Stephen Lincoln, Botany Downs.
AI already at work?
Professor Geoffrey Hinton, who was awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics, is known as the godfather of AI.
He has issued a dire warning that corporate greed and a lack of regulation are rapidly driving humanity towards a dystopian state.
Authoritarian governments are using AI for mass surveillance and it is feared in the near future it will be used to create new viruses and lethal weapons that by themselves will decide who to kill or maim. If such systems are created by companies motivated by short-term profit, then the safety of those involved may no longer be top priority.
Could the coalition Government’s trimming of 8700 public sector jobs be an example of already at work?
Gary Hollis, Mellons Bay.
Our place in the world
I wish to commend Nicholas Ross Smith, Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Waikato, for his article suggesting New Zealand and Australia have a responsibility to anchor the new international world order (June 8).
He is right in that we must first be secure in our own ontological security, which means answering the question: What is the purpose of life?
The answer could be to carry forward an ever-advancing civilisation. The urgent need for the age we live in is for a fair, sustainable form of global governance, and we need to centre our deliberations on how to achieve this. A good start may be to reform the United Nations Security Council by removing the power of veto and establishing an effective peacekeeping force. This is something we should work with Australia to achieve and promote, and requires long-term commitment and possibly multi-party support so we all need to pressure our representatives to consult on this issue if we want to avoid a global conflagration.
Dennis Worley, Birkenhead.
Time to ban fireworks
Coralie van Camp is absolutely correct (June 8). Every year we have the weeks of incessant noise as soon as the sun goes down, and the myriad of desperately frightened animals, many being lost as they leave their homes trying to escape the noise.
The time is well passed when fireworks should have been banned forever. Let’s bring some common sense to the situation.
Dr Hylton Le Grice, Remuera.
Chogm agenda
There was a certain Antipodean symbolism in seeing Sir Ian McKellen, forever linked in this corner of the world with The Lord of the Rings films shot in New Zealand, recently marching through London beside outspoken Australian activist Peter Tatchell.
Their “Commonwealth Walk of Shame” protested the criminalisation of LGBT+ people in 29 of the Commonwealth’s 56 nations, many under laws inherited from the British Empire. In six Commonwealth countries, same-sex relationships can even mean life imprisonment, while in Uganda, Brunei and parts of northern Nigeria, the death penalty remains possible.
More than half the Commonwealth still does not recognise sexual orientation as a human right, yet the subject is absent from official debate.
As we wait to hear who will represent us at the next Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (Chogm) in St John’s, Antigua and Barbuda, in November, can I put Gandalf’s name in the hat? Perhaps human rights might magically appear on their agenda and they might finally confront one of the Commonwealth’s most persistent contradictions. If wizards and serpents can fly in Gondor, perhaps pigs can fly in Antigua and Barbuda.
Russell Hoban, Ponsonby.