Politicians who continue to welcome contracts with US companies without considering the risks and consequences of total dependency in the years to come are undermining the raison d’etre of the NHS, argues Dr JOHN PUNTIS
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What’s the future with AI?
The increased efficiency of any aspect of capitalism will not automatically lead to its collapse and transformation — avoiding the dangers and realising the potential of AI will involve struggle, argues the MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY
MISH RAHMAN introduces the platform of a new organisation within Your Party, which will campaign for the highest level of democracy, accountability and participation, having learned from the mistakes of Labour in the 2015-19 era
The colonial mindset behind the governance of the UN is the reason for its inertia when it comes to conflict resolution, argues ROGER McKENZIE – but can China’s Global Governance Initiative point in a new direction of global equality?
ANDREW MURRAY wonders what the great communist foe of Oswald Mosley would make of today’s far-right surge, warning that while the triumph of Farage and ‘Robinson’ is far from inevitable, placing any faith in Starmer in an anti-fascist front is a fool’s errand
LOTTE COLLETT welcomes the arrival of a new party for the left, a vehicle for councils to finally fight for progressive policies on housing, green spaces and public facilities, rather than administering cuts and misery from central government
KEVAN NELSON reports back from a delegation to the epic celebrations for the anniversary of Vietnam’s 1945 revolution, where British communists found a thriving, prosperous socialist country, brimming with ambition and well-earned national pride
PART ONE of this answer emphasised that information technologies, from “good old-fashioned artificial intelligence” of the 1960s and ’70s to robotics and machine learning today, greatly magnify the contradictions of capitalism.
They raise a host of questions: whether development should focus on medical diagnostics or personal surveillance; whether “we” need driverless cars and “just walk out” shopping and if so, whether they should be limited to those who can afford them or “owned” collectively; — and in either case, under whose control and scrutiny.
At a deeper level, it raises fundamental issues about the structural changes within global capitalism, the use of technologies for social control, repression — and war — and the required left and labour movement response.
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