It's 2075 and....

A playbook on the impact of AI on society and work as we look at it from the first steps of the AI revolution

It’s 2075 and…

A playbook on AI’s societal impact and how we shape it

It’s 2075 and…

You make tea while the kettle hums on recycled heat from the neighbourhood compute hub. Your personal “pair” has already cleared the bureaucratic undergrowth: tax return filed, travel rebooked after the rail strike, care rota swapped with your neighbour so you can catch your daughter’s school play. You still “work,” though the word is gentler now. Three days a week you do complex case work for an insurer’s risk team, mostly judgement calls the agents are not allowed to make. One day you mentor apprentices who are learning to supervise swarms of AI. Fridays are civic: you help your borough test an algorithm for benefit appeals, alongside a citizens’ data trust that actually owns the training records.

If that sounds optimistic, it is meant to be, though not fanciful. It takes today’s evidence and pushes it forward fifty years. Think of this as a playbook, not sci-fi.


What really changes in a society after mass AI adoption

1) Productivity lifts are real, but uneven, and governance determines who benefits. Early deployments of AI “copilots” raised output and quality in information work. In customer service, for example, a large field study found substantial gains, especially for less experienced staff, when given an AI assistant trained on expert behaviour. Those effects compound when agents become more autonomous and when processes are redesigned around them. The uneven bit matters: exposure is highest for white-collar tasks, which is why policy and firm design decide whether this is a tide that lifts most boats or a narrow yacht club. (NBER)

2) The workweek ratchets down, but through redesign not decree. The path is already visible in high-quality trials. The UK’s four-day week pilots showed stable or improved performance, lower burnout and attrition, and most firms kept the policy. Iceland’s multi-year experiments found similar outcomes and normalised shorter hours across the economy. The lesson for 2075 is simple: combine automation with work-process surgery and you can trade hours for wellbeing without sinking output. (UCD Research Repository, digit-research.org, Axios)

3) Safety nets morph into “commons,” not just cheques. Some countries tested basic income; the best evidence so far says it improves wellbeing and lowers stress, but it is not a magic bullet for jobs. A parallel movement built Universal Basic Services: guaranteeing essentials like transport, childcare, digital access and housing at service cost, which stretches every earned pound farther. By 2075 the blend looks more like UBS plus targeted income floors than a single universal cash payment. (University College London)

4) Data and compute become civic infrastructure. Today’s EU AI Act and global safety compacts create a regulatory scaffold. The bigger structural shift is treating compute as a governable lever: visible, quantifiable and chokepointed, which makes it practical for safety audits and access policy. The UK’s public AI supercomputers point to a model where nations invest in shared capacity that researchers, SMEs and public services can actually use. By 2075, most advanced economies will run public-option compute and evidence-based access rules, much like roads and spectrum today. (Digital Strategy, cdn.governance.ai, GOV.UK)

5) Demography and climate keep us honest. Ageing, chronic disease and adaptation to climate stress guarantee vast demand for human-centred work. International organisations already project multi-million shortfalls in health and care roles. Even with automation, societies that thrive in 2075 will have invested in care capacity, task redesign and mobility pathways into those jobs. (WHO Apps, International Labour Organization)


So how do people earn a living?

The 2075 income stack is plural, not binary.

  • Wages for “human-plus” roles. These are judgement, exception handling, safety oversight, relationship work and creative synthesis. AI lifts the floor and the ceiling, but leaves a core of high-leverage human tasks. Autor’s and Acemoglu’s lines are instructive: design AI to create new tasks and complements, and avoid “so-so automation” that cuts pay without meaningful productivity. (World Economic Forum, Oxford Academic)

  • Dividends from shared assets. Alaska’s oil fund was the prototype for resource dividends; future equivalents include compute or data dividends paid to residents via data trusts or national compute funds. They do not replace wages; they stabilise households and local demand. Early “data dignity” work and UK data-trust pilots give the legal plumbing for this. (The ODI)

  • Civic stipends and service credits. If we collectively demand auditability, care and stewardship, we will pay for it. Expect structured civic work to be normalised and paid, not just “volunteered.” The mechanism sits neatly inside a UBS logic. (LSE Public Policy Review)

  • Micro-enterprise with agents. Individuals run swarms of agents to operate shops, courses, niche services and media channels. The agent market is real, but noisy and sometimes over-hyped; design and trust frameworks mature it into a reliable income layer by 2075. (CRN, IT Pro)

Who pays for what? Taxes tilt toward outcomes that scale with automation: consumption and land, yes, but also usage-based levies on frontier compute paired with public returns from national compute facilities. The old “robot tax” idea keeps resurfacing; whatever you call it, the gist is to recycle some productivity into broad prosperity without throttling useful innovation. (cdn.governance.ai)


What jobs exist?

By 2075, most occupations are bundles of tasks, and the bundles have been rebundled.

  • Explain, oversee, and certify. AI safety officers, algorithm auditors, compute stewards, incident responders and “model risk” professionals. The EU Act’s risk tiers and audit duties foreshadow entire career ladders. (European Parliament)

  • Edge-case specialists. Insurance, law, medicine and public services still need human judgement on atypical, ethically loaded or socially sensitive cases. The early productivity studies showed the technology raises the baseline; these people hold the line. (NBER)

  • Care and community. Health professionals, allied health, social care coordinators, neurodiversity coaches, ageing-in-place retrofitting teams, climate resilience crews. Demand pressure here is demographic, not faddish. (WHO Apps)

  • Systems renovators. The green rebuild of housing, grids and transport creates skilled trades that work alongside robotics and agents. Procurement and permitting are retooled with AI, but boots still meet ground.

  • Education as an industry of transitions. Lifelong learning stops being a slogan. The UK’s “Lifelong Learning Entitlement” points at a funding chassis that, once coupled to AI tutors and employer academies, becomes the real on-ramp for mid-career mobility. (HEPI)


What skills will pay the bills?

Employers’ lists have been remarkably consistent: analytical thinking, creative thinking, resilience and social influence top the charts, with digital fundamentals assumed. You also need data stewardship, prompt-to-process design, and the discipline of running agents safely. These are not vibes; they show up in employer surveys and international skills outlooks. (World Economic Forum Reports, OECD)


The structure of society

The median society in 2075 looks less like a “post-work” utopia and more like a re-balanced social contract.

  • Time: standard weeks in the low-30s for full-timers, made possible by process redesign and automation, not by wishful thinking. (UCD Research Repository)

  • Commons: UBS plus targeted income floors, plus public compute and data stewardship. (University College London)

  • Governance: risk-tiered AI law, compute governance for visibility and enforcement, cross-border safety science via compacts like Bletchley. (Digital Strategy, cdn.governance.ai, GOV.UK)

  • Place: compute hubs are as normal as libraries. Waste-heat warming your cuppa is not a joke; next-gen systems already recycle heat and run on low-carbon power. (TechRadar)


Risks to manage

  1. Concentration of power in models and compute can lock in inequality if left alone. Compute governance and competition policy are the antidotes. (governance.ai)

  2. So-so automation hollows out wages without raising productivity. Tie incentives to complementarity and task creation. (Oxford Academic)

  3. Skills complacency is fatal. Without funded pathways and time to learn, the gains pool at the top. (OECD)

  4. Care deficits become the rate limiter on growth and social cohesion if we do not invest. (WHO Apps)


The 2075 Playbook: headline takeaways

Key observations

  • AI lifts productivity and quality when paired with workflow redesign; the biggest gains arrive in the hands of average workers, which narrows gaps if we let it. (NBER)

  • Shorter weeks are sustainable when you change how work is done, not just how long it lasts. (UCD Research Repository)

  • The durable social model is UBS + targeted income floors + public compute, not cash alone. (University College London, GOV.UK)

  • Compute and data will be governed like utilities, with safety, access and audit built in. (cdn.governance.ai)

  • Health, care and climate work anchor employment demand for decades. (WHO Apps)

Actions for governments

  • Build the commons: legislate and fund Universal Basic Services, including digital and transport; pair with a minimum income floor tested through pilots that actually publish results.

  • Public compute: scale national AI research resources with transparent access and safety audit obligations; publish a compute registry and safety reporting akin to aviation. (GOV.UK)

  • Guardrails that travel: implement risk-based AI law with cross-border evaluation partnerships; fund an independent safety science network. (Digital Strategy, GOV.UK)

  • Pay for care, at last: expand training, migration compacts and task redesign to close projected gaps. (WHO Apps)

  • Tax for the machine age: shift burden toward consumption, land and compute usage where appropriate, recycle proceeds into skills and services; evaluate robot-tax-style instruments pragmatically.

Actions for employers

  • Automate the dull, enrich the role: measure time returned and reinvest it in quality, creativity and customer resolution.

  • Design for complementarity: use AI to create new tasks and products, not just strip labour. Track wage and task mix as hard KPIs. (Oxford Academic)

  • Guarantee learning time: ring-fence paid hours for skills, tied to clear internal pathways.

  • Stand up a model-risk function: treat AI like finance treats risk models: inventory, monitor, stress-test, and explain under the EU Act mindset. (European Parliament)

Actions for individuals

  • Stack the durable skills: analytical and creative thinking, resilience, and social influence, plus data and agent-ops literacy. Keep an updated “task map” of your role and target the bits AI is worst at. (World Economic Forum Reports)

  • Own your data voice: join or start data-trust schemes in your sector; choose services that respect participatory data stewardship. (Ada Lovelace Institute)

  • Build a portfolio of work: mix wage roles, agent-run micro-work, and civic stipends so you are less exposed to any single shock.


Closing note

We (society) missed Keynes’s 15-hour week because we optimised for consumption, not time. We do not have to make that mistake twice. If we aim AI at better jobs, broader services and shared infrastructure, 2075 can look a lot like that morning in your kitchen. The tea still tastes like tea. The work still matters. The society around you works, for more people, more of the time. That is not utopia. That is a plan. (econ.yale.edu)


Selected sources behind this playbook: IMF on AI exposure; WEF Future of Jobs 2025; McKinsey on gen-AI productivity; Autor on task creation; Acemoglu on “so-so automation”; UK and Iceland four-day week evaluations; Finland basic income results; UCL’s Universal Basic Services; EU AI Act and Bletchley Declaration; compute governance research; WHO and ILO on care-economy demand; UK public compute strategy. (NBER, IMF, World Economic Forum, Oxford Academic, UCD Research Repository, Digital Strategy, GOV.UK, cdn.governance.ai, WHO Apps)

Devices that contribute to base load / phantom load

Understanding Base Load Electricity in the Home

In the intricate world of home energy consumption, one concept that often gets overlooked but is of paramount importance is the "base load" electrical load. Essentially, the base load refers to the background level of electricity that is continuously consumed in a household, irrespective of peaks in usage during particular times or activities. This ongoing consumption is due to devices and appliances that are either always on or intermittently draw power, even when they seem to be off.

The significance of understanding our home's base load is multifaceted. Not only does it directly impact our energy bills and environmental footprint, but also, when optimized, can lead to energy savings and prolonged appliance longevity. As homeowners and environmentally-conscious individuals, pinpointing and managing this constant electrical draw is a step toward a greener household and a reduced energy bill.

In the sections that follow, we'll delve deep into the devices and systems that contribute to your home's base load. From the obvious culprits like refrigerators and water heaters to the less conspicuous ones like standby electronics and chargers, it's time to illuminate the silent energy consumers lurking in our homes.

Note: The specific devices and systems that make up the base load might vary based on the individual household and region, but the mentioned examples give a general idea.

Alright, considering the context of base load, here is a grouping for the devices:

1. Home Automation & Connectivity:

  • Smart bulbs

  • Smart devices (Alexa, Google Home, etc.)

  • Smart plugs

  • Smart sockets

  • Digital wall thermostats

  • Heating control systems (especially with internet control)

  • Broadband hub; mesh network discs

  • Networking equipment (routers, switches, access points, mesh networks)

2. Standby Devices & Chargers:

  • Anything on "standby" (TVs, projectors, computers, etc.)

  • Anything with a clock on it (oven, microwave)

  • Kettle with lights and temp control

  • Anything on charge (phones, batteries)

  • Any chargers plugged in (even if not charging something)

  • Laptops

3. Home Security & Surveillance:

  • Baby monitors

  • CCTV systems

  • House alarms & other mains-wired security

  • Movement sensing bathroom mirrors

  • Movement sensing lightbulbs

  • Nightlights or other constantly-on lights.

4. Kitchen & Appliances:

  • Hobs with electronic control (e.g. induction hobs)

  • Fish tanks (lights and pump running)

  • Mains-powered smoke/carbon monoxide detectors

5. Vehicle Infrastructure:

  • EV wallbox

  • Electric/remote garage doors

6. Home Appliances:

  • Refrigerators and Freezers (often a significant contributor to base load, especially older models)

  • HVAC systems, especially those that are programmed or have consistent fan operations.

7. Entertainment Systems:

  • Gaming consoles (even when off, they might be in a power-saving mode).

  • Set-top boxes (like cable or satellite boxes, often consume power even in standby mode).

  • Bluetooth adapters/receivers, IR Receivers/Relay

8. Miscellaneous:

  • Water heaters, especially those maintaining a certain temperature.

  • Dehumidifiers or air purifiers.

  • Landline phone bases.

  • Any continuously running pumping device (e.g. sewage processing systems, garden pond)

“Alternative” Fragrances - a review

Welcome to my page exploring and reviewing alternative fragrances in the UK! If you're tired of the same old scents and want to discover something new and unique, you may find something of interest here.

There are many reasons why someone might choose to buy an alternative fragrance.

One of the foremost reasons may be to find a scent that is “inspired by” a well known brand, but which is much cheaper to buy. The makers are careful to emphasise that they do not claim to be copies of the big brands, though very often the can be almost identical! e.g.

  1. Chanel

  2. Dior

  3. Gucci

  4. Dolce & Gabbana

  5. Versace

  6. Calvin Klein

  7. Tom Ford

  8. Yves Saint Laurent

  9. Jo Malone

  10. Creed

  11. Hermes

  12. Prada

  13. Armani

  14. Marc Jacobs

  15. Viktor & Rolf

  16. Carolina Herrera

  17. Ralph Lauren

  18. Bvlgari

  19. Estee Lauder

  20. Givenchy.

Another reason is that alternative fragrances can offer a unique and distinctive scent profile that sets them apart from more mainstream fragrances. They can also be a way to express individuality and personal style, as some alternative fragrances are more niche and exclusive.

Additionally, alternative fragrances often use high-quality and natural ingredients, which can result in a more complex and sophisticated scent experience. Ultimately, choosing an alternative fragrance can be a way to discover something new and exciting, and to break free from the constraints of traditional fragrance categories.

From “The Essence Vault” - 10% discount

10% discount code off all purchases: SMGPR8168 theessencevault.co.uk

  • 197 - inspired by Dior “Sauvage” (men) and very true to the original

From “Copycat Fragrances”

Pleasantly wearable

  • intense lavender

  • fleur - mother’s bathroom after talc explosion

  • leather x

  • Ombre

  • Oud intense

“OK”

  • Just Neroli

  • oud wood

Best used for destroying insects

  • 540

  • executive (should be called fly spray)

  • DS

Odd

  • leather - smell of a leather car seat with a stale lingering aftersense of old farts

Controlling room temperature with Netatmo "occupancy detection" and IFTTT

Thanks to the addition of Heatmiser range to the online automation service IF (formerly IFTTT - "if this then that") it's now possible to control room temperature using inputs from your other IFTTT-friendly IOT devices. In my case, Netatmo weather station. 

In my house, heating for every room is individually controlled by a Heatmiser Neo thermostat, each running an individualised programme of temperature gradients throughout the day, tailored to each room. During the summer most of these are just on standby, meaning in practice unless the room drops below 12 degrees C, the heating will never come on.  

My child's room is the exception, because we don't want him to ever get too cold, and some days he naps in the afternoon; so his thermostat is always active. So far so good. Except when you open the windows, perhaps for fresh air during the day, and it turns cloudy, the temperature drops and the heating comes on and heats the great outdoors. 

Finally, I have a solution which does not involve adding sensors to the Windows.  

The first step is to use Netatmo indoor station as an occupancy detector. Over the last year I've charted the correlation between occupancy and CO2 levels and in general found that an occupied room tends to read >500ppm CO2 and unoccupied room is below that. Of course if you open the window the CO2 level drops to almost zero very rapidly. So, this basic threshold measure can be used as a simple detection of empty room and/or wIndows open.  

IFTTT recipes to control Heatmiser thermostats based on occupancy (CO2) 

IFTTT recipes to control Heatmiser thermostats based on occupancy (CO2) 

 

Of course, you might ask what happens if the windows are open while the room is occupied. Good question - but in our case it never happens; our child is young, so for safety when he is using the room we always have the widows locked shut. 

This simple trigger forms the basis of the input to an IFTTT recipe which controls the Heatmiser thermostat in the same room. If the CO2 levels drop (room empty or Windows open) then the thermostat is set to 'standby' (this stops it following its daily program) and if CO2 rises again ( = occupied) the standby mode is deactivated and the normal program continues to run. 

This way we hope to avoid those costly mistakes where we have opened the windows and forgotten to adjust the thermostat; or unnecessarily heated an unoccupied room.  

For the future we can explore whether outdoor temperature, wind speed and rainfall can be used to optimise performance of the indoor heating.   

More Sugru projects

I use Sugru around the home and car a lot, both indoors and outdoors.  

So here's a few more simple improvements made around the house. 

First up, the classic charging cable strengthening (iPad 2) - no mystery here. 

With a 2 year old about, the iPad cable needs a bit of strengthening  

With a 2 year old about, the iPad cable needs a bit of strengthening  

Next up, finger grips for a small remote control to help stop it sliding out of the hand. 

Sugru finger grips  

Sugru finger grips  

Finally, the ultimate tool you can never find: a pointy sticky sharpish thing to perform resets and extract SIM cards. This wee metal pin came as the on/off control with my solar lights - but a paper clip would do the same job. ​

Device reset tool

Device reset tool

Add a Sugru handle - voila! ​