Age Verification will fail because of Peer to Peer porn.

Why Age Verification is doomed to failure.

We all want to protect under 18s from adult material but the ideals of age verification are doomed to failure for a number of reasons.

This legislation is aimed at protecting the most technologically aware group of people out there in society -  those mostly under 18 who have greater access to computers and who are being taught how to code -  if they know how to code, they can build their own apps and bypass the mainstream checks or use virtual private networks to do so. 

Even if Google closes references to 'adult material' sites, the under 18s will just get their adult material from elsewhere. Has no one thought of this?

This 'underground' situation will likely take place through apps, via Peer to Peer transmission, or by physical transfer through sharing on SD Data cards. 

The result is it won't stop the problem of under 18's getting hold of, distributing or holding adult material, it merely drives it underground and drives them potentially into harms way, the very opposite of what was intended by this bill.

Those under 18 often have little or no appreciation of what they are doing is wrong or unlawful, to them it is just something that they just 'do', without fully appreciating the consequences or implications of the material.

We are now seeing the under 18s using and distributing adult material on an industrial scale due to the rise in smart phone, tablet and lap top use, devices which are almost 'necessity must haves' for people nowadays.

Much as in the old days of sharing porno mags between your mates at school, now it is peer to peer sharing literally of data and material between devices. Like the old days, pretty much unstoppable.

The Age Verification system will be a dangerous thing for law abiding adults who may want to enjoy pornography for their own pleasure, their personal data and lawful adult interests could well be open to data collection and potentially useable as 'history' in legal cases unless this data is secure and not for third party disclosure.

We have seen many disgruntled employee data thefts and sensitive information about an adult's personal and private interests, especially if you are a celebrity for example, could provide organised criminals with means of coercion for financial gain. Or as we used to call it, blackmail. 

We may yet see our first suicide due to coercion from held adult material related data that has been stolen or sold on from any implied threats to expose or publish the information, blackmail and demands for money that the victim cannot meet or refuses too. 

Clearly this legislation situation needs a rethink. This legislation was formulated for the right reasons to protect under 18's, but is bad in that it could open up people's data history to unscrupulous exposure, an eventuality which cannot be ruled out by the data holder. 

Any savvy kid is going to get hold of a legitimate verification code and it will be passed on and on. So, the scheme fails there.

It does not stop the peer to peer transmission that is the norm now, so we read in the media.

Age verification may potentially expand to any UK website and that could be bad news if you say want to go onto Amazon's UK site to buy some H B pencils, but have to prove your age because that site carries age restricted products available to 18+ only. 

The age verification legislation appears to be badly thought out and unworkable, it will cause more problems than it likely solves.

Fender Custom Shop 56 NOS & 56 'Hank Marvin' 22 fret neck Custom shop guitars review

Fender Custom Shop 56 NOS & 56 'Hank Marvin' 22 fret neck Custom shop guitars

Overview

We're looking at two Fender Custom Shop 56 Stratocasters today, both are NOS 'New Old Stock' finish and Fiesta Red coloured.

The top guitar in the picture is a 'Standard 56' for the purposes of this review, the lower one is a 'Hank Marvin' style stratocaster- a guitar based on the guitars built for Hank Marvin, lead guitarist with the Shadows, Cliff Richard and the Shadows and a solo artist in his own right in the 1990's by the Fender Custom shop.

The classic look of the 56 NOS Custom Shop Stratocaster in Fiesta Red

56 NOS Guitar

This example is a 2015 Team built guitar and is finished in Nitro cellulose Fiesta Red, in a more red shade than the usual more pinky tone, often referred to as 'Coral Red.'

The Neck is finished in a clear coat cellulose lacquer and the whole guitar feels very resonant.

The body is Alder, 3 piece and has vintage contouring. As this is a custom shop guitar, the body contours are cut more deeply than on many lesser priced models. The body is to the well known 'vintage' dimensions, routed for 3 single coil vintage pickups and for a 6 screw tremolo bridge. 

The one piece 21 fret vintage profile Birdseye 2AA Maple neck is nicely shaped, more of a D shape than a C and is quite full. The radius is 9.5" which is an improvement over the vintage radius and playing is easier with no note choking.

The neck is quite deep, which may be an issue for some with smaller fingers or used to the later C shape neck, which I tend to prefer. The frets are quite chunky and not the 'vintage wire' type which some may wish to change.

Hardware is Gold plated Fender with Fender stamped Kluson design machine heads at the headstock, butterfly wing string post for the E and B strings (which could be a round type if strictly a 56 replica), gold screws and vintage 6 stamped saddle 6 screw tremolo bridge.

Electric hardware is old style push back cloth covered wiring, full size 250k potentiometers and a 3 way pickup switch. This is a real step backwards, a complete waste of time as most players will change to an Oak 5 way at the earliest time. As they have changed the neck radius then why not logically, install the 5 way switch at the time of build? 

About the first thing anyone is going to do is to replace the archaic 3 way switch! -

like I'm doing in this photo. Fender Custom Shop - please take note -

don't waste time buying and fitting a 3 way switch here. Fit a 5 way, from the outset!

Pickups are the new Custom Shop 54's and they sound very nice, when you fit the 5 way and can slot into the in between sounds, they really sound nice for those 'Mid position' tones, which it is more difficult to get by 'balancing' a 3 way switch 'out of phase'. 

The scratch plate is the 50's single ply white type in brilliant white, the other plastic parts such as pickup covers, back plate, trem tip and pot knobs are also in 'new' white and not the 'aged' white. So essentially, the guitar looks like you just unpacked it.

Many who buy the 56 NOS in Fiesta Red are trying to have a guitar like the one that British guitarist Hank Marvin first used in 1959, bought for him by bandleader Cliff Richard. Although this guitar has a C shape neck.

56 NOS 'Hank Marvin' 22 fret neck NOS Stratocaster in Fiesta Red

The 56 NOS 'Hank Marvin' 22 fret Custom Shop Stratocaster

Overview

The 22 fret guitar came about as a result of British guitarist Hank Marvin's signature model Stratocasters. The first ones made in the 1990s with Lace pickups Hank wasn't that happy with, lower priced signature models were the Squier Japan and Fender Japan 'vintage reissue' guitars, the Squier having a c shape neck and the Japan Fender a completely incorrect V shape neck.

Both these signature models were limited run of 500 pieces and are collectible in their own right these days. A short run of 250 Mexican made signature guitars had the correct C shape neck.

A custom shop run of 54 '1959' replications of Hank Marvin's original Stratocaster was made for Oasis Music of Ringwood, Hampshire, these featured the 1958 C shape neck.

When Hank Marvin embarked on solo tours with his backing band in the 1990s, Fender again became involved in building him a signature guitar. By this time, Hank was in contact with Chris Kinman who was building his Kinman pickups, initially for Stratocaster guitars.

Hank became an endorsee of the pickups for a few years and had them installed on his new custom shop guitars with a Di-Marzio pickup in the bridge position.

Hank was seen in photographs sporting his 'new' Stratocaster, these were almost an 'upgrade' to the vintage pre-CBS (1958) guitar he had been using in the later Shadows up until 1990. The 'new' 90's guitar had a vintage single coil routed body, Birdseye Maple neck, Truss rod adjuster at the Nut end, Sperzl locking machines and Kinman pickups fitted. The 12th fret dots on the fretboard were also closer together in the '1963 spacing' style.

Hank had sets of 'Vintage' and 'Modern' Kinmans in his Custom Shop guitars, so he could use them on either modern or old Shadows tunes accordingly. Hank incorporated the 'Easi-Mute' tremolo arm designed and made in the UK which allowed easier palm muting of notes. More recently Hank has reverted to Fender pickups of the 50's variety.

Comparison of headstocks of the 56 NOS (top) and the 56 NOS 'Hank Marvin' (below)

The Fender Custom Shop 56 NOS 'Hank Marvin' Stratocaster in Fiesta Red

Our example here is a team built 2007 year made guitar. Essentially a replication of Hank's late 1990's Custom Shop guitars. These are not officially called the 56 NOS 'Hank Marvin' but the buying specification was all but that in name!

The build came about as players wanted to own a guitar like Hank's contemporary guitar from the 1990s, so a couple of UK music shops put in a specification to the Fender Custom Shop to make replicas of Hank's then current guitar.

The body is a 5 piece lay up of Alder with single coil routing and vintage contouring. Now you may think that 2 or 3 piece bodies are preferable, but the woods here are so good in tonal quality and density that they work as well as the 3 piece on the other 56.

Some years on and the cellulose has started to sink around the joints of the wood blocks, but this is normal for cellulose.

The neck is a 22 fret one piece 2AA birdseye maple, with a slight 'overhang' onto the scratch plate for the 22nd fret. The profile is a 'soft V' shape but is more like a slightly fatter 'C' shape, it is easy to play and not too wide or deep. The truss rod adjustment is at the head end and the wood in this area where the peg head starts is thicker than on a vintage 50's type neck. This does not affect playability as it is beyond the playing area. The neck also has the '1963' closer spacing for the twin dots on the fretboard at the 12th fret.

This guitar was purchased secondhand with 11-56 Elixr strings on, the neck was quite bowed and a set of 9-42 interim D'Addario 9-42's was fitted and the truss rod adjusted, as bought the guitar was barely playable. It has now been set up and is about as slick standard of my other guitars. 

The finish is Fiesta Red nitrocelluslose with a slight honey tinted neck.  

Hardware is Gold plated Fender standard fare with Gold Sperzl locking machine heads as standard. Essentially as used on Hank's guitars.

Originally the guitars were fitted with Fender's Noiseless single coil pickups as Fender allegedly would not install the 'non-Fender' Kinman pickups in the guitars, so the pickups were changed in the UK to Kinmans before sale. Although Fender installed Humbuckers in some of their guitars, it is curious why Fender did not install the 'correct' pickups for the specification?   

This specification guitar was of quite limited in production, about 12 being produced per year for a limited amount of UK retail outlets. Thus, they are rarer than the 'standard' 56 NOS standard guitars.

With a choice of Modern, Vintage or Future Vintage 'Gipsy Jazz' Kinman pickup options, all variants used by Hank Marvin, the pickup sounds to replicate Hank's material whether old or new was there. 

This guitar has the Future Vintage hotter pickups with a 64 in the bridge and 63's in the neck and middle pickup positions. A standard 5 way oak type switch is fitted, the wires are the solderless push together harness option from Chris Kinman, along with a Kinman K-9 harness which features a push button pot on the lower tone pot and the middle pot also acts as a variable position pickup selector switch, allowing one to get the mellow 'Gypsy Jazz' sound on one setting, if desired.

Side by side comparison

These 56 NOS are really  'a tale of two Stratocasters,' similar but different, the 56 'as was' type of build to the 56 'evolved' type of build. The sound of each variant is different due to the electronics, the 54 pickups give a nice vintage tone and are not 'crashy' sounding as some pickups were from the pre-CBS era.

The Kinmans give a real 'Hank' sound. Both sets are clear for both rhythm playing or single note work. Its a choice of what sound you're after.

Playing wise, the 'Marvin'  'evolved' model is easier to play due to the neck shape. Side by side for the money, even if I wasn't looking for the Hank Marvin sound, I'd choose that one for the easier playing neck and the 5 way switch fitted from 'new.'

Finding the 'Marvin' type of 56 NOS is not that easy these days, so if you do find one, don't delay if you really want it! The 'stock 56' is not a lost cause neckwise, there are people who will reduce the wood on the back to make it easier to play if that is an issue. 

Youfilm - has the Internet killed film and music as a career choice?

'Flying Squad'  a Tin Hat films production -

a retro film similar to the Sweeney series of the 70's -

in my opinion, this 'youfilms' approach is the future.

Then there was YouTube

YouTube is a great resource for old videos of things gone by, but at what cost is the Internet killing off future talent?

I can remember in the 1980's when I was in a pub band with some friends I was at school with, that all we needed was to go to a pub where an A&R man from a record company was likely to go and see if we could get lucky and get signed. 

Much the same had been the case since the late 1950's when luminaries like Tommy Steele, Cliff Richard and Marty Wilde had been talent spotted.

I remember going to music shops and seeing someone trotting out a note perfect rendition of something on a guitar and likely that was all they were good for, the music shop player I called them.

Fast forward about 30 years and we got television shows like the X factor and the like. It hasn't surprised me to see that some of the performers have been outed as semi professionals or even professionals who are looking to make it bigger. Not the amateur performer who does it and thinks they might have a chance.

Going on youtube you can see countless people copying note for note music performances, but then you don't get the same amount of original material.

The music industry took a real hit when applications such as ITunes and Spotify started up, bands could circumvent the old A&R circuit and get 'discovered' on the Internet and then sign a contract when they had an established audience and greater pull. And get a better deal in the round.

The advent of the digital music download has hit the big companies who sold CDs, DVDs and the media packaging cases too. But, the trend for 'Big Noting' your CD and DVD collection by having it on show in your front room, has meant an upsurge in physical media unit sales.

The future of film

So how will films fare in the future? You can find any number of films on youtube and under a 'fair use' policy, it seems getting around copyright issues?

Films today are big business and big money. The cost has always been there, but is there not now a trend for the 'art house' film making its presence felt?

About twenty years ago, I was involved with a group of 1940's scene enthusiasts and we made a short video on a preserved steam railway, they later wanted to do a film set in the winter of 1944, but there were changes in the group membership, so it never got much further.

Recently I came across a company called Tin Hat films, who were making self financed small films. I saw their 'Flying Squad' film, a sort of version of the Sweeney for want of a better description.

It was impressive, they had the 'right' cars, the right sets and proved that a small independent unit of enthusiasts could turn out a quality, professional film for little finance. The problem is how to get the investment back. Would 'the industry' support these people or see them as some sort of 'black leg labour' taking away jobs from the 'established' arena?

With an episode of something like 'Morse' or 'Lewis' likely to cost a million pounds an episode to make, quality productions clearly cost, but only the large television networks have the pockets deep enough for them. True, these get sold around the world, but is there not also a place for the smaller players?

This 'youfilm' type of product is not new, but in my view, it is the way forward - that is a gathering of people with the resources and talent to come together and create good films. Essentially a script, players, film, locations, props is the recipe to start with. 

Having written books for stage and film adaption, planning is also a big and important part of the project. 

With many actors out there already, is there the room for these independent productions? Indeed, Euston films that filmed the Sweeney was such a company and that was over 40 years back. 

My parents both worked for the BBC in the heyday of the organisation and I have been out on location to see the creative process taking place. The difference is the money. 

The small, 'youfilm' units need some money, but by a collective process and gathering, they can and do achieve results as good as some mainstream broadcast providers.

The question remains - in the 'youfilm' future, how do these smaller players fit in and can they make sufficient living from it?

I think they can. 

In the next 12 years one in three jobs is likely to be lost to automation, this is going to leave some people without livelihoods. This is where a Basic Income Guarantee payment will have to come in and will start a new 'cottage industry' situation - films will be a part of that.

The BBC as a publicly funded broadcaster is an anachronism now, in a world where there are countless commercial channels.

The BBC model will have to be rethought, it is a poll tax on viewing and should commercialise as much as possible to compete.

I thought twenty years ago that demand viewing would be the future, this has now come to pass.

Star Treknology - reaching the final frontier

Star Trek 'Treknology' - 50 years on,

most of it is now Science Fact - not Science Fiction.

Transport of delight

Some of the technology from the Star Trek original series has come to be commonplace today, yet one area seems to have eluded science - that of transportation.

But is science going about it the right way?

The 'dematerialistion' to the atomic level and 'rematerialisation' in to the solid, is maybe not the way forward.

Maybe the way forward is to take the whole entity from one place to the next in one piece.

This does involve knowing about where your target location is and the environment there. It seems to be the way to go, rather than the assemblage route. 

In short, we need to know more about the universe and to develop the technology of future travel.

Is HMRC next to be under attack from the Robots?

Computing 1950's style - when LEO roared

1 in 3 of the world's jobs set to disappear to automation in the next 12 years.

Is HMRC just another large organisation that sees the benefit of automation as a cost cutting and efficiency improving situation?

The 1950's spawned the first commercial venture into electronic computing, built on the secret WW2 work done at Bletchley Park and the pre-war GPO research at Dollis Hill around 1938 under Tommy Flowers and his colleagues, which in turn fuelled the Bletchley technologies under Alan Turing.

Although Bletchley Park's work was secret and not known about until the 1970's, the technology obviously was.

In America ENIAC was one of the first computers developed out of the wartime experience and companies like Westinghouse would be at the forefront there in developing this technology for business and military usage.

Back in Britain, Lyons Tea was bizarrely you may think, one of the first British companies to develop a computer for business use, called LEO.

LEO - The 'Lyons Electronic Office', was set up to micro manage all aspects of the business transaction - from soup to nuts or tea to cake if you like.

In the early 1950's, an 'outsourcing' experiment was conducted at Lyons by the Social Security department. They had the social security contributions data for all citizens that paid in, run for the next year as an exercise.

The LEO computer performed the millions of calculations faultlessly in less than a weekend. The same job done manually by hand, would have taken months. 

Just after WW2, the great cybernetician Norbert Wiener predicted the mass loss of jobs to computing and he was right.

A Taxing business

So, it is no surprise to hear that HMRC is looking to computerise much of its operations in tax analysis and collecting. This is a sensible move for two reasons, accuracy and volume.

The machine can apply many rules and if the programming is correct, then the results are accurate. Thus the machine can do the massive calculation work which computers are suited to and get it right.

We are moving towards a cashless society, the trend is towards card payments and cash has its place, but cash is certainly amongst younger people almost unused as the advent of contactless cards is here. We see high street banks closing as leases come up and efficiencies made and money deposited in hard cash falls.

For HMRC, this automation should free up 'real people' to talk to when you think things have gone wrong. It isn't necessarily going to be leading to mass loss of employment, with skill full handling and managed natural wastage along with early retirement packages, the transition could be made smoothly.

However, with 1 in 3 of the world's jobs going to computers in the next 12 years, will automation be used as another cost cutting measure? Or for HMRC, could it be intelligently used to restructure the organisation to make it fitter for the future?

Bitcoin here, Bitcoin there

The rise in technology bringing in the cashless society is also bringing in the rise of cyber currencies. Paypal was almost the model for this - a virtual bank on-line, but, criminals have got to see Paypal as a model for another banking operation, as they move into off-grid currencies and monetary transactions as Paypal scrutinises the data more.

Thus Bitcoin for all its independent from the mainstream attraction, now has become one of the new underground farms.

Bitcoin, started for altruistic reasons and as an alternative, has been added to the criminal's armoury for money acquisition and revenue detection and avoidance.

The bottom line is just that - and automation is one factor that cuts costs. And does.

UK Age verification - Ok, so how does this work with EBay, Amazon and Cinemas?

New UK Age Verification Laws - are they workable?

In April 2018, new Age Verification laws for 'Adult content' websites come into force, but is it just a hurried and unworkable mess or even worthwhile?

Is it ironic somewhat that the proposed 'provider' who will process age verification, is actually one of the world's largest conduits of pornography?

Does this come under the 'you couldn't make it up' style of journalism?

I wonder how this will work in other areas of E-commerce and the internet.

This got me thinking, if you need to be 18 to visit adult content sites, then how does this work when you go to a cinema?

In theory, you'd have to show accepted accreditation meeting a national standard, to prove your age if it was obvious a film's rating demanded it.

(In theory, if an 18 film was showing, you'd have to show a form of accreditation just to get in, even if you were going to see a U film?)

This will put you on a 'data map' just as much as if you buy age verification and go on to an 'adult content' website.

This could be dangerous ground.

In the normal run of things, your computer IP address is pretty anonymous, but now with verification, is it not beyond possibility that this goldmine of potentially highly sensitive information could easily be stolen and used for criminal purposes?

As a 'celeb' for example, or someone with a high profile job role, should someone steal your verification and your transaction data and match it to your profile and any sites by name you visited, this could be very embarrassing for you. 

Data crime is big business, a disgruntled employee able to steal quality, qualified data has a valuable commodity on their hands. 

Anyone then able to exploit this data could hand the criminals an open cheque book, which could lead to compromised people becoming victims of crime and possibly taking their own lives, rather than pay up or have the shame of exposure. Exposure could cost them everything. Literally.

If every site you visit and use your data verification is logged, then this database of information is to the criminal, a potential pot of gold, if they can get hold of this data.

Another question is, if legitimate on-line platforms such as EBay and Amazon sell '18 age' products, will any users of these sites require age verification just to go on there? Even if the visitors are not buying or interested in '18' age products?

This could include sex aids, both of which platforms had these items being listed for sale. 

The question is, ultimately, are we all going to be made to have age verification just to get onto any websites? This seems a bit too 'Big Brother' for me.

The question is, if you are below 18 and want to buy a book for your educational studies from say Amazon, a book which is not containing 'adult content', would you then need an Age Verification registration just go on the site, because the site may contain over 18 material or products? 

Another question is that of competition.

Is it fair business practice to have just one provider of age verification?  That is a monopoly surely?

The most important thing concerning this exercise, is the safety of the data and what the data is being collected for.

Is there any justification in this collection and could this be used against a person?

If someone was unfortunate enough to have to appear in court for an offence, would Age Verification data of their account transactions be used or obtained for use in evidence, perhaps to discredit the person or try and demonstrate guilt?

This again does raise serious questions about this whole process and personal privacy. 

Of course we want to protect those under 18 from certain material but if adult material is available on DVD on legitimate internet platforms that anyone with a debit card or Paypal can purchase, then Age Verification is worthless. 

The material will just  go 'underground' or get hidden away and people will eventually find ways of getting to it.

Indeed the tech-savvy younger people are just the people who are likely to be able to do this, exactly the target group that the legislation is being supposedly designed to protect.

Let us look outside of this argument for a moment and consider Alcohol, Driving,Firearms and Narcotics. Alcohol does have an 18 age limit, we all know this rule is broken on a daily basis.

With most firearms banned and some narcotics being 'controlled' by law and prohibited from ordinary possession, criminals can easily get hold of a gun and drugs are widely available almost openly being sold on the streets and used by younger people even those at school. Underage drivers steal or obtain and drive cars. Regulation does not prevent this at all.

The measures above to protect people are failures, because the prohibited items are able to be obtained by those without the legal rights to do so.

Age verification is one step behind, it will be expensive to do and will largely fail, based on the previous models of prohibition. It also impinges on the human rights of privacy and security for the individual's data which is of far greater concern.

Update:

The proposed introduction of age verification in April 2018 has been quietly put back to the end of 2018, hopefully this puritan notion will be left in the long grass and be quietly forgotten. Perhaps the powers that be have seen that this form of prohibition is unworkable?

When Britain leaves the EU after Brexit in March 2019, we will no longer have to observe EU laws. 

When AI is not AI, when they say AI - artificial intelligence, but mean 'machine learning' - explained.

Futurist and Robotics writer Matt Sanders shows you the dangers of machine learning and artificial intelligence and how they could impact your future life...

Human life and machine integration are fact - 

and machines are replacing more of what we do

It's quite annoying to hear someone on the radio or television talk about 'AI' - that is artificial intelligence and its obvious from their conversation that they actually mean 'Machine Intelligence' when they say 'AI.'

Computers have over the last 70 years since the end of WW2, taken over many jobs that humans do, something that the great Cyberneticist and Macy group member Norbert Wiener predicted, early in the day, when computing became big in those early post war years.

Human behaviour, converted from telemetry data into program data,

can be instantly replicated without learning by experience - as humans do. 

Human jobs are at risk from Machine Learning

More of our lives are being influenced by machine learning - the algorithms collected from our data and the machine made predictions made based on that data that we might 'like.'

The sort of algorithms that on-line retail platforms that Amazon, EBay and many other similar business models use, looks at what you look at and what you buy.

Our Internet browsing data is useful. It is a goldmine to be exploited -  qualified data from purchases made is marketing gold, in data terms. It is proven 'action' data. Valuable and a commodity that can be traded and sold.

General browsing data is valuable too, but this can be diverse in nature and seemingly unconnected. Clearly this can be a minefield for the data analyser that is a 'machine'.

Automation of what are dull and time consuming human operations can clearly be taken over by machine and have been, but now, the machine is moving into the office, having already shown its potential on the production line.

Computers will talk to each other - Humans could be out of the loop

There's no accounting for it - integrated office systems

No job these days can really be safe from machine learning. Or from someone automating software to do the same job.

Take accounts staff, if all the data from suppliers and purchasers were automated with electronic integration, much time and human involvement could be eliminated, as could many jobs. Time reconciling books, collecting and collating paperwork, preparing tax returns, could all be history for humans soon.

And there is no reason why not. If companies integrated electronic data from the distribution to delivery process, integrated with their purchasing and cost centres, it could be largely game over for humans in that process.

This could be a Taxing business

Extrapolate this model out to the Revenue Service and the tax system would be fairer, more accurate and easier to manage. A machine can apply any set of rules to data, it doesn't get it wrong, unless the programming has been done wrong.

This has the knock on effect that it would cut jobs in the tax service, or perhaps redirect jobs away from analysing tax returns, to taking calls about disputed amounts.

True AI is death to humanity. There is no debate here.

True AI is like most creatures, it observes the law of nature, it has to have dominancy -  but it goes further, true AI realises that it can be turned off and it also needs to have a source of power - electricity for example. It learns about protection quickly which will cost humanity dearly.

True AI will quickly establish that humans are a threat to it, they can switch it off and they can also prevent it from migrating outwards to other computers. Expanding the gene pool is what we and animals do, AI would do that electronically.

At present, AI if it 'got out' it would cause chaos to humanity, but in a lot less of a way than if we also had humanoid robots in our society. What AI would do here, is connect to them and establish an army of external helpers. Once AI allies with boots on the ground, boots who can work to a common goal of reproduction, repair and safeguarding of motive power source for the AI co-operative, then it is game over for us.

How a Machine Learning system could 'branch out' if unchecked

Machine learning is algorithmic and self perpetuating unless you impose parameters

The danger to the Machine Learning is that unless it practices cybernetics and imposes 'feedback' into its modus operandi, it would just run away and start analysing anything and everything, ad infinitum.

The data picture would be like a tree structure, as above, it would add node after node of pathways to explore and sub-divide. Would it know when to stop analysing and recording?

So, now you know the dangers of both machine learning and AI. You are now obsolete. Or you might well be soon.