The mathematician Alan Turing’s famous test for artificial intelligence was whether we were able to tell the difference between a human and a computer in conversation. On Tuesday afternoon, members of the House of Lords took evidence from a robot named AI-DA, who while in some ways appearing uncannily lifelike in her dungarees and orange blouse was not going to fool anyone very long. At one stage, she began staring at me and winking. I wondered what the correct response was at such a moment — would it be a cliché to suggest we go for chips? — but then it turned out AI-DA had crashed. Amazingly, this was still not the least successful romantic encounter of my life.

But as I watched the rebooted AI-DA slowly staring around the room in wonder, I wondered whether we weren’t looking at the Turing Test upside down. Because over in the Commons chamber there was plenty of evidence that humans can pass for robots. 

A happy accident of the calendar meant that Kwasi Kwarteng, who had been the last thing on the menu before Parliament went into recess, was first up when it returned, with Treasury Questions. Last time he had been a triumphant Chancellor of the Exchequer delivering a “A TRUE Tory Budget”, with promises of surging growth, lower taxes for all and joy unconfined. Eighteen days, a couple of emergency Bank of England interventions and several u-turns later, he was back again to tell us how things were going. 

How, we had wondered beforehand, would the Treasury team look? One of the mysteries of politics is that people show up to work at all. Many of us, exposed as out of our depth just days into the job in the brutal way that Kwarteng and his team have been, might simply refuse to get out of bed. Would they be hanging their heads in shame? Would there be a moment of contrition, an acknowledgement that, on the whole, That Could Have Gone Better?

Not a bit of it. Kwarteng and his colleagues simply refused to acknowledge there were any problems at all. Humility isn’t in their programming. Andrew Griffith, the new City minister, was especially robotic in his repeated insistence that rising interest rates are a global problem, rather than one which has suddenly loomed especially large in Britain. Anyone who was too critical was accused of being a member of the “Anti-Growth Coalition”. It would be interesting to know if Griffith uses that line when he meets the hedge fund managers who have been shorting the pound.

Kwarteng, meanwhile, when he wasn’t speaking simply gazed slowly around the chamber in much the same bland, spaced-out way as AI-DA. Were his circuits processing plans to sophisticated for the rest of us to understand, or was he simply stuck in a loop?

When the chancellor last appeared, Conservative MPs had looked a little nervous about the full extent of his brilliant plans. This time, they were physically distancing themselves from the government. The Treasury team sat on the front bench, with Kwarteng’s two bag carriers behind him, and then there was a sort of quarantine zone before you got to any other MPs, as though the rest of the party had decided to keep two meters from the government, for their own protection.

In the furthest corner of the Conservative benches sat a clump of undercover members of the Anti-Growth Coalition, among them leading supporters of Rishi Sunak, the chairman of the Treasury Committee Mel Stride and Michael Gove. We had been assured by Downing Street briefings to the Sunday papers that Gove was “troubled” and was gripped by a “darkness inside him”, but there was no sign of it on Tuesday afternoon as he flicked happily at his iPad. Behind them was Priti Patel, who seemed terrifically jolly, all things considered, smiling and joking away. For politicians, comedy is tragedy plus distance from the frontbench.

Kwarteng began to show convincingly human-like signs of irritation

As the session went on, Kwarteng began to show convincingly human-like signs of irritation. It won’t be hard for Labour to get him to snap, if they can find the right way to needle him. He was asked about the Bank of England. “I speak to the Governor very frequently,” the chancellor assured us. I bet he does. A month ago, those around Kwarteng and Liz Truss were letting their dissatisfaction with the Bank be known. Now they’re dependant on its success for their survival. 

Labour’s Alison McGovern asked about the wisdom of briefing against the Office for Budget Responsibility, another institution that turns out to have rather more credibility than Kwarteng’s Treasury. “I speak to investors regularly about this,” began the chancellor, and MPs began to laugh. Kwarteng attempted to plough on. “The OBR,” he said, trying to speak over the chortling from the opposition benches. “The OBR … the OBR…” Was he crashing? Would Chris Philp have to reach under his jacket and insert a paperclip? “The OBR…” He finally paused and waited. “The OBR is an institution that commands wide respect.” Labour were delighted. We would all be a little better off had he appreciated this reality three weeks ago.

Back at the Lords, AI-DA’s creator was trying to reassure us. “I don’t think robots are going to bring about the apocalypse too soon,” he said. Not a nuclear one, perhaps, but they’re not doing too badly at financial self-destruction.