{"id":528930,"date":"2026-04-13T18:17:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T18:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/528930\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T18:17:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T18:17:08","slug":"dont-make-marshal-fochs-mistake-on-ai-ai-artificial-intelligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/528930\/","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t make Marshal Foch\u2019s mistake on AI | AI (artificial intelligence)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Emma Brockes\u2019 article struck a chord (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2026\/apr\/08\/ai-chat-gpt-new-yorker-feature-sam-altman\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">It\u2019s finally happened: I\u2019m now worried about AI. And consulting ChatGPT did nothing to allay my fears, 8 April<\/a>). I am reading Marc\u00a0Bloch\u2019s Strange Defeat, in which the eminent French historian and soon-to-be-executed resistance worker gives a first-hand account of the collapse of the French army in 1940. He attributes the debacle at least in part to a failure of imagination on the part of the French general staff, who were incapable of grasping that technology, and war, had fundamentally changed since 1918.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Brockes\u2019 article suggests that we, and our leaders, are suffering from the same inability to understand that a technology which is currently amusingly alarming will develop in less amusing ways \u2013 the future <a href=\"https:\/\/www.airandspaceforces.com\/article\/0493edit\/\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Marshal Ferdinand Foch<\/a> had, according to Bloch, earlier dismissed aircraft as being a toy for hobbyists and not of any military interest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Bloch writes that blitzkrieg in 1940 was like a replay of the earlier French colonial wars, only this time it was the French who were using the bows and arrows. It is far from amusing to wonder what an unchecked AI will make of our sticks and stones in 10 or 20 years\u2019 time.<br \/>Peregrine Rand<br \/>Paris, France<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\"> Have an opinion on anything you\u2019ve read in the Guardian today? Please <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2026\/apr\/13\/mailto:guardian.letters@theguardian.com?body=Please%20include%20your%20name,%20full%20postal%20address%20and%20phone%20number%20with%20your%20letter%20below.%20Letters%20are%20usually%20published%20with%20the%20author%27s%20name%20and%20city\/town\/village.%20The%20rest%20of%20the%20information%20is%20for%20verification%20only%20and%20to%20contact%20you%20where%20necessary.\" data-link-name=\"in body link \" https:=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">email<\/a> us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/tone\/letters\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">letters<\/a> section.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Emma Brockes\u2019 article struck a chord (It\u2019s finally happened: I\u2019m now worried about AI. And consulting ChatGPT did&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":528931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-528930","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}