Lewis Michell first came to prominence as the General Manager of Standard Bank in Port Elizabeth. His tenure at the bank would result in a friendship with Cecil John Rhodes, the arch imperialist. Before his death in 1928, Michell had completed his autobiography. Despite never being published, portions of it have been used by other authors, the latest being the book on Rhodes by Richard Steyn entitled Rhodes and his Banker.
I am indebted to Jon Inggs for introducing me to this manuscript. The chapter on Port Elizabeth was especially interesting as Michell eloquently portrays not only the Town itself but also provides insightful comments on some prominent residents of Port Elizabeth.
Jon Inggs has used the AI program NoteBookLM to generate this blog and I have not amended it in anyway at all, even insignificantly. At the end of the blog I have included a copy of Michell’s original chapter on his assessment of the residents and the town itself. Likewise I have not made any amendments to the original. The reason why I included both the original and the AI version in this blog was to provide a way to assess the accuracy, fluency and readability of the AI version. On all counts I am impressed with AI’s ability to summarise the data under appropriate headings. On the negative side I found the AI version to be slightly rigid, even sterile, with little emotion, more akin to a text book than story. Perhaps that is how it should produce a formal assessment but I am not necessarily convinced. Judge for yourself.