Mainlining AI won’t bring back boom-time Britain

Letters to the editor: our readers share their views. Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

It takes a special kind of idiot to stake their personal credibility on the fate of an already failing business; Keir Starmer is that kind of idiot (“AI could fix our potholes – but also do Britain untold damage”, Monday 13 January).

The increasingly inappropriately named “artificial intelligence industry” is based on a set of technologies that are fundamentally flawed. Large language model chatbots will produce well-formed but misleading and incorrect nonsense. All they can do is to regurgitate a mashed-up version of whatever it has been fed in the past. It does so without any understanding or comprehension, and relies on the credulity and pattern-finding nature of people to believe that the AI has produced something with meaning.

This product is now regarded as “AI slop” that does nothing more than reduce productivity.

For this reason, there will be no AI productivity boom for the UK. Keir Starmer’s plan to turn Britain into an AI superpower is not even trading our cow for a bag of magic beans. Abrogating copyrights, abandoning privacy protections and giving American tech firms “sweetheart” tax breaks will only leave us holding the bag of slop.

John R Barberio

Banbury, Oxfordshire

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I’ve been in IT for over 40 years. Technological development throughout my working life has been a continuum. Semiconductors, microcomputing, robotics, neural networking, voice/speech recognition, vast data storage banks… the breakthroughs have been continuous and progressive.

Now, AI is the catchword designed to make everyone sound very clever and knowledgeable (“Starmer’s 50-point plan for artificial intelligence revealed”, Sunday 12 January).

Yet no one can argue about it, because it means so much, or little, to so many people.

As regards the desired outcome of this technology, the focus of discussion must become how useful it is assisting in surgical operations, in crime detection and reduction, in traffic management – and how it handles remote controlled weaponry.

Peter Smith-Cullen

Dunston, Norfolk

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Given the fallibility of humans, it is not clear that, in a two-tier system, a rational player would elect for a triage system operated by humans over AI (“Will Labour’s AI revolution make your life better or worse?”, Monday 13 January). For that matter, soon robots will make superior surgeons, AI will more accurately detect cancers, read scans and may even be more empathetic than hard-pressed doctors and nurses.

At a time of labour shortages and an aging population, we should learn to embrace this technology, while ensuring that our regulators are properly resourced to ensure that AI is a force for good.

Paul Sonabend

London NW8

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On the day Keir Starmer announced his government would lead the charge into artificial intelligence, I happened to go online with HMRC to check that the tax payment I had made four days previously had been allocated to my account. Reader, it had not ("I’ve been working in AI for years – there’s one big problem no one is really addressing", Monday 13 January).

The idea that the government will be playing a leading role in AI appears to be as fanciful as the prospect of Rachel Reeves achieving a working grasp of economic theory.

Bob O’Dwyer

London SW4

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Time to tax retired pensioners?

I cannot understand why Rachel Reeves keeps introducing tax changes that either hurt vulnerable people or businesses (Editorial: “Rachel Reeves must not ask the poor and the vulnerable to pay for her mistakes”, Saturday 11 January).

There are large numbers of retired people who have a pension income much greater than the average income of those in work (roughly £30,000 a year). Those working people pay national insurance on their income; non-working pensioners do not.

If pensioners with an income greater than the national average were required to pay national insurance on their earnings above that limit, a large amount of revenue would be raised.

Most working people would not complain and neither would businesses.

Richard Gibson

Winchester, Hampshire

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Chris Blackhurst describes the despair of the business community at the performance of the UK government (“UK Plc wants rid of Rachel Reeves – and for good reason”, Monday 13 January) – but what are the alternatives?

Is anyone – in Labour, the other political parties, the Treasury, the Bank of England, the universities – any more capable?

Before winning the election, Labour talked up the economy, but since taking office they have talked it down. That alone has done more damage than all of the chancellor’s missteps.

Jon Hawksley

France

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I do not follow football, but I know full well that when the owner of a club says he has full confidence in the manager, it is usually only a matter of days before a dismissal (“No, Keir Starmer is not going to sack Rachel Reeves – and nor should he”, Tuesday 14 January). Politics is only slightly different, and Rachel Reeves being supported by Keir Starmer in similar fashion marks the end of the beginning, if not the beginning of the end.

Robert Boston

Kingshill, Kent

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Another grooming gang inquiry is not the answer

While the dots need joining, another lengthy inquiry into grooming gangs is not the answer (“Starmer under pressure as second Labour MP breaks ranks to call for grooming gangs inquiry”, Monday 13 January).

What is needed is some additional answers as to why more was not done to investigate, and these questions need to be directed at more junior staff in police forces, social services and council staff who were “not encouraged” to investigate for political, economic and racial factors.

Frank Sole

Address supplied

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Many of your recent correspondents have repeated the racist myth that Asian men are the main perpetrators of child sexual exploitation in the UK. The facts tell a different story (“Fact check: How many children have been the victims of grooming gangs?”, Thursday 9 January).

A Home Office report published in 2020 found that “there is no credible evidence that any one ethnic group is over-represented in child sexual exploitation cases”. It concluded that the majority of child sexual abuse gangs in the UK were made up of white men under the age of 30.

To insist that Asian men are the main perpetrators of sexual grooming is a lie that lets the vast majority of abusers off the hook.

Sasha Simic

London N16

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I must take issue with Usama Mubarik’s assertion that Islam supports women’s rights (Letters: “Ganging up on Pakistani men”, Sunday 12 January). In Afghanistan, girls are prevented from accessing secondary education. In Iran, women are imprisoned or even killed for not wearing a hijab – and the situation is hardly any better in Pakistan.

The restrictions on women in Islamic countries is endless. It may be that, in earlier times, Islam was more benign towards women – but it is not currently the case.

David Felton

Wistaston, Chester