This all-knowing entity

There are numerous things we could say about the digital world and one of them seems to be its impact on education. The internet doesn’t “know” everything, but apart from the intricacies of specialisms, it “knows” vastly more than any human could ever know. Including government ministers – well we already knew about that – but also teachers.

As we know, this all-knowing entity has entered the home via computers, phones and various “intelligent” devices. One effect of this is that children above a certain age must now be aware that their school teachers don’t know everything, not even about their own subject. We may assume this awareness is permanent.

It’s something I’ve noticed with our grandkids, this heightened awareness of both the adult world and adult limitations. We adults see much the same thing in those who would rule our lives – in a political sense they aren’t masters of their subject either. They aren’t even masters of themselves – not that they ever were.

As if the University of Life and the Universal Expert have both entered schools and as yet there seems to be no coherent response apart from trying to keep the lid on it. They have entered politics and the wider public arena too. Political elites are trying to keep the lid on that as well.

There is a genie out of the bottle aspect to the digital world. Not that this genie is likely to grant any wishes, but as with any technical advance, we can’t go back. Kings, queens, presidents, political elites and religious leaders have become fallible humans who only very rarely live up to their exalted authority.

It is not so much that the digital genie will tell us what we didn’t know about the world of elites. It is more a case of the genie being there in the public domain as an inhumanly knowledgeable authority. It has the potential to undermine elites because it offers a form of oversight available to all. Far from complete oversight, but it is there, available to all, available anywhere at any time.

The problem now is predicting any kind of digital future because this all-knowing entity is a product of both human ingenuity, human effort and human fallibility coupled with inhuman speed, extent and depth. It is also censored.

It’s a very odd genie indeed, but even the censored version is out of the bottle and an encouraging feature is that elites don’t know what to do about it. A discouraging feature is the number of voters who merely play with it.

We don't know what this strange genie will do, but the inept nature of Keir Starmer's government became obvious with remarkable speed. No long newspaper editorials, no tediously tame TV interviews, no months and years of political pontification about learning lessons, debating policies and doing more to win over voters. The digital genie was much quicker than all that - ruthlessly quick.

There are numerous similar examples of this strange genie at work. It kept a close eye on Joe Biden's decline, there was no chance of escaping that embarrassment apart from a willing ignorance. It is equally aware of Kamala Harris and her inadequacies, it knew pandemic lockdown was stupid, knows Ed Miliband is a buffoon and knows Net Zero won't work.

Of course there are deficiencies, too many people just play with it and in the end may well be satisfied with a heavily censored version. Yet it is also possible that the genie really is out of the bottle and elites will have to find better ways of adapting because... maybe because it is smarter than they are.