I have a cherished memory of a family trip to the movies. In the Australian tradition, we bought choc-top ice-creams, chattered through pre-show trailers and a hush fell on the full house as the movie started.

It was Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, on film, only a couple of weeks ago, months after its release.

In an AI-supercharged world of algorithmic recommendations and atomised cultural space, I’ve come to suspect The Odyssey’s ongoing popular appeal is no longer its Greeks with gifts, or superstar director.

It’s the increasingly rare opportunity to share even a single cultural reference with other people. Despite our human instinct for interaction, we live in a global moment where health authorities believe social isolation is an epidemic.

Yet in the same city of my fun night at the cinema, this week it was news that Australia’s Macquarie University has introduced an AI chatbot into the weekly teaching of two mandatory psychology subjects.

Displacing human beings from what should be stable jobs isn’t the only outrage here.

As someone whose dainty, addled, depressive brain obliges tender care from trained professionals, Macquarie, please record this data in your feedback corpus: I cannot trust or validate the insight of a supposed expert whose contact with adult realities has been compromised by being taught by a machine.

If I want a........

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