Bastille Day, Artificial Intelligence, and the New Reign of Terror

The guillotine has gone digital.

Once it fell in public squares to cheers and bloodlust; now it strikes silently, with a click, a post, or a line of code.

The mob no longer needs to gather. Its outrage is algorithmically amplified, its punishment outsourced to invisible moderators and unaccountable systems.

As the 14th of July reminds us of the Bastille's fall, we must ask ourselves a difficult question: are we witnessing a new revolution - not with pitchforks and torches, but hashtags and hard drives?

The People are singing again.

Only this time, their chorus echoes through firewalls and fibre-optic cables.

How a turned head, a washing machine, and a handful of extraordinary coincidences made me wonder whether chance is ever just chance.

It’s been nearly 2 years since what many still call divine intervention unfolded before our eyes... an event that left us stunned, reflective, and, for some, humbled. As Donald Trump turned his head to glance at a graph on a screen, a bullet tore past him, grazing his ear. A fraction of a second either side, a fraction of an inch, and we would be telling a different story. Instead, the world saw a man brush death by the narrowest of margins: saved, perhaps, by nothing more than a glance. Or by something greater.

A miracle, some said. A coincidence, others argued. But either way, it was a moment that stopped the world. And it made me pause and think: how often do these moments really happen? What do we call them when they’re small and private, when there are no cameras, no headlines, no Secret Service scrambling?

Divine intervention is the belief that a higher power steps in - sometimes grandly, sometimes subtly - to shape human events. It can look like a miracle, or like blind luck. Sometimes, it looks like a well-timed glance. Sometimes, like a stranger holding a door a second too long. And let’s be honest - how many of us have muttered, “Hell, that was lucky,” and moved on?