Mediawatch ever so slightly loses the run of itself today as another industry is lost to AI, with supercomputers apparently the latest put out of work as we live through the dystopian horror that is 2026.

Safer ground sees some chortling at Arsenal ‘stars’ with a little bit of Acewatch thrown in as well.

Plus a rare headline treat from the Express.

AI caramba

Mediawatch harks for the simpler times when meaningless guff predictions treated with inexplicable reverence came from ‘supercomputers’ rather than ‘AI’.

There’s something just altogether less dystopian about a supercomputer. It’s a cheerier, quainter term. It calls to Mediawatch’s mind something akin to Bertha (lovely Bertha) spitting out reams of that old printer paper with all holes up the side that say things like ‘SPURS WILL DO DOWN LOL’ in dot-matrix print while surrounded by serious, bespectacled boffin types scurrying around in crisp white lab coats and carrying clipboards.

Mediawatch probably does need to unpack its own desire to anthropomorphise supercomputers, but we do enjoy the image that pops into our mind whenever one of these adorable machines says some bollocks or other.

Much better than the thought that pops into our head when it’s ‘AI’ making the predictions. Then it goes from a quaint old factory machine and clipboard-wielding boffins to a planet-killing, joy-sapping, jobs-destroying computer program being operated by some coffee-quaffing hustle culture tech bro in California.

Even though it is basically the same thing. Please go back to saying it’s supercomputers. Even when it’s AI.

But whatever you call it, what Mediawatch will never, ever be able to understand – and if you go fully beard-strokey ahout it, this is actually a big part of the reason humanity is doomed – is why the AI/supercomputer’s predictions are treated with such reverent seriousness.

If a random bloke in a pub told you precisely what was going to happen at the World Cupdown to the exact minute and detail of Brazil’s extra-time winner against England in the quarter-final, you would quite rightly consider him a mentalist and slowly, carefully – without upsetting him – attempt to extricate yourself from the situation.

When a computer does it, we think it must have some value. It’s insane, and it’s going to get us all killed in the end. It’s like there are vast swathes of people out there who haven’t even watched a single Terminator movie.

But before the robots rise up and kill us all, we’ve got maybe one or two football tournament cycles left where the main problem will still be this kind of mad sh*t where stuff that hasn’t happened is reported in hushed and serious tones as if it has.

Look at this weirdness fromThe Sun.

ENGLAND fall short to Brazil in the quarter-finals at the World Cup according to AI – but they play in the match of the tournament.

There are simply not enough PartridgeShrug gifs in the world.

Still, after news of England’s straightforward passage through the group stage, we get to the serious business.

That sets up a last-32 tie against Uzbekistan, who got through as one of the best third-place sides.

Many have placed?Colombia?as?England‘s likeliest opponents in the first knockout round but there is an early surprise here, although none of the big-hitters go out.

There’s not an early surprise. None of this is real. It’s like claiming there was an early surprise in a dream.

In fact, that’s roughly where supercomputer/AI football predictions should sit in polite company. They are as boring and meaningless and irrelevant as hearing about the dream someone else had last night.

Still, good news about all the big-hitters.

Scotland, however, do not make it through the groups due to goal difference.

Fair enough, this bit is obviously correct but we’re not sure we really needed to destroy a patch of rainforest to work that out.

This is where it starts getting reallyodd, though.

Also at this stage,?France?beat?Germany?2-1 in the first major match-up whilst?Belgium?knock out?USA?with?Brazil?winning against?Norway?despite an?Erling Haaland?goal.

And Dorival Junior’s team lie in wait for England with the game dubbed the ‘final before the final’.

Mediawatch has enough issues with real-life dubbings. Who the juddering f*ck is dubbing things in AI? You can’t self-dub your own made-up stuff, surely. What are we doing here?

This next bit should surely have given the writer pause, though.

Played in?Florida, this is a meeting?widely slated to happen in real life?– and it did not disappoint via AI either.

You’re so close to getting it. Yes, England v Brazil is widely slated to happen in real life, because it is literally the likeliest quarter-final from that section of the draw. It’s almost – almost– like we really, really, reallydon’t need AI in order to just plot a halfway-plausible but still very made-up route through a bracket-based tournament.

By this next bit we can actually feel our brain cells dying in our head as we land upon a detailed report of what we cannot overstate is a fictitious football match that hasn’t happened.

England go out 3-2 after extra time but only following the best match of the whole competition.

Harry Kane‘s early penalty (of course) is converted before Vinicius Jr equalises with a stunning solo effort, dribbling from the halfway line Diego Maradona-style.

Brazil then take the lead through sub?Endrick, who scores on the hour mark.

He bagged against England at?Wembley?for?his first international goal in March 2024?but got the biggest of his career in the World Cup here, AI suggests.

On the verge of being knocked out, who else but?Jude Bellingham?puts England level in the 88th minute.

The joy is short lived with Vinicius scoring again, this time a deflected winner before the break in extra time with England unable to respond.

We’re not the only ones who see how this is insane, right? Please tell us it’s not just us? You all think it’s entirely batsh*t to say that a made-up goal that doesn’t exist is the biggest of Endrick’s career as well, right? Right? Please?

A hill Mediawatch will die on is that the biggest goal of Endrick’s career is a real one that actually happened for real in real life, and not one AI has made up.

The best bit is the knowing, chuckling tone present in ‘(of course)’ and ‘who else but’. You can’t do ‘It just had to be him’ material about made-up stuff, surely!? That’s only one tiny step removed from saying ‘You can’t write a script like this’ about what is, ultimately, a script that has been written.

Mediawatch is aware that we are overthinking this, and that we have given what is throwaway tish and diposable fipsy far too much time and attention already.

But we really do believe this points to a wider societal problem that has some very unsettling potential consequences.

That treating what is no more or less than fantastical fanfic like it has intrinsic value just because it has come from a computer rather than a human is absolutely unhinged behaviour. It’s just another guess, it’s not a stone tablet carved by God himself.

Absolutely any and all of it could just as easily come from the single brain of any vaguely knowledgeable football fan looking at the draw and tournament bracket, but would quite rightly – and this is the key – not be considered remotely interesting or newsworthy were that the case.

Still, congratulations to Brazil on their now inevitable sixth world title, we guess.

Look at the stars

Sounds unlikely we know, but The Sunhave here come up with a headline that oversells the story that follows. We know, it surprised us too.

Former Arsenal star switches international allegiance weeks before World Cup despite playing three games for country

Who could this ‘former Arsenal star’ be? Why it’s Marcelo Flores, of course, who you’ll all remember vividly from his <checks notes> zero appearances for Arsenal or his <checks notes again> single, solitary appearance in a matchday squad for a 3-0 defeat to Crystal Palace.

But he’s not the only Arsenal star making headlines at The Sun. Look at this one.

?‘Car crash’ – Invincibles star sends brutal warning to Mikel Arteta over ruthlessly axing Arsenal ace for FA Cup clash

The ‘Invincibles star’ here is, inevitably, former goalkeeper Graham Stack who made <checks notes> zero Premier League appearances for Arsenal during the Invincibles season or indeed any other.

Had a go at Arteta here, though, hasn’t he? A ‘brutal warning’ over him ‘ruthlessly axing Arsenal ace’, no less.

Note here how The Sun move from stars to aces with effortless elan, using all their years of experience. The ace in question here is the ultimate – and indeed perhaps only – Carabaoman Kepa Arrizabalaga.

Stack’s ‘brutal warning’ of a ‘car crash’ involves a worst-case scenario where Arteta does indeed ruthlessly axe Kepa after his Wembley woes but then David Raya gets injured and a crestfallen Kepa has to play some vital games on the run-in with his confidence now shredded.

Come on, Graham. This is all just a bit far-fetched, isn’t it? Mediawatch is really struggling to imagine a scenario where a North London-based Premier League club’s back-up goalkeeper is immediately axed after a high-profile gaffe-strewn nightmare performance in a big cup game only for the No. 1 to then get injured and the confidence-shorn back-up have to be recalled. It just seems far too unlikely.

But still at least Arteta has been duly warned about the grave consequences of his ruthless decision to axe Kepa for the FA Cup game against Southampton.

Oh, wait, what’s that, Graham?

‘I think he’ll stick with him. I think he’ll restore some confidence in him.’

So it’s a brutal warning not to do the thing he isn’t going to do anyway? Righto.

Medium rare

Exciting fixtures news from the Daily Express.

Man Utd get rare Premier League rarity as fixture changes and TV picks confirmed

A rare rarity? Those are rare.

Full house

We are sorry to report that Mediawatch is going to keep banging on about this every time it comes upin The Mirroror elsewhere between now and the summer.

England superfan Andy Milne has opened up about selling his house to fund a trip to World Cup 2026.

Second house. He’s selling his second house. It fundamentally changes the entire story and every time that vital information is omitted from headlines and intros and instead buried deep down in the unread middle paragraphs, God kills a kitten.