By Roz Morris, Managing Director, TV News London Ltd

“Am I real? Do I really exist?” said Santa out loud in a worried voice as he looked gloomily at a report prepared for him by Chief Elf on what he, Chief Elf, called ‘the wonders of AI’.

Santa was looking at the cover of the report which had jolly and colourful images of himself and elves and snow and reindeer, all generated by AI, according to Chief Elf. It was called ‘AI – Santa’s Best Helper.’

Inside the report, Chief Elf had written that Santa could leverage new AI technologies set up by a system called JollyHollyTech to make his life much easier. “Whatever leverage means,” Santa thought.

Chief Elf then quoted somebody called Bing who said that AI was terrific for helping Santa in his work as ‘a magical figure who brings gifts to children all over the world on Christmas Eve.’

“A magical figure?” said Santa. “Am I just a figment of people’s imagination? Is this AI saying I’m not real?”

Chief Elf’s AI report recommended future investment in automated toymaking machines, and he had already automated the scanning of children’s letters to Santa using JollyHollyTech.

‘AI can help Santa in many ways,’ JollyHollyTech said in the report, ‘such as recommending the best gifts, processing the letters, forecasting popular toys, creating Christmas cards, composing songs and carols, building optimal sleigh routes, and creating a virtual Santa on a website.’ 

“So it seems we’re all soon to be out of a job,” Santa told Chief Elf who had been walking around the toy workshop carrying a copy of his report, and alarming the elves who were making handmade wooden toys for good children every time they looked at its cover and its challenging title. Meanwhile, some of the elves were wrapping the toys that the children had asked for in their letters to Santa.

The elves were wearing their smart overalls, and their hats were bobbing as they worked but the atmosphere in the workshop was not a happy one. Santa could tell that his skilled little employees were pondering deeply, as he was, about whether they would have any work to do next Christmas. Would they lose their elf service medical care plans? Would they all end up unemployed and suffering from low elf-esteem?

They didn’t perk up even when he told them some of his Santa jokes that he had prepared to boost morale in the busiest time of the year.  

“Ho, ho, ho,” said Santa “what is every elf’s favourite music?”

The elves looked at him solemnly.“Wrap” said Santa. Chief Elf groaned and the elves tittered weakly and dutifully.

“Alright, alright, alright,” said Santa. “Here’s a better one: What did Mrs Claus say to Santa when she looked up at the sky? Can’t guess the answer? No? Well, the answer is: It looks like rain dear.”

Another groan from Chief Elf and more weak tittering from the elves and then Chief Elf suddenly said “Aaargh! Oh no. That can’t be right!”

“What’s wrong? I didn’t think my jokes were that bad,” said Santa. “No. It’s the wrapped presents,” said Chief Elf. “They’ve got weird addresses on them. You’ll never know where to take them.”

Some of the junior elves, busily wrapping presents then looked up and looked at each other and one said timidly: ”It’s not just the addresses. I don’t think the new JollyHollyTech AI system can read the children’s handwritten letters properly.  Look this one says: ‘I wood lik a trackter pleeze’ and JollyHollyTech has listed that the child wants a wood with a path through it. Another one asked for puppies and the JollyHollyTech system put that as guppies, and it wants to give one child a mouse and not a dolls’ house.”

“We put these on what we call The Puzzling List”  he added helpfully.

“And how many presents are on The Puzzling List?“ asked Santa.  “Oh, about ten million,” said the junior elf, looking a bit wide-eyed with worry.

“So far,” said another junior elf, emboldened by his fellow worker’s growing elf-confidence.

“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear – and why in the name of holly is this happening?“ asked Santa, turning to Chief Elf.

“Eh, well it does seem that the AI has some problems with children who don’t send in their present requests by email or text”, Chief Elf confessed.  

Sensing that he was about to triumph over Chief Elf and his new ‘wonderful’ AI systems, Santa went on to kick the ball in the open goal. “What you mean is that your oh-so-fantastic, so much more efficient than all of us AI, can’t read children’s handwriting. Why didn’t you spot this sooner?”

“Well, I thought it would work it out .. Eh… and it would get better …and JollyHollyTech told me…..” Chief Elf rallied a bit “But you have to admit that JollyHollyTech has helped us with designing wrapping paper.”  

“Yes,”  said Santa “but it can’t cope with the central core of my task as Santa, can it? It can’t sort out the presents properly.”

“Well yes, that does seem to be the case” Chief Elf admitted. ”So how do you suggest that we sort out the millions of wrongly processed requests?”

“Magic,” said Santa. “We’ll do it the old-fashioned way. Ho, ho ho.”