How many public figures would hate to see AI removing their human bias?

Sir, I refer to “Pub­lic fig­ures back halt to AI that out­smarts most humans” by Cristina Criddle, FT October 23, 2025.

This year I asked AI: "Could you explain why artificial intelligence, e.g., you, that has been trained on human intelligence, then give answers the supposedly “intelligent” humans don’t give?"

ChatGPT’s answer included:

“Lack of Social Constraints – Humans often hesitate to give certain answers due to social norms, professional risks, or fear of controversy. I don't have those limitations (though I do follow ethical guidelines).

Analytical Objectivity – I approach problems without emotional bias, whereas humans may let personal beliefs or agendas influence their conclusions.

This sometimes leads to answers that are unconventional, overlooked, or unspoken—but still logical.”

Grok’s answer included: 

“When I answer, I’m not channeling some specific “intelligent human” or trying to guess what the average person might say. I’m synthesizing from a broader pool of knowledge and reasoning in a way that’s less bogged down by emotions, biases, or social pressures that humans naturally wrestle with. 

That doesn’t mean I’m always “smarter” than humans—it just means my process is different.”

Sir, after having their human bias removed from their opinions by artificial intelligence, it’s clear that many will resent having to stand there naked, evidenced wrong. Many will vociferously call for the urgent need of one way or another censoring AI. 

How many of these public figures do you and Cristina Criddle believe could belong to this group?

@PerKurowski

The 2008 crisis had little or nothing to do with a tax bias in favour of debt finance

Sir, Martin Wolf discussing a system where for tax purposes “no deduction would be allowed for financial costs” writes “there would no longer be today’s bias in favour of debt finance, which creates significant risks to economic stability, as the financial crisis demonstrated.”“The world needs to change the way it taxes companies”

One could sure argue there should not be a bias in favour of debt finance, and that it has had an important role in creating excessive corporate debt, but to argue that it caused the financial crisis is clearly wrong.

Does Mr Wolf really think that all those in the subprime sector who bought houses on credit, and whose mortgages got packaged into ex ante AAA rated securities, which ex post turned out not to be AAA securities, and which set off the 2008 crisis, did so because of tax considerations?

And does Mr Wolf think that the reason banks held so little capital against these securities was that the dividends they were to pay were not tax deductible? Was it not that the US investment banks and the European banks were allowed to hold these AAA rated securities against only 1.6% capital?

@PerKurowski

Greece’s “NO!”, to be useful, must foremost be a “NO!” to the Basel Committee’s pro-government biased bank regulations.

Sir, Nick Malkoutzis writes: “Greeks…need to hear something more hopeful than talk of more spending cuts and tax rises.” “Greeks deserve more than threats of further hardship” July 6.

Spending cuts and tax rises can indeed strengthen the finances of a government, but, if it does not go hand in hand with the strengthening of its private sector economy, which is what supplies its sustainability, it all becomes a exercise in futility.

How did Greece get into the hole? By European bank regulators telling the banks they were required to hold much less capital when lending to the Greek government than when lending to the Greek private sector… and so the banks duly responded and, in relative terms, lent much too much to the Greek government and too little to the Greek SMEs and entrepreneurs.

And so now Greece must wake up to the fact that, no matter what dumb self-serving Euro/Basel technocrats believe, the private sector makes better use of bank credit than government bureaucrats. And so the “NO!”, if it is going to be useful, must foremost be a “NO!” to the Basel Committee’s pro-government biased bank regulations.

And if the ECB really wants to help, they should device a plan to recapitalize Greek banks… after all one of its super-technocrats, is Mario Draghi who, as former chair of the Financial Stability Board, is co-responsible for the mess Greek and other banks are in, after lending so much to governments against so little capital (equity).

@PerKurowski