Irvine Welsh takes aim at 'brain atrophying' tech ahead of new 'Trainspotting' sequel
Scottish author Irvine Welsh on Friday described the new sequel to his cult novel "Trainspotting" as an antidote to a world full of "hate and poison", as he took aim at social media, the internet and AI.
"Men in Love", the latest in a series of sequels, follows the same characters -- Renton, Spud, Sick Boy and Begbie -- as they experience the heyday of rave culture in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Welsh's novel was turned into the wildly successful 1996 hit film of the same name directed by Danny Boyle and starring Ewan McGregor.
The black comedy drama featured a group of heroin addicts living in an economically-depressed part of Edinburgh.
"We're living in a world that seems to be so full of hate and poison. Now it's time I kind of focus more on love as a kind of antidote to all that," Welsh said.
Although his novel was published over 30 years ago, there were many parallels with the world today, he added.
The 1980s demise of much heavy industry such as shipbuilding in the Leith area of Edinburgh heralded a new world for some "without paid work".
"Now we're all in that position. We don't know how long we'll have paid work, if we do have it, because our economy, our society, is in just a long form revolutionary transformation," he told BBC radio.
"It's a big, contentious, messy revolution. There's lots to play for, but there's some very dystopian tendencies within it," he added.
Despite the problems faced by earlier generations, Welsh said he detected less optimism now.
"I think we're just a bit more scared... I think we've got this existential threat on the horizon, basically, of species extinction... through kind of wars and diseases and famines and climate change and no economic means for younger people to make their way in the world as we had," he said.
Welsh also took aim at artificial intelligence (AI), an internet appropriated by big corporations and a social media culture marred by "vitriolic pile-ons".
He said the internet had stopped people from thinking and had created a "controlling environment" in which "we just take instruction".
"We've got artificial intelligence on one side, and we've got a kind of natural stupidity on another side. We just become these dumbed down machines that are taking instruction. And when you get machines thinking for you, your brain just atrophies."
He said he hoped that people's current addiction to mobile phones would be a phase that runs its course.
"You look down the street and you see people with a phone stuck to their face. Hopefully, if we survive the next 50 years, that's going to look as strange on film as... people chain smoking cigarettes did back in the 80s," he added.
"Men in Love" is due to be published by Penguin on July 24.
© 2025 AFP
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