The real dilemma of artificial intelligence
Having written (for a Times diary) a few sentences about consciousness in robots, I settled back to study readers’ responses…
When did romantic love become a religion?
Listen http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_21_August_2014_v4.mp3 Pity the modern starlet. Be she steaming-hot pop-tart or reality-show show-off, her range of emotional experiences will, thanks…
When did romantic love become a religion?
Listen http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_21_August_2014_v4.mp3 Pity the modern starlet. Be she steaming-hot pop-tart or reality-show show-off, her range of emotional experiences will, thanks…
World disorder
The problem isn't that our leaders go on holiday in August. It's the lack of strategy when they're on duty
Portrait of the week
Home David Cameron, the Prime Minister, resisted calls for Parliament to be recalled to debate the crisis in Iraq. Philip Hammond,…
From the archives
From ‘The Call to Arms’, The Spectator, 15 August 1914: At this moment it is the duty of all employers,…
Could you afford to become an MP?
If our parliamentarians complain about their pay, that's partly because of how expensive it is to join them
What you can’t say about anti-Semitic attacks
Just pretend for a moment that of, say, 200 anti-Semitic attacks in the UK, a study discovered that 198 of them had been committed by Methodists…
You’re never too old, they say. But I am
At Shakespeare in Love, I discovered more things I’ll never ever be able to do
My summer advice for graduate job-seekers: try the City last, and steer well clear of PR
Plus: The fate of Malaysia Airlines, and France’s sanctions mess
No we shouldn’t
No doubt the 'Islamic State' poses some danger. Direct western intervention will only make it more dangerous
Murder porn
The net is full of murder porn, self-righteously shared. So, increasingly, are newspapers. It’s time to take a stand
The moaning middle
Middle England is screaming about lost entitlements – but quietly doing rather well
Lab test
If we want to defend genuinely groundbreaking and beneficial work, we need to think more seriously about how animals are used in education
Translating Proust wasn’t all
Jean Findlay's Chasing Lost Time throws new light on the remarkable life of C.K. Scott Moncrieff
A monumental achievement
A review of Abstraction and Reality: The Sculpture of Ivor Roberts-Jones, by Jonathan Black and Sara Ayres. This follower of Rodin has a solid legacy, though his most famous commission was 'a most unpleasant business'
Grappling with the impossible subject
He has done his subject justice. The final release for the reader is an almost physical relief
