’t be humans.

And all the while, the very fact of the increased authoritarianism was never commented on. Climate change was missed as a news story for decades and decades, and still, the mainstream media is failing on it. The control of the multinational corporations and the very wealthy on our society is dehumanizing. And I think it’s important for journalists to call bullshit, to point out the facts of the world. And yes, that’s opinionized, yes, we’re human. You know, deal with it.

We’re now doing a multi-part series on artificial intelligence, which is, at its heart, a dehumanizing project. And I think we need humans at the table, standing up for humans, talking about the value of life and the social good, and standing up for people, and that means to be opinionized.

That was an off-the-cuff comment, not prepared, and so I left out something else I wanted to say, but that I lost, which was this:

People began losing trust in journalism long before the rise of social media.

The high point of trust in journalism was probably just after Watergate, when people believed that journalists were taking on the most powerful. (This is a somewhat mythical view of what happened during Watergate, but I’ll leave that aside.)

There is probably no better single example of the lost trust in journalism than the hollowing out of the formerly esteemed Washington Post by Jeff Bezos, one of the richest men on Earth, who is now sucking up to the fascist Trump regime by destroying the integrity of the Post. It’s the exact opposite of journalism taking on power.

But it wasn’t just the Washington Post. It was the entire news industry. It’s a mixed story, but in broad outline the old family-owned local newspapers were bought up by giant media chains, reporters were laid off, formerly independent news operations were consolidated, profits were maximized.

I distinctly remember in the 1990s, when the local daily in my town, the Chico Enterprise-Record, was bought by the NewsMedia group, which immediately laid off a reporter as a cost-cutting (read: profit-maximizing) move. I learned that the paper that year saw a 25% annual return.

As news was corporatized, budgets for investigative reporting were slashed, and editorial lines were increasingly dictated by the business office. Along the way, there was scandal after scandal impugning the reputation of reporting. At the New York Times alone, there was a line from Jason Blair to Judith Miller.

As I say, the trust in journalism was eroding long before reporters started posting on Twitter. The news media have become just another institution that people know don’t have their best interests at heart.

There are so many, but the most recent example is the downplaying of war crimes in Gaza, committed by Israel with the full support of the American and Canadian governments. But thanks to social media, people can see with their own eyes what’s going on, and they know that the news media are not telling the truth.

Don’t blame reporters posting on Bluesky for the loss of trust; blame media organizations that have abandoned the mission of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. Now, to a considerable degree, the media simply bootlicks the powerful.

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Marland was, I think, giving voice to the idea that there’s a ‘factual’ world that can just be reported. But reporting on the world without the context is presenting a false factual world.

For example, if you report on Donald Trump, and don’t accurately describe him as a fascist, you are lying to your readers.

Or, when I report on any of the Houston government’s policies to increase the drilling for gas and ending the ban on fracking, I always point out that doing so will make it impossible for Nova Scotia to meet its greenhouse gas reduction goals, and will help accelerate the pace of global climate change. That’s just a fact. You can’t wipe away that truth by calling it ‘opinion.’ Not mentioning the fact of climate change in a news article about opening the offshore up for gas drilling and ending the fracking ban is, again, misrepresenting the real world to readers and giving them a false account of reality.

There is no unbiased ‘truth.’ One cannot exist in the world without a personal view of it, an opinion. To be alive is to be biased. Each of us lives in a social, political, financial, educational, and personal context that shapes how we see, experience, and react to the broader world. It’s just that some people’s views of the world are labelled ‘objective’ and therefore worthy of consideration, while other people’s views of the world are labelled ‘opinion’ and therefore can be ignored.

Consider: the choice of what stories are covered and what stories are not covered is necessarily a reflection of bias. There was a hole that alt weeklies filled — the Village Voice, for instance, gave actual voice to the Black and queer communities of New York, which had been ignored completely by the daily papers.

(The Village Voice’s reporting on the Stonewall riots was an inflection point for the paper. While it was the only media outlet that actually interviewed rioters and other people in the queer community, some of that reporting had an anti-queer perspective, to the point that some rioters suggested burning down the Voice’s offices. But people at the paper learned from the experience, and a result the paper began hiring queer reporters and otherwise doing a much better job covering the community.)

Here in Nova Scotia, The Clarion, published by Carrie Best, covered the Black community. It was Best who reported on Viola Desmond being arrested for refusing to give up her seat in the whites-only section of the Roseland Theatre in New Glasgow — no other newspaper covered it. Who was the biased party — the activist reporter advocating for the Black community, or the mainstream papers which didn’t bother to report on Desmond?

Some readers may be wondering, What about the Fox News problem?

I have two issues with the right-wing media orgs. The first is to a considerable degree, they lie. They make up shit and give fuel to nonsensical and disproven conspiracy theories like that the 2020 election was stolen. That is not journalism.

My second issue the right-wing news orgs involves opinions. It’s not that they have opinions — everyone has opinions — but rather that they have bad opinions. There is not some neutral unbiased world where all opinions are equal. Some people are evil. Some people are racist, misogynist pigs who kiss the asses of billionaires, and we have not just the right but the duty to condemn them for their opinions.

I hope you trust me a little more for saying so plainly.

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THE LATEST FROM THE HALIFAX EXAMINER:

**1. **Going through the motions of Andy Fillmore’s first year as Halifax’s mayor

Mayor Andy Fillmore during a scrum after the morning session of the new Halifax Regional Council on Nov. 12. Credit: Suzanne Rent

Suzanne Rent reports:

The third time apparently isn’t the charm when it comes to requesting an interview with Halifax Mayor Andy Fillmore.

On Oct. 7, I sent an email to Fillmore’s office requesting an in-person interview with Fillmore to talk about his first year in office. I received a response from Ryan Nearing, Fillmore’s senior communications advisor.

“Leave this with me, and I’ll see what we can do,” Nearing wrote.

I haven’t heard back.

This wasn’t my first request for such an interview. I sent a message to Fillmore’s office on Dec. 4, 2024, and got a response from John Wedderburn, Fillmore’s then senior communications advisor, who had served in the role for Mike Savage.

After some back and forth on emails, Wedderburn scheduled an interview for Jan. 21, 2025. That interview was then cancelled as according to Wedderburn, Fillmore was having dental surgery that day.

I tried again months later but Wedderburn said Fillmore was too busy with the budget process. (I don’t have the exact date as Wedderburn contacted me via text, and I lost my phone in May).

My last correspondence with Wedderburn was in June 2025 when I asked him about strong mayor legislation. I was working on this story about strong mayor legislation.

I didn’t hear back. Wedderburn no longer works in Fillmore’s office.

I started covering Halifax City Hall in October 2023. Covering this new council, which was elected in October 2024, has been — how can I say this? — frustrating and a bit of a rollercoaster at times.

The only time I can ask Fillmore questions in person is at scrums during breaks at Halifax regional council meetings. Many of my emails to Fillmore’s office go unanswered; I’ve heard that’s the experience of some other reporters, too.

…

Yesterday, Nov. 5, marked one year since the swearing-in ceremony of Fillmore and councillors. So I decided to look back on one year of reporting on Fillmore, even if I can’t get an interview with him.

Click or tap here to read “Going through the motions of Andy Fillmore’s first year as Halifax’s mayor.”

Rent is a fantastic City Hall reporter (among her other reporting), and this review of Fillmore’s first year as mayor is detailed. Read it.

But those details aside, can we acknowledge just how cowardly Fillmore is? He’s afraid of speaking with a reporter? Coward.

That word defines Fillmore’s entire political career.

Coward.

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2. NDP names ‘Government Accountability’ critic

Paul Wozney, NDP critic for Ethics & Accountability, and Claudia Chender, NDP leader, Nov. 6, 2025. Credit: Jennifer Henderson

Jennifer Henderson reports:

NDP leader Claudia Chender has appointed Paul Wozney, the MLA for Sackville -Cobequid, to a newly created role as critic for “Ethics and Accountability.”

Wozney is a former president of the Nova Scotia Teachers Union whose past experience shows a willingness to stand up to power. At a news conference yesterday, Wozney was asked to explain the reason (other than public relations) for naming an ethics critic.

“While Nova Scotians are working hard to afford rent, power, and groceries, the Houston government continues to strike backroom deals with party insiders and personal friends instead of working for the Nova Scotians they were elected to serve,” Wozney said.

Chender put forward the following examples to back up those claims:

• The PCs have handed a $1.9 million Nova Scotia Loyal contract to a firm that set up a Halifax office after the last election run by the premier’s former communications director (Cal MacLellan) and senior election strategist (David Tarrant).

• According to Chender, “the premier has described Tom Hickey, the president of Atlantic Paving and Road Construction as ‘a close personal friend’ and his companies stand to make a lot of money if they can infill Dartmouth Cove, something they have been restricted from doing by HRM and which the premier is openly musing about overturning. That will create a financial benefit.”

• The Houston government is now considering selling off a portion of West Mabou Beach provincial park to the Cabot Group to build a third golf course. “There are PC insiders who are advocating, not lobbying because they are not registered lobbyists, for that project in the community. So this is a pattern and a pattern that needs to stop,” said Chender.

Click or tap here to read “NDP names ‘Government Accountability’ critic.”

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**3. **Nova Scotia Liberals urge government to prevent HRM infant feeding clinic closure

Credit: Pixabay

Madiha Mughees reports:

The Nova Scotia Liberal Party is urging the provincial government to stop the closure of a Halifax drop-in clinic that provides infant feeding support to new families experiencing feeding difficulties.

In a recent post, Sheila Mills, a nurse practitioner and co-host of the publicly funded infant feeding support drop-in sessions, shared the “heartbreaking” announcement that the Halifax Primary Care Clinic will no longer support the drop-in sessions, effective Jan. 1, 2026, leaving families without access to lactation support.

This clinic was active for 16 months, and has helped many families in the Central Zone.

In the announcement, shared Thursday morning by the Nova Scotia Liberal Party, Mills said that it has been her “source of pride to care for the newborns, infants, and birthing parents under this innovative model of care.” Mills encouraged families to seek advice from their public health nurse after the clinic’s closure.

She said that for more complex feeding assistance, families will have to use private, pay-out-of-pocket models.

Click or tap here to read “Nova Scotia Liberals urge government to prevent HRM infant feeding clinic closure.”

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4. New pilot clinic expected to improve outcomes for Nova Scotians with respiratory health challenges

Dr. Sanja Stanojevic encourages Dalhousie University’s faculty of health communications manager Terry Murray during a breath test at the new lung clinic on Oct. 30, 2025. Credit: Yvette d’Entremont

Yvette d’Entremont reports:

A new pilot community clinic officially opening this month is expected to help Nova Scotians experiencing urgent respiratory health challenges and reduce wait times for lung function testing.

The Nova Scotia Lung Wellness Clinic in Halifax is being described as one that will “revolutionize” respiratory care in the province. In Nova Scotia, the current average wait time for a breathing test is up to two years.

“Lung health is something that many of us take for granted, and when we start to develop symptoms, accessing care can be a challenge,” Dr. Sanja Stanojevic said in an interview. “And so on top of being breathless and having trouble breathing, we now have to wait a long time to get both diagnostic testing but also access to care.”

Stanojevic is a professor in the department of community health and epidemiology at Dalhiousie University’s faculty of medicine. She said Nova Scotia has some of the highest rates of lung conditions in the country, in addition to the highest rates of smoking. More than 86,000 people also live with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).

Click or tap here to read “New pilot clinic expected to improve outcomes for Nova Scotians with respiratory health challenges.”

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5. The loneliness epidemic and the importance of ‘third spaces’

Credit: Tim Mossholder/Unsplash

Madiha Mughees reports:

During an online event on Tuesday, experts explored how our social environment and urban design can significantly impact our mental and physical health outcomes.

The event, titled “The Walrus Talks at Home: Place and Belonging,” aimed to highlight the growing need for meaningful social interactions and the importance of third spaces. It was sponsored by The Belonging Forum, and event speakers included the CEO and chief librarian for Halifax Public Libraries.

The Belonging Forum describes itself as an organization that envisions a world in which “everyone can realize their right to belong through the experience of meaningful connections to people, to communities, to the natural world, to a sense of purpose and to social, political and economic decision-making.”

Canada is experiencing a loneliness epidemic where one in every 10 people feels lonely. In Nova Scotia, 18.7% of men always feel lonely compared to 13.7% of women.

There’s a small irony that this was an online event as opposed to in-person, but that aside, I was struck particularly by this:

“It is unfortunate [said Kim Samuel, founder of The Belonging Forum] that belonging has always been treated as an afterthought, and cities are instead designed for cars rather than for humans.

“And more and more, we’re seeing the loss of community hubs that foster connection,” Samuel said.

“Here, I’m thinking about neighbourhood pubs closing down, libraries operating on reduced hours, places of worship being sold off to developers, and local recreation centres offering less and less programming for residents.”

Samuels quoted famous activist Jane Jacobs as saying, “Are cities for cars or for people?” and noted that saying cuts to the core of what she is trying to convey.

“What do we value? And what is the value of place within it? If ultimately we decide that we value human connection and wellbeing, it’s imperative that we build belonging in mind of everything that we do.”

Click or tap here to read “The loneliness epidemic and the importance of ‘third spaces.’”

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Government

No meetings

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On campus

Dalhousie

Noon Hour Free Live Music Series: Pop Music Ensemble (Friday, 11:45am, Strug Concert Hall) — details

**Lebanese Film Festival **(Friday, 7pm, Room 1020, Rowe Building) — details

NSCAD

Artist’s talk (Friday, 12pm, Anna Leonowens Gallery 2B) — Kamryn Gilliss

Artist’s talk (Friday, 1pm, Anna Leonowens Gallery 3) — Evan MacPherson

Saint Mary’s

History Seminar Series (Friday, 1pm, Loyola 173) — Michael Vance will present “Irish Soldier Settlers in Atlantic Canada, c. 1818-1838”

Past Lives (Friday, 7pm, Burke Theatre B) — public screening and discussion of 2023 film with Ji Yoon An from UBC

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Literary Events

Friday

Latte Lit Open Mic (Friday, 6:30pm, Open Book Coffee, Halifax) — details

Weekend

Open Heart Forgery: Poetry Open Mic (Saturday, 1:30pm, Halifax Central Library) — details

Book signing (Saturday, 8:30am, Wolfville Farmers’ Market) — Corinne Hoebers signs Tethered Spirits

Book signing (Saturday, 1pm, Coles, Yarmouth Mall) — Sarah Emsley signs The Austens

Book launch (Sunday, 1pm, Open Book Coffee, Halifax) — Trish Joudrey launches Dancing with the Marigolds: My Twelve-Year Journey in India

A Halifax Legal Thriller Showcase (Sunday, 3pm, Dartmouth Book Exchange) — and book signing with Pamela Callow

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In the harbour

Halifax 01:00: Algoma Acadian, oil tanker, sails from Irving Oil for Charlottetown 05:30: MSC Rosaria, container ship, arrives at Pier 42 from Sines, Portugal 09:00: AlgoLuna, oil tanker, sails from anchorage for Québec City 13:00: NACC Argonaut, cement carrier, sails from Pier 25 for sea 16:30: Nolhan Ava, ro-ro cargo, sails from Pier 25 for Saint-Pierre 17:00: MSC Rosaria sails for sea 17:30: Oceanex Sanderling, ro-ro container, sails from Fairview Cove for St. John’s 18:00: Eva Bright, bulker, sails from Pier 27 for sea

Cape Breton 08:00: Evans Spirit, cargo ship, arrives at Mulgrave from Baie Comeau 12:00: Phoenix Admiral, oil tanker, sails from EverWind for sea 14:00: Radcliffe R. Latimer, bulker, sails from Aulds Cove quarry for sea 20:00: Wind Pace, offshore vessel, moves from Atlantic Bulk Terminal to anchorage 20:00: RolldockSun, cargo ship, moves from anchorage to Atlantic Bulk Terminal 21:00: AlgoLuna, oil tanker, transits through the causeway en route from Halifax to Québec City Midnight: CSL Tacoma, bulker, sails from Coal Pier (Sydney) for sea

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Footnotes

I was tempted to write a long essay about a single song for today’s Morning File, but thankfully, I ran out of time.

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