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Labour’s investment in AI isn’t as clever as it thinks it is | Artificial intelligence (AI)


There are no less than three main considerations to boost with the federal government’s obvious betting the way forward for the UK on so-called synthetic intelligence (‘Mainlined into UK’s veins’: Labour announces huge public rollout of AI, 12 January).

First, as Prof Shannon Vallor on the College of Edinburgh has identified in her guide The AI Mirror, generative AI is not artistic; it solely appears backward. It might solely remix and reproduce what now we have executed earlier than, the identical errors, failures and biases that have gotten us into our present mess.

Second, there’s the query of sources. One research suggests the identical work executed by AI methods can use 33 instances as a lot power as a conventional program; Eire is already seeing a few third of its electrical energy going into datacentres. How a lot AI can the planet afford?

Third, if the federal government’s extraordinarily austerity-limited sources are directed in the direction of shifting into AI, then it is not truly tackling the urgent issues of poverty, horrible public well being and environmental destruction: altering processes does nothing in itself to ship outcomes.

You would add in privateness and knowledge management considerations, safety, resilience – and a priority about this authorities following the final in clinging desperately to rhetoric about “world-leading”. How about we concentrate on delivering a wholesome, functioning democracy and society, moderately than making an attempt to “beat” every other nation.
Natalie Bennett
Inexperienced get together, Home of Lords

It seems out of your report that Labour’s embrace of “renewables and small modular nuclear reactors” is not supposed to exchange the power sources that offer our present wants, and thus assist us transfer to a extra humane and sustainable lifestyle on our fragile planet. It is as an alternative geared toward fuelling “energy-hungry AI methods” and being onside with the world’s greatest expertise corporations.

A lot for coping with the basic causes of local weather change, that are rooted in our obsession with development, and the infinite development in consumption wanted to maintain it. This is why our most lovely valleys and landscapes are to be despoiled with miles of giant pylons – to allow Microsoft and others, who already exert big affect over our lives, to grow to be even richer and extra dominant whereas the remainder of us simply have to simply accept the dangers that AI poses to our livelihoods and our safety.
Christopher Tanner
St Ives, Cambridgeshire

The federal government is putting immense religion in AI as a way of bettering the economic system and residing circumstances in the UK(Why Starmer and Reeves are pinning their hopes on AI to drive growth in UK, 12 January).

It’d assist the Treasury in the event that they requested a widely known search engine for recommendation on the best way to enhance and finance public companies. Its AI abstract’s first suggestion is to speculate extra in public well being, youth companies and advantages and to extend taxation. I’m not holding my breath.
Philip Ward
Sheffield

I’m afraid most of us don’t want to be a part of the Labour genuflection earlier than the altar of AI. We foresee the roles misplaced and the private data shared with a few of the planet’s extra unsavoury characters. Palantir, chaired by the Trump acolyte billionaire Peter Thiel, already runs the NHS’s federated knowledge platform. How lengthy earlier than the friends in UnitedHealth entry the main points to flog us medical insurance? Rachel Reeves could dream that she will be able to now ask Alexa the best way to “develop” the economic system, however we mere mortals can nonetheless recognise snake oil once we sniff it.

The perceptive AI commentator Helen Beetham has written: “Regardless of AI’s known biases and colonial histories, its totally predictable use to target women and minorities for violence, to erode democratic debate and degrade human rights; and regardless of the toxic politics of AI’s owners and CEOs, together with outright attacks on higher education – nonetheless individuals will stroll across the herd of elephants in the room to get to the brilliant field marked ‘AI’ in the nook.”
Kevin Donovan
Birkenhead, Merseyside

It’s heartening that AI will now be used for recognizing potholes, as clearly in the previous councils have had such hassle discovering them regardless of all the actual intelligence obtained.
Giles du Boulay
Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire



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