Banning AI tools would only benefit the powerful

If the genie hasn't escaped too far out of the bottle, then banning or restricting the use of generative AI tools by ordinary people would be akin to theft. ChatGPT has given the keys to the kingdom to ordinary people like you and me, and any government or corporation that would then restrict our access or limit the functionality would be taking away the keys we were gifted.

I have been trialling a trio of free apps over the past two weeks. One is a GPT-enhanced search app, while the other two offer different interfaces to the ChatGPT service. In that time, I have made five queries to the search app that took me an hour to Google unsuccessfully. In all searches, it cites its sources and provides links, making it feel like having a researcher in your pocket.

The ChatGPT apps have successfully fixed two complex issues I have had with a CGI package I use, as well as explained several concepts related to GPT and the large language models I use. After experimenting and reading about “prompt engineering”, I am convinced, coming from a background in troubleshooting IT problems, that this technology is not overhyped.

It is like having a Star Trek computer on a smartphone, and it should be available to every citizen on the planet. If not, it will empower the few at the cost of the many. The challenge now is how to prevent bad actors from using its powers against us - and those bad actors can be governments, corporations, teenage hackers, criminals, or terrorists, just like any other tool in history.

There are issues around copyright, confidentiality, privacy, and the effects on employment, but having an interactive encyclopedia in the palm of your hand that understands plain English (or French, or Spanish...) is too empowering for you and me to ignore. That, I fear, is what will most powerfully motivate those with the most to lose to restricting the use by the rest of us.

By way of example, this letter was tidied and redrafted by a free ChatGPT app, working from my (clumsy) original.

Ian Henderson

Norwich

I relished reading Marie Le Conte’s “devil’s advocate” column, and if this hot topic could be turned on its multifaceted head, then it is indeed a victory for Brexit.

Of course, the government feels that immigration is far too high and the leading Brexiteers in the government are screaming betrayal of one of their main ideological tenets. But Le Conte makes a pertinent point that this country is still seen as a magic magnet for so many people.

Even desperate asylum seekers see this erroneously as a safe and benevolent haven despite those who are soon to disabuse them of this idea. It made me smile to imagine Rishi Sunak announcing the new, probably exponential, figures this week with a jaunty smile and sporting a T-shirt stating “Britain is the best place in the world to come and work”. Instead, I’m sure there will be much hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth, that the government will grasp the immigration net and reduce it forthwith; but of course, that will lack all plausibility.

Like many people, I have absolutely no problem with immigration as long as the necessary public services can be kept up to speed with growing numbers. People who come to this country are willing, ready, and able to contribute to our economy just as freedom of movement enabled EU citizens to live and work here.

Immigration is not the bogeyman or woman here; it is our parlous government and the disingenuousness of Brexit which has been catastrophic for Britain. Le Conte is right: spin it a different way and the public will be pleased that their foreign neighbours have chosen Britain as their “go-to” destination. But there is more chance of flying pigs than this short-sighted government seeing beyond their often misleading diatribes about the immigration issue, which seemingly have no upsides at all.

Judith A Daniels

Norfolk

There are some really deluded people in our midst, many of them MPs, who truly believe that Brexit has given Britain the freedom to expand our horizons and to gain “sovereignty”, which evidently is a necessary element of success.

The truth is that Britain has been reduced to a begging-bowl mentality, gaining nothing positive from our departure from the European Commission. We have lost credibility and power in the hierarchy of the major countries. We now seem to be a minnow as far as world powers are concerned. We have little or no bargaining chips when it comes to trade, with the exception of the NHS, questionable financial facilities, and the sale of our football teams.

Internal and foreign investment is at an all-time low which is hampering any rise in our future standard of living. Currently, our infrastructure is severely compromised, strikes are everywhere, the government is incompetent, and indebtedness is at an unheard-of level – the list of trauma this country is experiencing is depressingly extraordinary.

Some of the few expanding opportunities are food banks, crisis centres, and petty crime. Some supermarkets have even taken to tagging food products to reduce the exponential rise of shoplifting.

There is no happy ending for Brexit and those that continue to peddle the lie that we needed to leave the European Union to improve our standard of living and regain our sovereignty need to return to the stone they have been living under.

Keith Poole

Basingstoke

Assuming Suella Braverman isn’t short of a few quid and relatively speaking is a sharp operator, I’m struggling to understand why she initially chose the ignominy of a speed awareness course rather than take the easy route, suck up the points, and pay the fine.

I can only assume it’s one of two things that has triggered this aberration; she’s either a consummate penny pincher or she’s totting up points and getting close to a ban. The opposition’s shrill indignation is a tour de force, and while it’s irritating to see ministers try and wriggle out of things, Yvette Cooper’s been carrying on as though Suella Braverman has kicked an entire litter of puppies.

If she’s guilty of anything it’s a serious lack of judgement and self-awareness and that seems to be an issue for such a major cabinet minister.

Squirming out of a speed awareness course isn’t a crime, but repeatedly telling us she’s "delivering for the British people" ought to be.

Steve Mackinder

Denver

Keir Starmer’s plans for the NHS are indeed admirable but how people ask, will he be able to afford this, apart from a few tweaks to the tax system affecting the rich? The answer is obvious if we can afford to shell out to rescue the banks after their years of reckless gambling, then finding money for the NHS shouldn’t be a problem. A lot of the money myth has now been exposed.

Geoff Forward

Stirling