Morning Star editor BEN CHACKO reports from the start of Kunming’s Belt and Road media forum, where 200 journalists from 71 countries celebrated a new openness and optimism, forged by China’s enormous contribution to global development

SOME of the most prominent AI startups, tech companies, their executives, researchers and engineers would have us believe that artificial intelligence (AI) poses an existential risk to humanity and should be considered a societal risk on par with pandemics and nuclear wars.
Beneath the self-serving hype of rogue super-intelligent AI models (the current models are nowhere close to approaching human-like intelligence), the AI models pushed by governments pursuing aggressive neoliberal agendas and monopoly corporate interests are harming society and humanity in far more mundane ways, often targeting the poor, and ethnic and religious minorities.
Two bad AI welfare models

Under Modi’s hard-right regime, India is going backwards — but not in the state of Kerala, where the communist-led government continues to deliver remarkable results in infrastructure, economic growth, healthcare, welfare, education, science and social harmony, reports PEOPLE’S DEMOCRACY

While claiming to target fraud, Labour’s snooping Bill strips benefit recipients of privacy rights and presumption of innocence, writes CLAUDIA WEBBE, warning that algorithms with up to 25 per cent error rates could wrongfully investigate and harass millions of vulnerable people
