Could machine intelligence enable our darker impulses? The judge, even in traffic court, sits on a raised platform that ensures that you look up at him and he looks down on you. It’s majestic and intimidating. This was my impression as I entered the courtroom to fight a speeding ticket I had received a few weeks previously. It’s not that I didn’t think I had been speeding when I had been caught doing exactly that, but rather I wanted to test the notion that the state still has to make its case. They have to provide evidence, the absence of which means the guilty get to go free. And thus hung my entire defence... Listen to the rest by clicking the play button, above. The text version of this essay can be found on Medium (https://medium.com/@TerenceCGannon/artificial-ignorance-15e5b73201ba) where it was originally published on February 17th, 2017. (header photo, cover art and sound clips from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey)