Brexit excuses are now bland and even Covid fails to provide the full ‘Get-out-of-Jail’, so it was only a matter of time before AI got the blame for rank laziness or full-on cock up.

I got an email reminder to renew my travel insurance this week, saying, as a loyal customer, I’d get a 10% reduction if I allowed it to auto-renew.

But, even with a 10% reduction, the hard cash being demanded had somehow rocketed by 45% from last year. Miraculously there was a phone number for what InsureandGo calls its ‘friendly UK-based call centre’ so I gave them a ring and got through within half an hour.

In my experience, they’re usually reticent to give you their name but on this occasion the fellow was forthcoming – though I did ask David Pee to spell his surname a second time as I wanted to be sure I’d got that right.

I provided my usual starting point – none of my details have changed and I haven’t made a claim so why am I 45% more of a risk?

Global warming was the first answer, followed swiftly by other weather-related calamities and then, presumably to sweeten the pill, I was told this is a smaller rise than most folk were facing and I should ‘consider myself lucky to have this offer’.

“It’s an automated system and there’s nothing a human can do about it any more...”

But when it came to renewing or cancelling, Mr Pee informed me I couldn’t in fact do either as his computer hadn’t been updated. When I pointed out I’d received a signed message from InsureandGo’s head of operations Linda Davis asking me to ring him, he dropped the AI bombshell, saying: “It’s an automated system and there’s nothing a human can do about it any more”. And, because everything is now controlled by AI, presumably including Ms Davis, I would have to call back to avoid the policy auto-renewing.

After expressing my disappointment and extending my sympathies to DP for the powerless situation in which he finds himself, he claimed to have discovered a way to over-ride the technology and promised to ring me three days later – he didn’t, of course, and I can only assume AI has regained control and David is once again impotent.

Of course, if the doomsayers are to be believed, AI will soon be taking over so David won’t need to come up with excuses any more. I wonder who, or what, AI will find to blame?