Dining across the divide: ‘Kids shouldn’t really have smartphones – it’s akin to tobacco in 60s and 70s’

An Arsenal fan and a Manchester United fan might not agree on football teams, but could they find common ground on mobile phones and AI?

Aaran, 43, Winchester

Occupation Works in executive recruitment

Voting record Labour in the past, but recently voted Lib Dem because he moved to a Tory stronghold. Never Conservative

Amuse bouche Lived for a time in Malaysia and Indonesia, and loved it, but discovered how much he missed the UK – the ease of things, the standards and, most of all, the seasons

Mashood, 51, East Hampshire

Occupation CEO and founder of an internet broadband service provider

Voting record Used to be between Conservative and Lib Dem, but the Tories are now Reform, Reform are now Tories, and he’s not really enamoured of either. Mashood does like some of the Greens’ policies, and Zack Polanski

Amuse bouche Moved to Dubai in 2005, thinking it would be the next Singapore or Hong Kong. He wanted to be part of a new city that was growing. Came back in 2019

For starters

Mashood He supports Arsenal, I support Man U, so that broke the ice.

Aaran We were huge competitors in the late 90s, the fiercest of rivals, but we’ve not been competitive for 20-odd years.

Mashood I had pasta, a caprese salad, and we had some garlic bread to share.

Aaran I had the devilled prawns and then seafood spaghetti.

The big beef

Aaran Kids shouldn’t really have smartphones – it’s akin to tobacco in the 1960s and 70s. We, the public, didn’t realise how bad it was for us and the people selling it did. Tech giants know how addictive smartphones are. I think the government getting involved is a good thing.

Mashood Why do parents give their kids smartphones in the first place? They say they need to know where they are, but you can’t tag your kids like you’d tag a dog. We live in the safest society, in terms of CCTV everywhere. If the world seems dangerous, it’s just because of the age we are and the fact we’re parents. I don’t think the kids themselves feel unsafe. The parents giving their kids smartphones and then asking for bans are outsourcing their own responsibilities to the government.

Aaran He viewed politicians as intervening to make a point, without meaning it, and those interventions not being fit for purpose. But I’d rather they did something than nothing.

Mashood A social media ban isn’t enforceable. Even with the Online Safety Act, they’ve only touched the top 10 providers of porn. As soon as the age verification came in, the number of VPNs went though the roof in this country, as people bypassed controls.

Sharing plate

Aaran We talked about tax and agreed it’s confusing that the onus is so high on the individual compared with the tax rates on corporations. Half your income goes on tax, and then you read about organisations who aren’t paying anything.

Mashood With green taxes, we all pay surcharges for flights, but the oil companies etc are getting away with it. If environmental taxation were to be effective, that policy would need to target businesses.

For afters

Aaran AI is already automating things like finance processing and credit control, and often that would have been an entry point for graduates. That’s the kind of work you would have done to learn how to exist in an office.

Mashood AI is now ingrained, it’s being developed by the Z generation, and kids are learning at a much faster pace than we are. My company has an AI tool, and my kids did all the development and coding for it. For them, it’s an opportunity rather than a threat.

Aaran On the flip side, AI should be quite a democratiser: as a kid I was quite good academically, because I could read, synthesise information and interpret it. A tool that will do all that for you has given someone else the opportunity to bridge disadvantage – people who’ve got the work ethic but just can’t do this stuff naturally.

Mashood He said the challenge is going to be society and governments coming together to build the ethics around AI. And I agreed, but there’s individual responsibility, too. There was a teddy bear that came out last year with AI built into it. Why would you buy that?

Takeaways

Aaran We had a good, genial conversation.

Mashood We parted on great terms: we shared LinkedIn details.

Additional reporting: Kitty Drake

• Aaran and Mashood ate at Cucina dei Sapori in Alton

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