Robotics and Artificial Intelligence: The Future of Intelligent Machines

The message of Zootropolis 2 | In praise of Martin Kettle | Miles Kington’s dog | Defining the north

I beg to differ with Peter Bradshaw’s view that “no mainstream film is attacking Donald Trump’s administration head-on” (The Golden Globes ceremony ignored politics. But their big winner taps today’s unhappy turbulence, 12 December). We took our two granddaughters to see Zootropolis 2, in which a diverse pair of detectives (a fox and a rabbit) took on a narcissistic leader, demonstrating the importance and joy of all things DEI. Well done, Disney!
Peter Kettle
Gravesend, Kent

• I was saddened to read that Martin Kettle’s column this week will be his last (The world of today looks bad, but take hope: we’ve been here before and got through it – and we will again, 15 January). We shall miss his brilliant prose, shrewd political analysis and fierce intellect. With his departure, journalism will have lost a giant.
Malcolm Bower
Gunnislake, Cornwall

Anthropomorphising tech helps Silicon Valley shares to soar, but our empathy should be directed to worthier causes

Most readers of Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2021 novel Klara and the Sun will have been moved by the portrait of its eponymous AI narrator. As a solar-powered “artificial friend”, bought as a companion and potential substitute for a sick teenage girl, Klara fulfils her duties with a loving loyalty that makes it impossible to think of her as a mere piece of tech.

Brilliant, thought-provoking fiction. But back in the real world, anthropomorphising AI may not be such a clever idea. During the summer, Anthropic, a leading tech company, announced that in the interests of chatbot welfare, it was allowing its Claude Opus 4 model to avoid supposedly “distressing” conversations with users. More broadly, amid explosive growth in AI capacities, there is emerging speculation over whether future Klaras may even deserve to be accorded legal rights like human beings.