There have been penalties for those who looked the other way when Epstein was convicted of child sex offences and decided to maintain relationships with the financier — but not for the British ambassador to Washington, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES
‘Capitalists tend to adopt technologies only as and when they suit their purposes’
LYNNE WALSH reports on the Future of Work event at the weekend, which saw a panel of expert speakers discuss automation, deskilling and the effects of Covid-19 on the workplace
PRONE TO MALFUNCTION: Prime Minister Boris Johnson plays with a robot during the UK-Africa Investment Summit in London earlier this year
Labour’s new Treasury unit will ‘challenge unnecessary regulation’ by forcing nominally independent bodies like Ofwat to bend to business demands — exactly what Iain Anderson’s corporate clients wanted, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
DR DYLAN MURPHY looks at a Big Brother Watch report which exposes the government as an enabler of DWP secret spying on benefit claimants
The EU faces a critical choice: will it remain in the shadow of an increasingly unreliable US ally, or will it forge its own path in a multilateral world where co-operation with China is essential, asks MARC VANDEPITTE as leaders meet for the EU-China Summit
A lot of discussion about how the left should currently organise – including debate on whether the Green Party is a useful vehicle for advance – runs the risk of refusing to engage with or learn from the reasons the left was defeated previously, argues KEVIN OVENDEN
For Egypt trade trumps the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians, but how long can the country’s ‘misleaders’ – and others in the region – continue their indifference against the popular will of their own people, asks ROGER McKENZIE
IN THE week which saw an international report warning that the pandemic would continue to drive down wages, a panel of expert speakers focused on the Future of Work.
Against a backdrop of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) data showing that the crisis was “likely to inflict massive downward pressure on wages in the near future,” the Communist Party of Britain brought together activists and academics to take a forensic look at the causes of low wages, precarious work and shoddy treatment of workers.
Launching the ILO report last week, director-general Guy Ryder said: “The growth in inequality created by the Covid-19 crisis threatens a legacy of poverty and social and economic instability that would be devastating.
“Our recovery strategy must be human-centred. We need adequate wage policies that take into account the sustainability of jobs and enterprises, and also address inequalities and the need to sustain demand.
“If we are going to build a better future we must also deal with some uncomfortable questions about why jobs with high social value, such as carers and teachers, are very often linked to low pay.”
A key focus at the online seminar was the “gig economy,” that spurious phrase aimed at hoodwinking workers into notions that they are more in control of their labour. In reality, it has meant insecurity, stress, ill-health and penury for many.
Dr Leonardo Impett, specialist in artificial intelligence (AI) and currently assistant professor of computer science at the University of Durham, brought a Marxist perspective to the way that tomorrow’s world of work is being steered.
Debunking some popular beliefs about the use of AI — and the ability of robots — Impett said that the media’s shorthand use of the term AI actually referred to “machine learning.”
This was how computers or robots learned from experience, either from hand-labelled examples given to them — supervised learning — or their own past mistakes — reinforcement learning.
“That second one is only of any use in cases where you know if you’ve won or lost, like if you’re playing a chess game or tennis, say.
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Caroline Darian, daughter of Gisele Pelicot, took part in a conversation with Afua Hirsch at London’s Royal Geographical Society. LYNNE WALSH reports
This year’s Bristol Radical History Festival focused on the persistent threats of racism, xenophobia and, of course, our radical collective resistance to it across Ireland and Britain, reports LYNNE WALSH
LYNNE WALSH previews the Bristol Radical History Conference this weekend
With most of recorded history dominated by the voices of men, LYNNE WALSH encourages sisters to read the memoirs of women – and to write their own too
