3 minute read
We help with your support
THE British Benevolent Fund was founded over a century ago to help those Britons in Spain facing extreme financial distress.
In that time the expat community has grown a hundredfold while the number of visitors has reached heights unforeseen back then.
Of the 18 million plus visitors from the UK to Spain each year the vast majority are without incident and not all visitors are here for a two week break on the beach. Many come to see friends and family.
The UK consulates do an incredible job sorting out problems when they arise but many people are under the mistaken view that the consulates can also pay for someone’s repatriation or expenses if things go wrong.
Earlier this week we were alerted by a UK consular office of a young British woman who had come out to see her boyfriend who was working in a bar at a coastal resort.
She had planned to spend a few weeks maybe longer and was thinking that maybe if things worked out she would stay and see how things went.
Nothing concrete just an idea in her head to be with a guy she liked and was starting to think of something more long term.
It turned out to be the opposite in fact within a few days she had already seen that not only was he a very heavy drinker but was violent towards her, so much so that the first day she was too numb to move.
He started attacking her the next night after a drinking session and hit her repeatedly causing injury. This time she screamed for help and fled into the night.
She a
Civil into town she used the last of her money for a ticket home and tried to make the flight but she arrived too late and had to contact the local consulate for help as she had no friends or family who could help they in turn contacted the BBF to pay for her flight home which we were able to do on the same day.
She is now back home. We can only help people with your support. If you would like to make a donation please visit www.british benevolentfund.org to see how you can make the difference. Thank you on behalf of all the beneficiaries of your generosity.
Olaf Clayton, Chair
THE opportunities and the dangers in Artificial Intelligence (AI) have received increasing publicity over the past 50 years, especially in the last 10. The benefits of increasing advances in technology are extraordinary. From distance and direction sensors to language translation, from speech and facial recognition to journey mapping and robots in manufacturing and medicine, it seems that human intelligence is becoming superfluous. AI can even convert text into video.
All these advances were achieved by humans, but can we regulate AI’s advance or can it eventually take control of us?
One of the dangers is the loss of jobs. How to distribute a nation’s income and wealth generated by AI in the absence of labour and wages or profession and salaries? But, beyond that, what will be the nature of the human race.
Will human evolution lead to the ability to create future humans by means other than natural procre
Advertising Feature
ation? Humans have already been cloned in China, but will we be able order or otherwise acquire a madetoorder son, daughter or crossbetweenthetwo? This would involve modifications to the existing cloning procedures. Let’s take the cases of Ben Dover and Helen Highwater (not their real names!).
Ben Dover has an inflated ego and a high opinion of himself and would like a son exactly in his image. The same blue eyes, dark hair and smug smile; the same interest in Mexican history and modern art; the same prowess in business and tennis. So, he goes to the necessary authority, presents his specifications and orders a suitable baby.
Helen Highwater, herself rather plain, reads fashion and celebrity magazines with envy and wants a daughter with good looks and style. Can the stem cells be engineered to produce these features?
If such humancreated bodies start to populate the planet, they will lack the distinguishing feature of all humans who have existed until now the soul. So, could the planet be populated by a mixture of natural humans and created ones? And, if so, would the vast majority of artificial humans (without souls) be in the technologically developed countries? Which species would have dominance? And how could they be distinguished?
The AI humans can compose music, paint portraits and create art and scientific concepts but would they be able to make plans for the future and reminisce over the past? To imagine hypothetical situations or feel emotions? To distinguish between right and wrong?
Humans can already create a body and a brain but not a mind. The brain responds to and is controlled by the mind. The mind, in turn, can´t function without the use of the brain. Furthermore, it is surely impossible for humans to create a soul or a spirit.
Could a manufactured mind have feelings of guilt, forgiveness, sympathy and euphoria? It is surely the soul that distinguishes humans throughout history from the alarming possibilities of the future.
