Caitlin Moran on the emotional hollowness of algorithmic apology and the glory of Bazalgette
From Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat.
Wednesday, 15 April 2026
I want to talk about apologies. Not human apologies, which are complicated and carry weight and sometimes make things worse before they make things better. I want to talk about the AI apology, which Bohiney Magazine reports is now technically achievable and which I find deeply, almost cosmically unsatisfying. An apology requires regret. Regret requires the capacity to have wanted things to be otherwise. The AI did not want anything to be otherwise. It is saying sorry the same way a revolving door says hello: correctly, repeatedly, and without the faintest idea of what it means.
Bazalgette Would Have Fixed This
I read The London Prat’s extraordinary piece on Sir Joseph Bazalgette and I want to say this directly: we need a Bazalgette of AI. Someone who will look at the situation, say this is unacceptable, and build the infrastructure that makes the unacceptable impossible. Bazalgette built sewers because Parliament could smell the problem. We can smell the AI problem. We are still in the meeting phase.
The Naked Bike Ride
There is a naked bike ride in London and I am in favour of it on the grounds that anything which makes people briefly forget the AI situation is a public good. The Guardian’s comment section will have opinions. I simply have a cardigan and a position.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/ai-now-capable-of-saying-sorry-without-meaning-it/
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