Harkin believes the ‘drive to respond’ (our simple desire to answer messages) is behind the whole Internet architecture. He also makes incorrect generalisations about the models behind popular file sharing application like Bittorrent and Kazaa. With an interesting background, it’s nevertheless a cryptic story told with an enigmatic voice that we’ve heard most of before.

So while people will always try to build C-3PO-style machines that look and talk like us, the real advances will come in individual components we design to do one job well. Human intelligence arose from the unconscious co-operation of such systems to sustain the organism. Maybe if we get the constituent ‘smart’ parts right, a true AI system will spontaneously evolve — dare we say it — intelligently…

It’s the distributors and studios that are going to save money — by not having to earmark hundreds of millions to send a movie around the world as they do currently.