OPINION

Tak Bai injustice

Re: "iCon to face more charges", (BP, Oct 21) & "Expiry of Tak Bai charges 'linked to surge in unrest'", (BP, Oct 21).

The highly commendable arrest of 18 alleged miscreants on charges of "public fraud and putting false information into a computer system" and other matters relating to the iCon Group scandal has received much recent media attention.

However, the inability of the police to bring but one of the seven "former or high-ranking officials" accused of "murder, attempted murder, and illegal detention" for witness questioning and evidence examination in the Narathiwat Provincial Court before the statute of limitations expires on Oct 25 stands in stark contrast.

How convenient that financial crimes should garner so much media attention compared to the past crime of mass homicide at such a critical time in the latter case.

How unwise it would be should the "deep state" represented by the CIB not offer at least a nod toward soothing the sense of gross injustice and consequent resentment the victims' families and wider population of the deep South must feel towards Thailand as a state regarding the Tak Bai atrocity!

Smoke and mirrors

Re: "China's interface with AI development", (Opinion, Oct 21).

China is already using AI to monitor and control the lives of millions of its citizens, including in the Xinjiang autonomous region and in the 2024 Taiwanese election, in which the CCP's extensive use of AI is accused of spreading disinformation and swaying public opinion.

Professor Vitit Muntabhorn diplomatically describes China's proposed Global AI Governance Initiative as a cooperative, consensus-based, people-centred approach to AI development. But realistically, China's AI initiative is just a smoke-and-mirrors show designed to accommodate the abovementioned tactics.

At the root, artificial intelligence is inherently risk-laden, and its use is fundamentally ungovernable. The folly of registering algorithms and making them transparent to the public, as suggested by Professor Muntabhorn, is an example of the inherent danger of AI. But there are, in fact, many others which are clandestine in nature and remain effectively ungoverned. Does the good professor imagine the CCP will register their drone swarm algorithms or that the Pentagon will make their AI programs that control high-energy discharge low orbital satellites part of the public domain? Obviously not, and this is why a realistic, readable, common-sense analysis of the subject would be a useful contribution to public discourse.

Proud carnivores

Re: "Meat-eaters beware", (PostBag, Oct 19).

Khun Eric Bahrt again is having a cow by expressing his beef to us "scum" about our preference for morsels of meat. I won't roast you by inferring you are a ham for your insensitive remark that we should be deprived of medical care for enjoying the loin of the lamb and the pot pies of the porcine. You can gorge on greens; we will masticate meat.

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