Letters

Letters: August/September 2025

Why AI is living in the past; the slight return to Europe; and the scourge of music in shops

July 16, 2025
article header image

AI’s backwards vision

Daron Acemoglu (“AI’s biggest secret”, July) is right to describe the drive for artificial general intelligence (AGI) as a form of “bait and switch”. Unfortunately, by recommending domain-specific AI models, he does the same. All forms of neural network are innately opaque and will turn even “high quality data” into unreliable predictions. Rather than expanding human capabilities, AI relies on extracting people’s labour and using it to precaritise others. It’s already clear that the tighter we are “coupled together” with AI, the greater the degradation of critical thought and decision-making. None of Acemoglu’s alternative claims, from pro-worker AI to solving cancer, will emerge from this apparatus of mathematical dissimulation.

His essay replaces dreams of AGI with dreams of productivity, a stance which only intensifies AI’s corrosive potential. We can see this in the UK, where the government’s obsession with growth has elevated AI above all social or environmental concerns. Regrettably, the links between AI’s maths and metrics and the historical eugenics movement resonate only too well in a political milieu focused on the total mobilisation of the nation and further marginalisation of the unproductive.

Acemoglu’s rallying cry is “choice” but he asks us to embrace the opposite. All AI is fundamentally backward-looking, because it only knows the world through data from the past. No statistical juggling will produce truly novel options for reimagining and restructuring society. Rather than accelerate our current trajectory with technologies of thoughtlessness, it’s time to explore real options like degrowth. AI as we know it, even when it is domain-specific, is simply an obstacle to a just transition.

Dan McQuillan, senior lecturer in critical AI, Goldsmiths, University of London and author of Resisting AI (Bristol University Press)

 

As Daron Acemoglu emphasises, there is an urgent need for an alternative trajectory for AI. We are now at a crossroads in its development and deployment. One path is about national domination and a zero-sum game of winners and losers. The other path is about nations working together to build a world where AI works for people and society, rather than profits and power.

A small number of powerful companies are disproportionately shaping the AI ecosystem, concentrating power—with profound impacts for people, society and democracy. We see the harmful effects of these power concentrations when public services can’t examine the AI they are buying in, when research and commentary is disproportionately funded by those it seeks to scrutinise, and when those affected by AI have little say in its design or rollout.

The dominant framing of a “race to AGI”—an ill-defined concept that mainly functions as powerful marketing—is reshaping foreign policy, competition, economic growth and regulatory debates. But AI’s future is not pre-determined. AI is not a tidal wave that is destined to engulf us; it is the sum of the decisions people make. Our future will be shaped by the choices of companies, governments and societies. We need a clearer critique of the choices implicit and explicit in how AI is currently being used. And we need governments to create the incentives for safe, trustworthy and effective AI and to invest in the alternatives needed to ensure the benefits of these technologies are felt by everyone.

These technologies can profoundly affect the way we conduct relationships, access essential services, learn, work and spend our time, and so there must be consent from the public for how they are used. Acemoglu is right: the solution needs to come from collective and collaborative action. Policymakers, civil society and researchers must work together to build a research and policy agenda supporting a more democratic, socially beneficial vision for AI. We need a bold strategy for rebalancing power that is as innovative as the technology itself.

Imogen Parker, associate director, the Ada Lovelace Institute

 

A Rejoin rejoinder

I don’t understand the point Ben Ansell (“The Strange Death of the Rejoin campaign”, July) is trying to make or why he finds the current state of the Rejoin campaign “odd”.

On the one hand, he argues that the campaign has undergone a “strange death”—but on the other acknowledges that Rejoin organisations remain active and amount, indeed, to a “Rejoiner Kraken”. There is nothing odd at all about the situation he describes. No one in their right mind would have imagined the pro-EU campaign being able to sustain the same level of momentum it displayed until December 2019. Yes, 53 per cent of Brits support rejoining the EU—but the reason why there are not “armies of blue berets outside Number 10” is simply that the issue is not as salient and prominent for respondents as it was in the aftermath of 2016. Again: no surprise there.

He suggests the Starmer–Von der Leyen “reset” will seem like “thin gruel” for Rejoiners. Yes, of course—but so what? It’s an improvement, albeit modest, which Labour will almost certainly face increasing pressure from voters to build upon by rejoining the EU’s single market, customs union and ultimately the EU itself. Ansell suggests that if Britain rejoins, it will do so reluctantly, under the pressure of economic disappointment. Who knows if this will be the case? 

There is a much more convincing and encouraging perspective: the fact that the EU is once again a low-salience issue will make it difficult for diehard Brexiters to mobilise public opinion against attempts to build on the “reset”. Britain’s relationship with the EU is, always has been and inevitably always will be one of permanent negotiation. This means both that further rapprochement is possible if not probable, and that, as a political issue, Brexit won’t go away—suggesting that the terrain for Rejoin campaigning will remain fertile for the foreseeable future.

Jim Newell, deputy leader of the Rejoin EU party and adjunct professor of politics at the University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Italy

Make Britain autocrat-proof

In their supporting comments to Philip Collins, Tom Clark and Alan Rusbridger quietly make the case for a written constitution (“Could it happen here?”, June).

No parliament can bind its successor, which means that any constitutional legislation made by Westminster can be overturned by an autocrat. Backdoor legislation can be made via “Orders in Council” without going near parliament. Together with the House of Lords, these are feudal relics, long overdue for abolition. Institutions need constitutional protection beyond the term of a single parliament and from the whims of all politicians.

With Labour on the sidelines, only if the remaining progressive parties—the Lib Dems, Greens, SNP, Plaid Cymru, and even some Northern Ireland parties—form a non-compete alliance around a constitutional reform programme can there be any hope of preventing autocratic absolute rule reaching the United Kingdom. Interesting though the analysis is, Prospect should be leading the way with discussion of possible solutions. Although the US Constitution is not the best model, even that shows how a written constitution can constrain an autocrat.

My book Reinventing Democracy provides a possible starting point. It includes a first-draft written constitution for the UK developed from the constitutions of Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy and Switzerland, and offers a solution to the problems of English numerical dominance and the independence movements in the other nations of the UK.

David Kauders, Zug, Switzerland 

The June issue of Prospect had two really superb articles, Philip Collins on what a Farage regime might look like based on the idea that he is certainly not “a good chap” but rather a cackling menace, and then Henry Porter’s brilliant deconstruction of “Burlington Bertie” Farage’s faux countrywear (“Costume drama”, June). I would try the ghastly Mayfair clubs and restaurants he favours next.

You should also interview Carl Hiassen. His most recent books (Fever Beach for example) are terrifically funny satires about Maga Florida. What a pity we don’t have his British equivalent to let loose on Essex or Lincolnshire. You should also speak to the Illinois governor JB Pritzker, whose speech at a Democrat fundraiser in New Hampshire was an excoriating takedown of Team Trump. It is worth looking up.

Michael Burleigh, London

Iran’s turmoil

Donald Trump has demanded Iran’s “unconditional surrender” (“In the Middle East, Trump is getting what he wanted”, Prospect online, June). If Iran complies, will it soon also have to surrender its vast fossil fuel reserves to American and British corporate interests? Those corporations know there still is much to be accessed, or effectively appropriated, from Iran.

The 1979 Iranian Revolution’s expulsion of major western nations was in large part due to British and American companies exploiting Iran’s plentiful fossil fuel. The 2003 US and British invasion and then prolonged occupation of Iraq may also have been partly motivated by such insatiable corporate greed. 

There has been a predictable American-British proclivity for sanctioning Iran, its officials and even its allies since the Revolution, resulting in, among other negative impacts, reduced oil production revenue. It would be understandable if those corporate fossil-fuel interests would like Iran’s government to fall, thus (re)enabling their access to Iran’s resources.

Frank Sterle Jr, White Rock, BC, Canada    

After spending 25 years in prison under the Islamic Republic, I have witnessed a wave of executions without precedent, with more than 170 individuals executed in a single month. Yet what remains invisible to the public are the injustices that occur before the execution. As a cellmate to many prisoners taken to the gallows, I have observed a highly repetitive pattern. 

For those accused of political offences, agents from the Ministry of Intelligence or the Revolutionary Guards Intelligence Organisation construct the entire case. The whole process, from accusation to sentencing, is scripted and staged. A single document, the “summary report” or “case report sheet”, prepared by intelligence agents, becomes the basis for the indictment and, eventually, the verdict. Judges rarely review the case file in any meaningful way. Court hearings often last no more than 10 minutes. Defence attorneys are systematically denied access to case materials—a flagrant violation of Article 48 of Iran’s own Criminal Procedure Code. Verdicts are pre-written. The accused are deprived of due process and stripped of their most basic civil rights.

Forced confessions, particularly those aired on state television, are extracted in exchange for vague promises of clemency. Families are also threatened. These hidden procedures have become institutionalised over the years, and they create a precedent that threatens every future defendant.

This is why I am appealing to the international community and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. At what point does this systematic violence cross the threshold into a matter worthy of international intervention? How many more mass executions must occur before this issue is raised before the UN Security Council?

Saeed Masouri is a political prisoner incarcerated for his affiliation with the Iranian opposition group the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI). He is currently being held in Ghezel Hesar Prison

Magic numbers

If someone is determined to see a mathematical system in all of creativity (“Painting by numbers”, July) and nature then they will see one, but where is the consistency of evidence to prove such a theory? 

In his defence of Marcus du Sautoy’s theories, Daniel Rey states that the seeds in the head of a sunflower are “arranged in a spiral that matches the Fibonacci series”. Yes, and sunflowers have been the subject of some paintings, but so has every other living and inanimate thing that’s ever existed. What part of, say, the Mona Lisa matches the Fibonacci series? Thousands of landscape paintings feature trees, but trees are predominantly asymmetrical. 

Of course, it’s possible to credit the geometric shapes of an Anthony Caro steel sculpture, the monochrome square that is a Mark Rothko canvas, Carl Andre’s Equivalent VIII (120 bricks) installation or Richard Serra’s steel blocks to a mathematical system, but that’s because these works intentionally follow one.

Stefan Badham, Portsmouth

Noises off

Sheila Hancock (Lives, July), I couldn’t agree more. I walked out of a charity shop without buying anything this morning because the young woman behind the counter refused to turn down the appallingly loud rap music. She said she couldn’t. I asked why and was told it had to be that loud to be heard at the other end of the (small) shop! I had trouble hearing what she was saying, and there’s nothing wrong with my hearing.

Attending a performance of Hamilton in Manchester was almost completely ruined for me by the man in the next seat singing along and the young girl on the other side occasionally screaming, for reasons she was unable to explain to me.

Sandra Shearn, via the website