SARAH VINE: 'Smart' tech has turned us all into zombified slaves

My mother marked a significant birthday last week, so I flew to Spain for a small celebration. It's fair to say that things didn't go entirely as planned. On the way out, Vueling (the airline) managed to lose my bag, possibly intentionally given the heated argument I had with the check-in dragon at Gatwick Airport.

Anyway, she got her revenge, as I spent the first two days without a change of clothes or contact lenses. On the way back, there was a problem with the aircraft, so I ended up disembarking and booking myself on the next easyJet flight (it's come to something when easyJet is the most reliable option).

Frustrating as all this was, having to wear the same socks twice was a trivial inconvenience compared to the horror that awaited me once I eventually got to Spain.

That was the sodding hire car. It was, as they always are these days, one of those tyrannical modern models (in this instance a VW), seemingly constructed with just one thing in mind: driving the driver around the bend.

No matter what I did, the damn thing wouldn't stop telling me off (rather like the check-in dragon, in that respect). It was equipped with a lexicon of disapproving beeps, ranging from mild reprimand to out-and-out hysteria.

I turned the engine on: it beeped, bonged and booted up its stupid onboard computer, which then proceeded to ask me a series of utterly pointless questions in Spanish. When I couldn't answer, it beeped with increasing urgency.

I turned the engine off, and it beeped at me for not putting it into the proper gear, or opening the door too soon, before issuing a series of alarmist warnings, which my brother kindly translated. Had I checked my surroundings? Had I left anything in it? Did I have my phone? Was my head screwed on?

It beeped at me when I tried to park, bonged when I went a fraction over the speed limit – which wasn't even the real speed restriction but some passing limit its idiotic computer senses had picked up.

Once, as I was changing lanes, it attempted to wrest control of the steering wheel, which was alarming. Another time it slammed the brakes on for me, even though I was miles behind the car in front.

Here's the thing. I am not a moron. I know how to drive. I know how to park a car. I passed a test and everything. I have no points on my licence. I can read road signs. If I want to stray half a kilometre over the speed limit or change lanes or forget my phone in the car, that's up to me. Not up to the car.

I have the same problem with my fridge, home alarm, washing machine, dishwasher, cooker, phone. All these appliances like to boss me around, endlessly demanding my attention.

The alarm lady (who sounds unsettlingly like a psychotic girlfriend of Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey) is always complaining that her battery is too low or one of her cameras is offline; the fridge gets terribly upset when I keep the door open too long; the dishwasher demands to be unloaded the moment its cycle has ended; and the hob has a tantrum if I so much as move a pan.

And don't even get me started on my phone: the damn thing has a mind of its own ever since its last update. It's logged me out of all my apps and every time I try to download my emails I get stuck in some Microsoft/computer-says-no doom loop. It would be quicker and easier to just write a letter and hand-deliver it in person.

All these things, which allegedly should make life easier, now inflict upon me a terrible tyranny.

They are like attention-deficient toddlers, endlessly requiring reassurance and stimulation. If I don't dance to their tune, they throw their chips out of the basket. Surely this is not how it's supposed to be?

Use it or lose it, they say, and that's as true of the brain as of the body. I have my own set of parking sensors, thank you. They are called 'eyes', and they have been brilliantly engineered, either by God or nature depending on your belief, to judge space and distance.

Likewise, my built-in hard drive – aka my brain – is perfectly capable of remembering my house keys or deciding whether it's safe to change lanes.

Whoever designs all these so-called smart technologies clearly thinks all humans are stupid, which we are not. Yet in surrendering to it all, we are engaging in a sort of reverse evolutionary process, which will, eventually, turn us all into dribbling morons, no more than zombified slaves to the technology we created.

Little by little, this stuff is atrophying our minds, yet if you push back against it everyone looks at you as if you were mad. Every day, thousands of people are losing their jobs and purpose to this despotism, and people just shrug their shoulders as if it were inevitable.

At the airport on my way home, I witnessed a sad sight. A ride-on floor-sweeper, beeping its way around, an empty chair where a person should have been. A fate, I fear, that awaits us all.

Iran: the true faces of bravery 

Two unforgettable images from the uprising in Iran this weekend: a young woman lighting her cigarette off a burning image of the Ayatollah Khamenei and an older woman, her face bloodied, declaring: 'I am not afraid: I've been dead for 47 years.' That is true bravery and a world away from the halfwits who march in support of the terrorists funded by Iran's regime.

Speaking of which, where are the Greta Thunbergs, the Guardianistas, the Free Palestine fanatics? Surely this – a grassroots uprising by people cruelly and violently oppressed in their own land – should be right up their street? Or is their silence perhaps further proof (if it were needed) that their own interventions have nothing to do with the pursuit of justice and everything to do with a sectarian hatred of Jews and a Jewish state?

I am far from Keir Starmer's greatest fan, but I do think it is highly disrespectful of Elon Musk to post an AI-generated image of our Prime Minister in a bikini on X in response to the Government's concerns about the misuse of his platform's AI tool, Grok. It's not about free speech, it's about basic decency, a concept that for all his alleged genius, Musk cannot seem to grasp. 

Support pubs? I'll drink to that

The great British pub is one of this country's most enduring traditions, so it's hardly a surprise – mystery support packages for the industry aside – that this mean-spirited Government is doing its level best to drive publicans out of business with an extra £150million in taxes. According to the British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA), that would mean pulling an extra 1.3billion pints a year. Damn. I was going to do dry January, but now I shall just have to do my patriotic duty...

I am rather loving the Princess of Wales’s poetic musings on the meaning of life and nature. People may mock (and they do), but she has somehow managed

to find a way of expressing herself in a manner that is sincere without being the slightest bit offensive. Which is more than can be said for her American sister-in-law.

I used to adore Dawn French, currently starring in the BBC comedy Can You Keep A Secret? But I’m afraid I can’t forgive her for making that horrible video denigrating the victims of October 7, and no amount of jolly sofa chat with Graham Norton is going to change that. 

I’m told her show is very funny, daft in a delightfully British sort of way (it also stars Mark Heap, who is always great value for money), but I can’t bring myself to laugh at a woman who thinks the abduction, rape, murder and torture of innocent civilians is a joke.

Bad news: I see that skinny jeans are back. Is this another unpleasant side-effect of fat jabs?