I live not too far from Swindon.

Its council announced last week that free Wi-Fi broadband, enabled by hundreds of access points in lamp posts, will be made available to all residents. With thousands of computers connected by millions of virtual synapses, might this not be where the first artificial consciousness emerges?

As a nation, we need to prepare for a highly sexualised, electric Swindon – a Swindon with desires and needs, a vast, androgynous, super-intelligent being, splayed over Wiltshire.

Eeeek.