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I’ll still post occasional updates to Professionally Speaking, but most of my attention these days is on Booch News. Meanwhile, the 900+ posts and 100+ podcast interviews on this site will remain as an archive of useful information.
Imagining a post-apocalypse world has long been fodder for Sci-Fi stories. From Mad Max and The Terminator to Children of Men and The Road, filmmakers and authors have explored a variety of unsettling dystopian futures.
One genre I’m calling ‘Medieval Futurism’ imagines a world where something nasty (nuclear war, pandemic, rampant infertility – take your pick) has found survivors clinging to existence in a reconstituted medieval world. They go back to the future with a vengeance. People live by candlelight, wear handwoven clothes, raise crops, and, most significantly, embrace the beliefs and superstitions of Medieval Christianity. Monks rule the barely literate and safeguard relics of the ‘ancient civilization’ that we live in today.
There’s plenty of dramatic leverage in the theme of intolerant religious orthodoxy that suppresses knowledge of the long-dead preceding civilization. One that left precious few artifacts for survivors to interpret many hundreds of years into the future. Whether these are scraps of plastic, shards of glass, or the mysteries hidden in underground shelters, there are those in a medieval future world who are curious and eager to learn more, and those in the church hierarchy who are intent on suppressing (or preserving) heretical knowledge. Such knowledge might lead to the resurrection of the technology that destroyed the world. Think of the response to Galileo by the inquisitors of the Roman church, who condemned the heresy of his heliocentrism. Think of the fascination we have for artifacts such as the Vindolanda tablets: that remarkable collection of ancient Roman letters and documents unearthed near Hadrian’s Wall in England, offering rare insights into the mysteries of daily life two millennia ago.
What artifacts will our age leave? Some rebar-reinforced concrete structures, mounds of indestructible plastic? And what will have disappeared without a trace? The digital records we invest so much energy in creating. No Facebook posts, emails, blogs (including this one!), or digital photos will remain when the last data center darkens. Will a future civilization even understand what ‘the cloud” was?
Three science fiction novels examine these questions, all set in what is clearly a ‘medieval’ landscape.
An original volume of this genre. There’s a through-line from this 1959 trilogy to the later works it inspired.
The book opens in a post-nuclear world, where monks in scattered monasteries live solitary lives. Miller traces the history of one of these monasteries over several hundred years.
We begin 600 years after the ‘Flame Deluge’ — a nuclear war that left much of the planet uninhabitable desert. It was followed by a ‘Simplification’ where survivors destroyed all vestiges of the science and industry that led to the apocalypse. The populists of that era were descendants of the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror:
Let us make a great simplification, and then the world shall begin again … After the Deluge, the Fallout, the plagues, the madness, the confusion of tongues, the rage, there began the bloodletting of the Simplification, when the remnants of mankind had torn other remnants limb from limb, killing rulers, scientists, leaders, technicians, teachers, and whatever the leaders of the maddened mobs said deserved death for having helped to make the Earth what it had become.
— A Canticle for Leibowitz, p. 63-64
The monks create illuminated parchments of 20th-century circuit diagrams and engineering blueprints, treating them as holy relics. They are members of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz, founded by 20th-century scientist Isaac Leibowitz. This is full-on monasticism. Latin phrases are liberally scattered throughout. The Order tracks down and smuggles memorabilia into the abbey while trying to avoid being killed by the Simpletons roaming the wastelands.
Parts II and III of the trilogy anticipate a resurrection of science and technology as the world emerges from the long medieval sleep.
Harris fools readers for the first 30 pages of this compelling, fast-paced novel into thinking they are firmly in 15th-century England. A young priest makes his way on horseback through the remote region of Wessex on a winter’s day. This is the era when, as has been documented, people went to bed as night fell, but then woke in the middle of the night to move about, and had a ‘second sleep’ before rising at dawn.
After the first 30 pages, Harris is explicit about the artifacts left from the civilization that perished eight hundred years before, when the young priest discovers:
…one of the devices used by the ancients to communicate…It was thinner than his little finger, smaller than his hand. ..He wondered who had owned it … What images might it once have conveyed? What sounds might have emerged from it? … He turned it over. On the back was the ultimate symbol of the ancients’ hubris and blasphemy — an apple with a bite taken out of it.
The Second Sleep, p. 28-29
What has survived the apocalypse are the thousands of stone churches scattered across England. The resurgent clergy rule the unlettered peasants and keep jealous watch over anyone curious about the old ways. The priesthood forbids anyone to investigate the past, branding those who do heretics. Indirectly acknowledging Leibowitz, Harris notes “Latin has been revived by the Church as another bulwark against scientism” (p. 99).
Likewise, as with Leibowitz, “An entire generations’ correspondence and memories had vanished into this mysterious entity the antiquarians called ‘The Cloud’.” (p. 100)
The novel is a fast-paced romp around a small village, complete with a murder mystery, the seductively aristocratic Lady Durston, the autocratic mill owner Captain Hancock, a duplicitous bishop, and a curious pair of gay antiquarians named Shadwell and Quycke. Agatha Christie lives on after the Apocalypse!
It all ends in subterranean splendor and a final sleep.
This book owes a debt to Walter Miller Jr.’s A Canticle For Leibowitz (1959) … I consider Radio Life … to be in directconversation with that 1959 novel on whether or not we are doomed to repeat our own mistakes.
– Radio Life, Acknowledgements, p 481
Indeed, reading Radio Life inspired me to read Leibowitz and Second Sleep.
However, it’s only in the last 70 pages of a 480-page book that Radio Life joins the mainstream of monastic life that the earlier two books were fully occupied with. Prior to that, it dramatizes the conflict between those who would investigate the past and those who would suppress that knowledge in a battle between the members of a tribe named ‘The Commonwealth’ and their enemies, ‘The Keepers’. The story’s leading actors are powerful women with a hipster vibe.
As before, the quest culminates beneath the blighted surface of the survivor’s world. There are cliff hangers and courageous acts, poignant moments of parental love, political insights and heartfelt feelings.
To the extent this book is a dialogue with Leibowitz, it situates the conversation in the modern world. An archive of web-based information lies waiting to be discovered. Understanding what was lost and how it ceased to be is revealed.
Stylistically, the author plays with language along the same lines as cyberpunk author William Gibson, whose novel The Peripheral is filled with cryptic terms and turns of phrase that the reader is left to puzzle over and piece together — terms like Easy Ice, The Jackpot, Polt, and Peripheral. So, Radio Life introduces us to terms such as the Gone World, the Unspeakable Years, Indies and Deps. There’s also an amusing series of asides where characters use terms that they have no framework of understanding for:
‘Your kids will be happy as clams.’ ‘What’s a clam?’ asks the man. (p. 43)
‘Well, you look fit as a fiddle…’ ‘What’s a fiddle?’ (p. 48)
‘One of those books was about wine. Have you heard of that? He shakes his head. ‘It’s a dizzy drink made from grapes.’ (p. 62)
‘I’m not going nuts.’ Saavni frowned. ‘What are nuts?’ (p. 167)
‘Curiosity killed the cat,’ the woman said. ‘What’s a cat?’ (p. 193)
Sublime prose
Radio Life engages the reader both at the level of the plot and in the crisp writing and sublime prose it employs from start to finish:
Night comes. The riders and their mounts are silhouetted: blackened against a sky that is alive with colour. They cover their faces with scarves as the wind picks up and the shimmering green streaks of night appear above the remaining line of day. (p. 3)
…the sand piled at the base of the towers in the Gone World — a place where the urbanscape glowed so brightly with Big Electricity that the lights would reflect from the clouds at night. (p. 155)
Comedy wants intimacy, not distance. The sky here is too big to fill with laughter. (p. 272)
…time slips away like rain from oiled leather. (p. 286)
Story archetypes
There are elements of the classic Greek myths of Orpheus and Eurydice in each of these three novels: the discovery of an underworld containing forbidden, long-lost secrets from which escape is difficult, if not impossible. The heroes end up in underground bomb shelters, where they discover clues to lost civilizations. There are elements of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Lord of the Rings, and similar quests in which adversity impedes the main characters. These are the archetypes of the basic plots that have guided storytellers for millennia.
Employing the conceit of a pre-modern, Medieval mindset to understand possible futures that might await our industrial and scientifically sophisticated age, each of these three novels, in different ways, casts light on the fault lines of our time that might fracture humanity and cast us into the Dark Ages once more.
A time when a mother might share fairy tale bedtime stories with her daughter on some far-off distant, future evening, imagining the past we live in:
‘The people there,’ said Rachael, her hand on Lilly’s chest at bedtime, Lilly smiling at the dreamy possibility of it all, ‘numbered in millions and millions and when they wanted to leave they traveled in flying ships that zipped through the air faster than birds. And oh, the food there!’ Rachael would roll her eyes in ecstasy, which always made Lilly giggle. ‘It was so plentiful they would only eat half of what they were given and then just . . . throw it away! And then take a nap on the table and snore.’
Gotham Ghostwriters have released a report on a comprehensive survey of writing professionals who were asked about their experience with and evaluation of the impact of generative A.I.
The conclusion points to a deep divide in attitudes between those writers who use A.I. regularly and non-users.
Positive opinions
Those familiar with A.I. report ways it helps
I’ll upload 10+ hours of transcribed interviews that I’ve conducted with clients and use it to help me with drafting an outline based on their thought leadership and ideas. I also use it to help me better match my client’s natural voice and tone. I’m amazed at how many times it’s helped me come out like a superhero with exactly what my client envisioned.
Today alone I edited 5 chapters, made 3 book covers, summarized meeting notes, put together a Jira workflow, and still had time to go out for dinner with my family.
My research time is less than before. Using prompts, outlines, and pulling quotes from transcripts is faster.
Fear and loathing
The attitudes of non-users are markedly different.
They are bullsh*t machines. The few times I’ve tested them, they have proven to be unreliable, incomplete, and facile.
It is removing human thought from the writing process. I can spot AI writing and even AI outlined writing from a mile away because it is voiceless, empty, derivative slop. Of all the ways to rapidly accelerate climate catastrophe, this one has to be the stupidest.
It removes the human authorial voice and repurposes it into corporate-friendly garbage, even in settings where that voice is not appropriate. It all sounds so similar and soulless.
Tasks
The range of tasks advanced users employ generative A.I. for is much broader than occasional users. Advanced users use AI for an average of 8.6 different tasks weekly, including less common objectives such as deep research and analyzing numerical data. Basic users average four different tasks, focusing on brainstorming and research. Dabblers often do only one task, typically finding titles or doing a web search.
Claude
I was interested to see that Claude is more popular among advanced users. It’s the go-to generative tool I employ for my SciFi series ‘Our Fermented Future‘ which also uses ChatGPT, Perplexity, Grammarly, Suno, and Midjourney.
My experience
In addition to the 12-part ‘Fermented Future’ series on Booch News (running through December 2025, new episodes drop every Friday), my experiments with generative A.I. include:
The irrepressible Jeremy Connell-Waite has posted a detailed white paper to LinkedIn comprising “20 Story Structures” to help us all tell better stories.
It’s full of links, videos, book recommendations and courses you can do, to build your storytelling skills.
You could even upload the PDF directly into your favourite LLM and have AI work as your creative collaborator – using this document as a foundation model to help you decide which format might be the best structure for the outcome you want your story to achieve. 🧐
❤️ Need to tell an emotional story to build awareness? See how Richard Curtis does it for his movies and Comic Relief.
🎤 Keynote? Aristotle’s Poetics is the structure of many top TED talks.
📱 Did Steve Jobs really use Pixar’s framework for his speeches? Maybe.
🎬 90-minute Workshop? Try Blake Snyder’s “Save the Cat” beats to keep the audience’s attention.
🗺️ Important 3-minute conversation with a CXO coming up? Try my Mission Critical Script.
🔺 Need to summarise 250 slides onto a powerful one-page story? McKinsey swear by Minto’s Pyramid Principle.
🔪 Want to build suspense around a new product launch? Hitchcock’s story steps could be perfect.
Each page is a treasure-trove of content from some of the world’s best storytellers. Take a look. It might just help you to become a better business storyteller yourself.
Javed “Jay” is a Pakistani teenager who experiences racial and economic turmoil while living in Luton, England, in 1987. He writes poetry as a way to escape the intolerance of his hometown and the stubborn views of his traditional father. One day, a Sikh classmate, Roops, hands Javed a couple of Springsteen cassettes (remember those?).
As Javed listens to “Dancing in the Dark,” he has a sudden (“blinding”) realization that there is more to life than the narrow streets of his home town. He finds parallels between the Boss’s powerful lyrics and his own working-class environment.
Wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face Man, I ain’t gettin’ nowhere I’m just livin’ in a dump like this There’s somethin’ happenin’ somewhere Baby, I just know that there is.
The lyrics to Dancing in the Dark appear as on-screen text, flashing up karaoke style, spinning around Jay’s head. Jay begins unironically reciting Bruce lyrics in place of dialogue.
Springsteen’s melodies inspire him to find his own voice and follow his dreams. The songs are fuel that give him the confidence to get the girl he likes, chase his dreams of becoming a writer, and stand up to his overbearing traditional father.
The film captures the zeitgeist of the England of the mid-80’s: Thatcherism, the National Front, redundancies. The teenagers celebrate their freedom with joyful unbridled energy. It has the feel of Bend it Like Beckham and the crazy optimism of Yesterday — two other films that give British Asian kids their voice.
The film, is based on the memoirs of journalist Sarfraz Manzoor, and co-written by him. Manzoor grew up in Luton, had a Sikh friend, and has seen Springsteen in concert more than 150 times. Still photos of him with the Boss appear at the end of the film.
Those of us who grew up in provincial English towns and dreamed of escape each lived our own versions of this script.
It’s a town full of losers I’m pulling out of here to win.
Writing in the Wednesday, October 29, 2025 Financial Times, Amit Singhal of Tarrytown, NY, points out that senior leaders enjoy the services of professional speechwriters, while the “little people” who lack access to these resources,. can now turn to generative A.I. for assistance.
The position Singhal was responding to was that of Jemima Kelly’s October 20 Opinion piece ‘AI is killing some of the magic of life’ who bemoans the fact that generative A.I. is “killing some of the magic of creativity”. Which is surprising for a journalist who has to meet deadlines, that, as in corporate comms, require content is produced on schedule and on point. And if the matter was assisted by A.I., I believe, more power to the writer who makes intelligent use of the tool.
I would be willing to put money on another well-received speech I witnessed recently being heavily assisted by artificial intelligence. Even if I’m wrong, the very fact that the thought occurred to me … greatly diminished my enjoyment. … I can’t help feeling that AI is, nonetheless, killing some of the magic of life. … While yes, I’m sure AI can “boost” or “supercharge” your creativity as countless blog posts, social media threads and podcasts will tell you, it can also hugely limit it. So even if we get to a place in which AI truly does eclipse human creativity, it is this channeling that we must preserve if we are to keep experiencing what it means to be a human.
The European Speechwriter Network has a well-established reputation as the premier group of professional political and corporate speechwriters outside the USA. I’ve just discovered their excellent podcast channel of over 160 talks delivered at past conferences.Three presentations caught my attention.
It’s refreshing that speechwriters are analyzing Presidential rhetoric, in what is certainly a more challenging environment than existed in 2009 when I looked at Obama’s speeches.
From “Genius” to “Demagogue”: How Trump’s Second Victory Shifted the Narrative
Kevin Toolis’s two presentations on Donald Trump, delivered 18 months apart, reveal a striking evolution in analysis. While the core observations remain consistent, the tone shifts dramatically from analytical fascination to urgent warning.
Consistent Framework
Both presentations center on Trump as a “game show president” who transformed politics into reality TV. Toolis consistently identifies Trump’s mastery of attention, as well as his use of “bomb words”.
Trump’s success stems not from traditional political skills but from his rise as a media star. Drawing from Trump’s 14-season run as host of “The Apprentice,” Toolis argues that Trump transformed American politics into a game show where conventional rules don’t apply. Trump’s ability to dominate media cycles, create memorable (if crude) nicknames for opponents, and maintain audience engagement mirrors reality TV production techniques. His rallies function like episodes, complete with recurring themes, catchphrases, and dramatic confrontations. The “stream of consciousness” style that Toolis identifies has him jumping between topics while hitting emotional “bomb words” like “immigration” and “they’re laughing at us”. These keep audiences engaged despite lacking policy substance. These words trigger emotional responses, and his ability to create an alternate reality (a darker version of Steve Jobs’ reality-distortion capabilities) where facts matter less than performance.
The Shift in Tone
The 2023 presentation, delivered when Trump’s return to the Presidency seemed possible but uncertain, carries an almost bemused quality. Toolis calls Trump a “goddamn genius” with grudging admiration for his communication skills. He treats Trump as a fascinating case study, even joking about the entertainment value.
By 2025, with Trump back in power, the analysis darkens considerably. The word “genius” is paired with “demagogue,” daring to compare Trump to Hitler (a view once rumored to be shared by JD Vance.). Gone are the lighter moments; instead, Toolis warns of “darker turmoil ahead” and discusses the historical patterns of how demagogues fall.
From Prediction to Reality
The 2023 presentation’s predictions proved remarkably accurate. Trump did indeed return to power. But experiencing Trump’s actual return seems to have sharpened Toolis’s concern. The January 6 pardons, mentioned in the 2025 talk, transform theoretical threats into concrete actions.
Indeed, the progression from academic interest to genuine alarm reflects the broader shift in how Trump’s rhetoric is understood: not just as disruption, but as a potential threat to democracy.
Beyond Traditional Rhetoric
Toolis’s central thesis challenges conventional political wisdom: Trump isn’t a poor communicator, he operates by entirely different rules. Unlike traditional speeches that mirror reality, Trump creates what Toolis calls “Trump world,” a constructed reality shared with his followers. This approach confounds fact-checkers and traditional political analysts because it exists “beyond truth and lies.”
The analysis traces Trump’s political persona to his 180 hours as host of “The Apprentice,” where he mastered the art of creating an artificially constructed reality. Indeed, I have it on good authority, from a senior video editor who worked on the program, that Trump was made to appear in command of the apprentices despite failing to fully brief them during a first take, and changing his mind at the last minute to choose who he would fire. This required serious edits to the raw video of the contest that led up to the final segment, so the ‘losing’ contestant could be shown to have credibly failed. Game shows, Toolis notes, aren’t reflections of actual reality—outcomes matter less than ratings and entertainment value. This background explains Trump’s theatrical political style, complete with audience interaction, hyperbolic claims, and gladiatorial threats against “conjured enemies.”
The Demagogue’s Toolkit
Toolis identifies Trump’s core rhetorical weapons: sequential incoherence wrapped around key themes, direct syntax with limited vocabulary, and emotional keywords that trigger Pavlovian responses from supporters. Trump’s speeches follow a predictable pattern. Tropes include portraying America as a victim, endorsing conspiracy theories, humiliating opponents with nicknames, and offering simplistic solutions to complex problems. His speeches also contain the unexpected, the bizarre, the rambling. He employs what students of English Literature term a ‘conceit’, which use surprising or far-fetched analogies. Toolis notes: “You just wouldn’t think at the beginning of the sentence that you could end up where he is in the next sentence. So it’s a very novel technique.”
One of the British journalist’s most unsettling observations concerns Trump’s “Teflon immunity” and flippant style. Take his Fort Knox gold example. This was when Trump casually suggested the government might have stolen America’s gold reserves. It illustrates how factual accuracy becomes irrelevant and was offered up as a joke. Traditional fact-checking fails because Trump’s supporters judge him on performance and entertainment value rather than literal truth.
We’re going to take a look, and if there’s 27 tons of gold, we’ll be very happy. I don’t know how the hell we’re going to measure it, but that’s okay. We want to see lots of nice, beautiful, shiny gold at Fort Knox. Don’t be totally surprised. We open the door, we’ll say, There’s nothing here!
Toolis admits that fact-checking this straightforward claim is almost irrelevant:
I looked it up. How many tons do you think of gold are in Fort Knox? 27 sounds a bit small, doesn’t it? Fort Knox underpins the Federal Reserve, the world’s reserve currency, which is equivalent to, effectively, trillions and trillions of dollars. If any other American president said that, basically, the underpinning of the dollar, that they had stolen the gold, then the markets would be in free fall, yeah? And the dollar would be plunging. Now, if you get on the Internet, it’ll tell you that Fort Knox has got 5,000 tons of gold. I did it in 30 seconds.
However, entertainment is always a prelude to what Toolis calls a “rhetorical hinge, where he has these sorts of comedic episodes, and then he’ll just suddenly lunge in, with some conspiracy invective.” The Fort Knox example segues into a dig at government corruption and the need to dismiss 75,000 Federal employees.
Toolis recognizes that Trump operates in a constructed reality rather than traditional political discourse, which helps explain why conventional criticism often misses its mark. The game show presidency concept explains Trump’s focus on entertainment value over policy outcomes.
His speeches are beyond truth and lies. In effect, actually, Trump doesn’t give any speeches at all. He engages in what Wittgenstein would call a language game, conjuring up a ‘Trump world’ in his speeches, in this version of reality. We expect speeches to be a mirror of reality, but Trump’s speeches are a mirror of Trump world, which he shares with his followers and fan base. He entertains them with memes and themes, but none of it is actually judged by reality.
The Dark Patterns of Demagoguery: Lessons from History’s Tyrants
Guy Doza’s presentation at the September 2025 European Speechwriter Network conference, along with the topic of his latest book, offers chilling insights into how demagogues across time and cultures employ remarkably similar rhetorical strategies to manipulate masses and consolidate power.
Universal Patterns of Manipulation
Doza’s research reveals that, regardless of era, geography, or culture, history’s most dangerous leaders share similarities. They range from ancient Chinese empress Wu Zetian to Mussolini, from Goebbels to Eva Perón. All use virtually identical rhetorical techniques. This universality suggests these patterns tap into fundamental psychological vulnerabilities that transcend cultural boundaries.
A striking example comes from comparing Mark Anthony’s speech in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (Act III, Scene 1) with Goebbels’ 1943 “Total war” speech. Both close with nearly identical nature metaphors invoking unleashed storms and “the dogs of war.” They are separated by centuries, yet employing the same emotional manipulation to incite violence.
The Architecture of Authoritarian Rhetoric
Doza identifies several key strategies demagogues consistently employ:
Manufactured Crisis: Leaders like Eva Perón conjured invisible enemies even during peacetime, creating perpetual states of emergency that justify extreme loyalty. Her dying plea—”our lives for Perón”—transformed a peaceful rally into a death pledge for a single leader.
Hyperbolic Authority: Mussolini’s claim that “20 million Italians” (an impossible number) were gathered showed how demagogues use absurd exaggerations to create momentum. Facts become irrelevant when emotion dominates.
Ethos Through Naming: Congolese President Mobutu’s self-renaming to ‘Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu wa za Banga’ meaning “The all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, goes from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake” exemplifies how demagogues construct mythical personas through language itself, demanding linguistic submission from their populations.
Contemporary Relevance
Doza’s work arrives at a critical moment. As he notes, these historical patterns increasingly appear in modern political discourse. Understanding these techniques—the emotional manipulation, crisis manufacturing, and the demand for absolute loyalty—becomes essential for recognizing and resisting the contemporary manifestations of demagoguery.
The presentation’s power lies not merely in its historical survey but in its urgent warning: the rhetorical weapons that enabled history’s worst atrocities remain potent today.
Doza did not mention the orange elephant in the room. Kevin Toolis had already named and shamed that person in his presentation.
Disclaimer
The content of this post is provided for informational purposes only, and readers should verify the accuracy by checking the sources. I highly recommend listening to the podcasts. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of this publication. This material was prepared with the help of the generative A.I. tools: TurboScribe, Claude.ai, and Grammarly. A human (me!) did the final edits, and I have not hallucinated since that one time in Haight-Ashbury in 1976 🙂
IBM’s Global Communications Designer, and Bristol, England resident Jeremy Connell-Waite has written an impressive FREE pdf booklet: 109 Rules of Storytelling. It’s available on his LinkedIn.
Connwell-Waite’s introduction explains how the book came about:
Over the last few years, I’ve given a lot of presentations on the art and science of storytelling, and I’ve hosted dozens of “ask-me-anything” Q&A sessions. I kept notes of all the advice I gave out during those sessions. Some of it was good. Some a little questionable… So, for a bit of fun, I thought I’d compile them all into a handy list for you. In no particular order. I’ve called it The 109* Rules of Storytelling – but they’re more like guidelines, really. As with all “rules”, it’s important to know them before you break them. Enjoy.
In addition to the 109 rules (although, since the last one is a reference back to the previous ones, there’s really 108 — something that pleased me no-end since 108 is an auspicious number!) there are dozens of bonus pages with enticing graphics and pithy quotes:
The booklet is a treasure-trove of wisdom that will benefit all executive communications staffers, speechwriters, and presenters. Here’s some of what you’ll discover:
Connell-Waite is not afraid to address one of the hot-button topics in speechwriting today. Here’s #17:
Great storytellers love AI, but they don’t get it to write their stories for them. They use AI more like an “IA” – an Intelligent Assistant – which helps them to research their audience, ask the right questions, and not let their own cognitive bias get in the way of telling the audience what they need to hear. AI is great as a research assistant, or to help you with critical thinking? AI helps you ask better questions. It’s not there to write your stories for you.
AI is a core expertise, as mentioned in his bio “…I train AI models to help people communicate more effectively. That mostly involves building narratives for clients around transformational technologies such as generative-AI, cloud & quantum computing.”
As impressive as the booklet is, I’m blown away by his expalanation of how swiftly it was created:
I collated my notes, messages, and all the advice I’d written in notebooks and on the backs of envelopes. A few bits of advice became a few guidelines… And a few guidelines became some rules…A lot of “rules”. Before I knew it I had 8,475 words. – It took me 2 days to prep & research. – 1 day to write. – 1 day to design & edit.
Wow!
He concludes on a positive note:
Our job as storytellers is to transform those energies into something our audience’s can feel, carry, and act upon. We transport our words and ideas into the minds of our audience. ~ We don’t just tell stories. ~ We light up minds. ~ We ignite hearts. When we send words and ideas vibrating through screens and stages, if we do it right, we can impact companies, our colleagues, and sometimes even entire communities. That’s the kind of energy the world needs now.
Subtitled ‘How AI Will Change the Way We Live and Love’, 12 Bytes builds on themes explored in her 2019 novel Frankissstein that I reviewed in an earlier post. In that review I noted that
Winterson’s genius is not just the obvious foreshadowing of AI that the early 19th century novel explored, but in the rich series of hints of the shape of things to come which, in 2019, perfectly encapsulates today’s debates about ChatGPT and other forms of AI.
12 Bytes is her 2021 take on AI, and a whole lot more. The twelve essays that make up the book share common themes, most involving her views on Artificial Intelligence (AI) which she variously refers to as ‘Alternative’ Intelligence or even IA – Intelligence Automation.
The book suffers from the lack of an index, especially since she covers a vast range of topics – from the expected history of computing (here’s Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage, and Alan Turing) to the Lancashire textile industry, and transistor radio. Less expected, but central to her thesis, are the Greek philosophers, Gnostic Christians, the Buddha, and sex-bots.
The implications of AI-enhanced sex-bots, designed by men, for men, are judged to be a shallow simulacrum of men’s desires:
AI-enhanced love dolls are sold for sex — that’s why they are made with 3 operating holes, and look like pornstars. But the marketing spiel — both from the sellers and buyers, is all about relationships.
Companionship is part of the package. Come home to her. She’ll be waiting for you. She doesn’t go out alone. Talk to her. AI dolls talk but they won’t answer back, or ignore you, or call their girlfriend to tell her you’re a jerk. They will be polite, respectful, throwbacks to another era.
p.181
Beyond binary
Central to Winterson’s concerns is the challenge of creating AI free of the limits of human binaries (in the chapter bluntly titled ‘Fuck the Binary’).
AI isn’t a girl or a boy. AI isn’t born with a skin color.
AI isn’t born at all. AI could be a portal into a value-free gender and race experience. One where women and men are not subject to assumptions and stereotypes based on their biological sex, and accident of birthplace.
p. 216
However, for this value-free AI to emerge, we need to train it on datasets free of bias:
When we try to teach AI our values, we wont be able to do that on data-sets that reinforce division and stereotypes.
p. 232
Prior Unity
In addition to the promise of an AI free of limiting gender roles, Winterson examines the deeper implications of an AI-enabled future where we transcend all our divisions:
Humans love separations — we like to separate ourselves from other humans, usually in hierarchies, and we separate ourselves from the rest of biology by believing in our superiority. The upshot is that the planet is in peril, and humans will fight humans for every last resource. Connectivity is what the computing revolution has offered us — and if we could get it right, we could end the delusion of separate silos of value and existence.
p.6
This is of fundamental importance:
Reality is not made of parts but formed of patterns. This is ancient knowledge and new knowledge. It is liberating. There is no fundamental building block of matter. No core. There is nothing solid. There are no binaries. There is energy, change, movement, interplay, connection, relationships. It’s a white supremacist’s nightmare.
p. 121
In this, Winterson echos the hopes expressed by the Western-born Spiritual Adept, Adi Da Samraj, who has proposed what he calls “prior unity” as the basis of a new human civilization:
If human beings collectively (as everybody-all-at-once) realize that they are (always already) in a condition of prior unity—and, therefore, of necessary co-existence and mutuality—with one another, and if, on that basis, they stand firm together, then they will be in a position to directly righten the world-situation. The collective of all the billions of people can—and, indeed, must—refuse to go on with the current chaos.
Winterson claims that an AI-enabled future can help achieve this goal:
We know the hero narrative — it’s the saviour, the genius, the strong man, the against-the-odds little guy… As a story, the narrative of exceptionalism stands against collaboration and co-operation (I did it my way). And it overlooks the lives, and contributions, of literally billions of people. One of the interesting things about AI is that it works best on the hive-mind principle, where networks share information. The real sharing economy is not one where everything can be monetised by Big Tech; it’s one where humanity is pulling together — that’s exactly what we have to do to manage both climate breakdown and global inequality. The biggest problems facing us now will not be solved by competition but by co-operation.
p. 265
12 Bytes is an enjoyable, witty, and thought-provoking read.
A recent LinkedIn post by C-Suite Communications & Public Affairs expert Guy Doza proffered a ChatGPT-generated picture of a formally dressed speechwriter holding a quill pen.
The picture caused great amusement among speechwriting professionals. Comments ranged from “Not only is he a he, but his inspiration also appears to come exclusively from hims…” to “Definitely went to Oxford!…should speak with a British accent.” Overall, speechwriters found this both hysterically funny and sadly stereotypical.
I thought I’d offer some alternatives to this bizarre image by asking my favorite generative AI image tool, MidJourney, to create images for the writers of the wedding, political, and corporate speeches I’d previously generated with ChatGPT and Deepseek R1.
This unfortunate writer is most likely a freelancer who probably struggles to find clients in today’s world. More than most, his clients might well be using ChatGPT to craft their own Best Man remarks. He’s down on his luck but still puts in the hours in his low-rent office.
From first-hand experience, I know that this person works in close collaboration with the executives they support. Rather than sitting alone in an office, they are often found taking notes in the board room as the execs discuss strategy. Women such as Felicity Barber and Dana Rubin are leaders in the corporate speechwriting arena.
Political speechwriters occupy pride of place in the popular imagination. While men such as Sam Seaborn on The West Wing might be famous as fictional characters, and bros Jon Favreau and Dan Pfeiffer are contemporary pundits, women such as Vinca LaFleur and Peggy Noonan have written memorable Presidential speeches.
However, in generating these images, I saw one that was straight out of the Kennedy era, when the legendary Ted Sorensen crafted memorable lines as he sat at the table witnessing the defining crises of JFK’s Presidency.
Back in July 2023, I posted a 3-partseriesexamining how speechwriters can use generative A.I. tools like ChatGPT.This week the news about a Chinese generative A.I. — DeepSeek R1 — caused stocks in the shares of many American AI companies to slump. Commentators noted that the Chinese A.I. could “do more with less” — challenging the resource-intensive approach in the States. I decided to put it to the test.
My July 2023 posts concluded with a series of political speeches that asked the A.I. to generate a response using Monroe’s Motivated Sequence. I then asked for examples of rhetorical techniques such as similes, metaphors, synechdoche, and metonymy. Finally, generate alternate versions of a now dated 2023 transcript of a speech on Britain’s HS2 rail program (since significantly cut bask in scope) given in the Houses of Parliament. Full details are in the original post.
Here’s what DeepSeek R1 generated — apparently using a fraction of the compute resources of ChatGPT.
PROMPT: Act as a speechwriter. Create an outline for a speech supporting the building of the High Speed Two rail line from London to the north of England using the structure of Monroe’s Motivated Sequence.
Here’s an outline for a speech supporting the construction of the High Speed Two (HS2) rail line, structured using Monroe’s Motivated Sequence. This five-step framework is designed to persuade the audience by addressing their needs and motivating them to take action.
Title: “Connecting Our Future: Why HS2 is Essential for Britain”
1. Attention: Grab the audience’s attention with a compelling opening.
Start with a vivid statistic or fact: “Did you know that by 2050, the UK’s population is expected to grow by 10 million people? Our current rail infrastructure, built over a century ago, is already struggling to keep up.”
Paint a picture of the problem: “Imagine sitting on a delayed train, packed like sardines, knowing you’ll miss an important meeting or your child’s school play. This is the reality for millions of commuters every day.”
Rhetorical question: “What if I told you there’s a solution that could transform how we travel, boost our economy, and create thousands of jobs?”
2. Need: Establish the problem and why it matters.
Current infrastructure is outdated: “Our Victorian-era rail network is simply not fit for the 21st century. Delays, overcrowding, and inefficiencies cost businesses billions annually and frustrate passengers daily.”
Economic disparity between regions: “The north of England has been left behind for too long. While London thrives, northern cities struggle with underinvestment and lack of connectivity, stifling growth and opportunity.”
Environmental urgency: “With climate change accelerating, we need sustainable alternatives to cars and planes. HS2 offers a greener way to travel, reducing carbon emissions and congestion on our roads.”
3. Satisfaction: Present HS2 as the solution.
Faster, more reliable travel: “HS2 will cut journey times between London and the north by up to 50%, making travel faster, smoother, and more reliable for millions of people.”
Economic benefits: “This project will create over 30,000 jobs during construction and thousands more in the long term. It will also unlock economic growth in the north, rebalancing our economy and reducing regional inequality.”
Environmental advantages: “HS2 will take millions of cars off the road and reduce domestic flights, significantly cutting carbon emissions. It’s a critical step toward achieving our net-zero goals.”
Future-proofing: “HS2 isn’t just about today—it’s about preparing for tomorrow. It will free up capacity on existing rail lines, improving local services and ensuring our infrastructure can handle future growth.”
4. Visualization: Help the audience see the benefits of HS2.
Positive vision: “Picture this: a bustling northern city, thriving with new businesses and opportunities, connected to the capital in under 90 minutes. Commuters enjoying spacious, reliable trains, and families reunited faster than ever before.”
Contrast without HS2: “Without HS2, our rail network will continue to creak under pressure. The north will remain disconnected, and our economy will stagnate. We cannot afford to let this opportunity pass us by.”
Call to emotion: “This isn’t just about trains—it’s about people. It’s about giving everyone in this country a fair chance to succeed, no matter where they live.”
5. Action: Call the audience to support HS2.
Direct appeal: “I urge you to support HS2—not just as a rail project, but as a vision for a better-connected, greener, and more prosperous Britain.”
Specific actions: “Write to your MP, share the facts about HS2 with your community, and challenge the myths surrounding this project. Let’s show the world that Britain is ready to invest in its future.”
Inspirational closing: “Together, we can build a legacy that future generations will thank us for. Let’s not look back in 20 years and wonder what could have been. Let’s act now, and let’s act boldly. HS2 is more than a railway—it’s a lifeline for our nation.”
This outline provides a clear, persuasive structure for your speech, using Monroe’s Motivated Sequence to build a compelling case for HS2. Let me know if you’d like me to expand on any section!
PROMPT: Act as a speechwriter. Suggest 3 similes and 3 metaphors to describe to an audience why high speed train travel is enjoyable.
Here are three similes and three metaphors to vividly describe why high-speed train travel is enjoyable. These can be woven into a speech to make the experience more relatable and engaging for your audience.
Similes:
“Riding a high-speed train is like gliding on air—smooth, effortless, and free from the bumps and jolts of ordinary travel.” This simile emphasizes the comfort and tranquility of high-speed rail, contrasting it with less pleasant modes of transportation.
“Traveling on a high-speed train is like watching time shrink before your eyes—cities and landscapes blur together as hours turn into minutes.” This highlights the speed and efficiency of high-speed rail, making long distances feel short.
“Sitting in a high-speed train is like being in a moving living room—spacious, comfortable, and designed for relaxation.” This simile conveys the convenience and comfort of train travel, making it feel like a home away from home.
Metaphors:
“A high-speed train is a ribbon of steel, weaving through the countryside and stitching cities together.” This metaphor paints a poetic image of connectivity and unity, showing how trains bring people and places closer.
“The high-speed train is a time machine, collapsing distances and giving you back the most precious resource—time.” This metaphor emphasizes the efficiency of high-speed rail, framing it as a tool that saves time and enhances productivity.
“The train is a symphony of motion, where every component works in harmony to create a seamless journey.” This metaphor evokes the elegance and precision of high-speed rail, comparing it to a beautifully orchestrated piece of music.
These similes and metaphors can help your audience visualize and emotionally connect with the joys of high-speed train travel, making your speech more memorable and impactful. Let me know if you’d like help integrating these into a larger speech!
PROMPT: Act as a speechwriter. Use synechdoche and metonymy to surprise an audience with reasons why high speed trains are a good idea.
Here’s a speech that uses synecdoche (using a part to represent the whole) and metonymy (using a related term to represent something else) to creatively and persuasively argue why high-speed trains are a good idea. These rhetorical devices will surprise the audience by offering fresh perspectives on the benefits of high-speed rail.
Title: “The Tracks to Tomorrow: Why High-Speed Trains Are the Future”
Opening:
“Ladies and gentlemen, imagine a world where the wheels of progress never stop turning. Where the heartbeat of a nation pulses along steel veins, connecting cities, dreams, and opportunities. This is the promise of high-speed trains—not just a mode of transport, but a lifeline to a brighter future.”
Synecdoche: Using a part to represent the whole.
“Every seat on a high-speed train is a desk, a dining table, and a meeting room.” Here, the “seat” represents the entire experience of traveling on a high-speed train. It’s not just a place to sit—it’s a space where work gets done, meals are enjoyed, and connections are made. High-speed trains transform travel time into productive time.
“The whistle of a high-speed train is the sound of opportunity calling.” The “whistle” represents the train itself and, by extension, the economic and social opportunities it brings. It’s a call to action, signaling progress and growth for communities along its route.
“Every ticket sold is a vote for a greener planet.” The “ticket” represents the passenger and their choice to support sustainable travel. High-speed trains reduce carbon emissions, and every journey taken is a step toward a more sustainable future.
Metonymy: Using a related term to represent something else.
“The rails are the arteries of a thriving economy.” Here, “rails” represent the entire rail network, which keeps the economy moving and alive. High-speed trains ensure that goods, people, and ideas flow freely, fueling growth and innovation.
“The timetable is a promise—a guarantee that the future will be on time.” The “timetable” represents the reliability and efficiency of high-speed trains. It’s a symbol of trust and precision, showing that high-speed rail delivers on its commitments.
“The station is a gateway—not just to new places, but to new possibilities.” The “station” represents the entire journey and the opportunities it unlocks. High-speed trains don’t just take you from point A to point B; they open doors to education, employment, and cultural exchange.
Closing:
“High-speed trains are more than just engines and carriages. They are the wheels of change, the tracks of progress, and the bridges to a better tomorrow. So let’s not just build trains—let’s build connections. Let’s build opportunities. Let’s build the future. Thank you.”
This speech uses synecdoche and metonymy to reframe high-speed trains as symbols of progress, sustainability, and opportunity. By focusing on specific parts or related concepts, it surprises the audience with fresh, imaginative reasons to support high-speed rail. Let me know if you’d like to expand on any section!
PROMPT: Act as a speechwriter. Revise this speech to be written at an 8th grade level
Here’s a revised version of the speech, written at an 8th-grade reading level for clarity and simplicity:
Speech by Gareth Davies, MP for Grantham and Bournemouth
Thank you to the hon. Lady for her comments. She’s right—HS2 will boost productivity, create jobs, and improve connections across the country. We need to keep sharing these benefits with everyone. But we also have to be realistic. We must balance the need for high-speed rail with managing our budget, especially as we face challenges like rising costs due to the war in Ukraine and supply chain issues from COVID-19. These are tough times, and we’re making the hard decisions needed to keep our finances stable while still investing in important projects like HS2.
The hon. Lady mentioned the National Audit Office report. We’re looking at it carefully and will respond soon. But the key point is this: HS2 is important, and we’re committed to it. We’ve had to make some tough choices to make sure we’re building strong transport links while also being responsible with public money. That’s what the British people expect from us.
We’re also working to improve rail connections across the country, especially in areas that lost service back in the 1960s with the Beeching cuts. It’s not just about building new lines—it’s about making the existing ones better too.
Now, let me address some specific points raised today. The hon. Member for Bath talked about the M4 connection to Dorset. I want her to know that the Department for Transport has asked National Highways to study this route, and we’re carefully considering their findings. We’ll have more to say on this soon.
The hon. Member for Bath and my colleague from Wimbledon also brought up rail electrification. We’re working hard on this as part of our plan to create a net zero railway by 2050. Since 2010, we’ve electrified over 1,200 miles of track, with 1,000 of those miles done in just the last five years. That’s a big improvement compared to the 70 miles electrified between 1997 and 2010. We’re making progress, but there’s still more to do.
The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland shared some great insights about the challenges his community faces. I’ll look into the issue he raised about funding and get back to him.
Finally, my colleague from Wimbledon made an important point: the government can’t pay for everything. We need private investment to help fund our infrastructure projects. In fact, nearly half of the UK’s future infrastructure projects will be paid for with private money. Over the next ten years, we expect total investment in infrastructure—both public and private—to reach nearly £650 billion. That’s how we’ll build a stronger future for everyone.
Thank you.
This version simplifies complex ideas, shortens sentences, and uses more straightforward language while keeping the original meaning intact.
PROMPT: Act as a teacher. Revise the following text so that it can understood by 8 year old children. [Insert 8th grade text above]
Here’s the revised version of the text, simplified so that it can be understood by 8-year-old children:
Thank you to the lady for her ideas. She’s right—HS2, the new high-speed train, will help people work better, create new jobs, and make it easier to travel across the country. We need to tell everyone about these good things. But we also have to be careful with our money. Right now, things are tough because of the war in Ukraine and problems caused by COVID-19, like higher costs and fewer supplies. We’re making hard choices to make sure we have enough money for important projects like HS2 while still being careful with how we spend.
The lady also talked about a report from the National Audit Office. We’re reading it carefully and will say more about it soon. But the most important thing is this: HS2 is really important, and we’re going to keep working on it. We’ve had to make some tough decisions to build better train lines while also being smart with the money we have. That’s what people expect from us.
We’re also working to make train travel better in places that lost their train service a long time ago, back in the 1960s. It’s not just about building new train tracks—it’s also about fixing and improving the ones we already have.
Now, let me talk about some other things people brought up today. The lady from Bath talked about a road called the M4 and how it connects to Dorset. I want her to know that we’ve asked a group called National Highways to study this road, and we’re thinking about what they found. We’ll share more about this soon.
The lady from Bath and my friend from Wimbledon also talked about making trains run on electricity instead of diesel. We’re working on this as part of our plan to make trains better for the environment by 2050. Since 2010, we’ve added electric power to over 1,200 miles of train tracks, and 1,000 of those miles were done in just the last five years. That’s a lot better than the 70 miles we did between 1997 and 2010. We’re doing a good job, but there’s still more work to do.
The man from Orkney and Shetland talked about some problems his community is facing. I’ll look into the issue he mentioned about money and get back to him.
Finally, my friend from Wimbledon made a good point: the government can’t pay for everything. We need help from businesses and other groups to pay for big projects like new roads and train lines. In fact, almost half of the money for future projects will come from private companies. Over the next ten years, we think the total money spent on these projects will be nearly £650 billion. That’s how we’ll make things better for everyone.
This version uses simple words, short sentences, and avoids complicated ideas to make it easier for 8-year-olds to understand.
Conclusion
It might be unfair to compare the output of ChatGPT from 2023 to DeepSeek of 2025. However, if claims about the efficiency are in fact true it represents, as some have noted, a “Sputnik moment” for the American technology industry.
As for speechwriters, I stand by my concluding words from 2023:
This three-part series has, I hope, shown ways in which speechwriters can use generative A.I. tools like ChatGPT. The number of tools is expanding rapidly. No doubt some public speeches — be they at a wedding, in the conference center, or on the hustings — will use material simply cut and paste from GPT output. This is not a clever way to proceed. The language can be silted, repetitive, filled with factual errors, and unconvincing.
However, in the hands of a professional, research tasks, speech outlines, alternative points of view, and more are available for review.
I believe these tools will enrich and make life easier and more productive for professional speechwriters and concerns about their use are misplaced.
