I am the grandfather of two Torontonian girls. Do I like Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs? I love it… as long as

Sir, as a father of two Torontonians, and grandfather of other two Torontonians, it is of course with much interest I read Leslie Hook’s “Toronto offers Alphabet downtown land to practice designs for cities of future” October 19.

I do love that "Quayside" project… subject to:

It shoots for the most intelligent artificial intelligence and the smartest robots, as I would hate my granddaughters to have to surround themselves with half-baked artificial intelligence and 2nd class robots.

It allows for some here-you-can-totally-lose-yourself free from artificial recognition space to my granddaughters, in order for them to be able to find themselves, and all is not Big-Brother-watches you space.

It provides some absolutely-nothing-spots that guarantee my granddaughters to be able to experience, quite often, that boredom so essential for creativity and thinking.

It does not leave in its wake a huge Torontonian debt to be serviced by the grandchildren of my granddaughters.

Alphabet splits, at least 50% 50%, with Toronto, all profits that could be generated by all patents resulting from inventions and experiences obtained during the Sidewalk Labs project.

PS. And of course as long as it duly considers the possibility or rising water levels.

@PerKurowski

If you cannot lose yourself, how on earth will you learn about finding yourself?

Sir, Janan Ganesh writing about needed freedom asks: “Where can you lose yourself, either in crowds or in isolation from them? Where can you meander for hours? Where do you have to watch your words and manners the least? Where lets you get to and from other places on a whim?” “Citizen of nowhere” Prize for freest city goes to . . .” October 14.

Yes, where? And if today you can, where will you go tomorrow when facial recognizers follow you around?

Frightening. I have always held that all young (and perhaps old too) need to be able to lose themselves in order to gain the insights that allow them to find themselves. And that discovery journey must of course not be carried out with the assistance of a GPS.

Modern technology, including of course social media, seems to dramatically be changing the way young (and old too) position themselves in life and society.

PS. Try the following experiment. When you are driving down a mountain and you have some young passengers in the car, mention that you are going south, and when you are driving up, mention that you are going north. You’ll be amazed how many young will think you are right, without giving the least consideration to the fact you are driving in the opposite direction

@PerKurowski

Private or informal?

Sir when looking to analyze “Private equity’s risks and rewards” July 7, it might be useful to always differentiate between what could happen when someone goes into private practice from what could be the results from hiding out, going informal. The freedom to be private must always be defended, just as the forces that drive the growth of the informal sector must always be opposed.

What is at risk is our freedom to do what needs to be done.

Sir, Vaclav Klaus in “What is at risk is not the climate but freedom” June 14, is both wrong and right. Wrong in the sense that the fact that people could be ordered by governments to build levees and do things do protect themselves and their children for the future has nothing to do with “replacing the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central planning” and sublimely right in that an abusive exploitation of our environmental emergencies by an often hypocritical green clergy could definitely infringe on our freedom to do what needs to be done.

The Venezuelan TV station’s closure is an infringement on your human rights too

Sir, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in its Article 19 states that “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to . . . seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. This makes it clear that the arbitrary closure of a TV station in Venezuela although it affects directly the Venezuelan peoples right to expression, it also impairs any other citizen of the world’s equal human right to access information. This is made especially clear by the fact that the most reasonable proxy for true information that the world knows, is the free and diversified creation of opinions.

In this respect I need to ask whether you could ever be satisfied with a rainforest with only eucalyptuses and red parrots. Of course not! Therefore we need your help to conserve the info-diversity in Venezuela. As the indigenous to this small planet earth that you all are, this is your problem too. You do not need Venezuela to join the list of countries with absence of information, such as North Korea.